Letter from Hugh to the owners of the cottage in wales (New Year trip)
6 January 1998
Dear Sir/Madam,
I rented, on behalf of a group of friends, one of your properties in North Wales recently. The details are:
� property name: Pentre Bach, Llandyrnog
� property number: 3485
� booking reference: 0000208021
� dates of residence: Sat 27 December 1997 to Sat 3 January 1998There were many aspects of the property itself which ruined the holiday for us. I am writing this letter to you:
� to detail the problems,
� to urge you to re-inspect the property before continuing to offer it for rental, and
� to ask for financial compensation for the ruined holiday.
The problems we experienced included:
� When the lavatory in one of the first-floor bedrooms was flushed, lavatory water contaminated with urine poured through the ceiling of the sitting-room below. This was because the waste pipe from the lavatory broke - something which the owner must have known might be going to happen because in the past an empty margarine tub had been placed under the pipe's junction to collect drips/leaks.
Quite apart from the distress caused by the contaminated water, we could not use the lavatory again.
� When the plug was pulled in the bath of one of the second-floor bedrooms, the waste water poured through the ceiling of the first-floor bedroom below. Fortunately no-one and no furniture was directly below this waste water or it would have been ruined. We could not evacuate the rest of the water in that bath and could not use that bath again.
The owner did not reappear before we vacated the house, so we could not report the problem directly to him.
� When we used the dishwasher for the first time, waste dishwasher water flooded the kitchen floor. We reported this to the owner that morning and we presume that he examined it when we were out later that day. He left us a note in which he concluded that the waste pipes were not blocked and that the flooding was probably our fault because we may have been running the dishwasher at the same time as the washing-machine or sink. To the best of our remembrance we were not running any of these simultaneously.
We tried the washing machine (on its own) the next day - again waste water flooded the kitchen. We then examined the plumbing ourselves and discovered a blockage in the waste pipes. We cleared the blockage ourselves and the waste flowed correctly.
We had to mop up the kitchen floor twice ourselves and the kitchen carpet was wet for many days. Also, whilst examining the plumbing we were shocked to see the state of the plumbing and wiring: one waste pipe junction appeared to be connected back-to-front and the electricity plug was just dangling dangerously from a rusty nail - if this had fallen into the flood water there could have been a nasty electrical accident.
� At two points on the ground floor in the front of the house - the front door and the sitting-room window - external rain-water leaked into the house. Although the weather was very windy and rainy that week, rain in winter in North Wales is not unexpected and we kind of assumed the property was going to be water-proof.
� During the first two days we spent in the house we had problems with the central heating: the pilot light kept going out. This meant that the house was uncomfortably cold in the wet and windy weather.
We reported this problem to the owner as soon as we could and he did fix it.
� Soon after we arrived it became apparent that the heating in the second-floor bedrooms was not working properly. In the absence of the owner we had to examine this problem ourselves - it turned out that the radiators needed bleeding. We had to fix this problem ourselves but we would have expected the owner to have done this beforehand.
Thus in summary there were a number of problems with the property. Most were to do with plumbing. Every bedroom in the house was affected in some way; in fact the only rooms not to be affected were the dining room and one bathroom.
I urge you to re-examine the property as soon as possible, to ensure that the above problems don't exist any more and to ensure that there aren't any other problems waiting to ruin holidays for your future guests.
Given that our time in Llandyrnog was ruined by these problems, I believe that most of the �619 we paid you was money wasted. Please let me know as soon as possible how you propose to compensate us financially for the experience.
Hugh Everett
This was their first reply
From: Welcome Cottage Holidays
Dated: 22 January 1998
Received: 23 January 1998
Dear Mr Everett
Re: Booking Reference 208021 Property 3485
Thank you for your letter of the 6th January, when we were extremely sorry to hear of the problems and difficulties you experienced whilst on the above holiday.
Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused and be assured that the matter is being fully investigated. We will of course contact you again within the next 28 days to report our findings.
In the meantime please be assured of our very best attention at all times.
Yours sincerely
(signed)
Gillian Downs
Customer Care Department
WELCOME COTTAGE HOLIDAYS
And this was followed by their second reply
20th February 1998
Dear Mr Everett
Regarding your letter sent to us on the 6th January 1998, concerning your stay at property number 34856 from Saturday 27th December 1997 to Saturday 3rd January 1998.
We have completed our investigations into your complaint and can advise you that we are satisfied with our findings, and that the problems outlined in your letter were actually caused by yourselves. The only problem we found to be the owner's fault was the pilot light.
We also contacted previous customers, and also the caretaker and owner who's information helped in our investigations.
May I also state the owner was very upset at the condition he found his property in on your departure. Therefore, we are unable to offer any form of compensation for this holiday.
Yours sincerely
(signed) M Haynes
Margaret Haynes
Customer Care Department
WELCOME COTTAGE HOLIDAYS
Hugh's reply to these letters
Hugh Everett
4 Dunchurch Road
Sale
CHESHIRE
M33 5FD
21 February 1998
Dear Ms Haynes,
With reference to your letter dated 20 February responding to our complaints about our stay in Pentre Bach (Llandyrnog), property number 3485, booking reference 0000208021.
We are very disappointed with your negative and un-detailed response. In particular we disagree strongly with your comment that "the problems outlined in your letter were actually caused by yourselves". We supplied a lot of detail in our letter and we don't think you have addressed any of them properly.
Let me explain why, with reference to the numbered points of our original letter:
Waste pipe in first-floor bedroom lavatory.
As stated in our original letter, the owner must have known that there was a
problem with the waste pipe because in the past an empty margarine tub had been placed
under the pipe's junction to collect drips/leaks. What were your inspector's findings and
what are your comments on this ?
Leak from bath in second-floor bedroom.
No member of our party used this bath until the morning of our departure. Please
explain how one use of this bath could have resulted in the huge leak we experienced -
unless there was already a problem.
Leak from dishwasher in kitchen.
As detailed in our original letter, this leak occurred the first time we used the
dishwasher. We believe that we did not at that point run the dishwasher at the same time
as the washing-machine or the sink, as suggested by the owner.
The next time we ran an appliance - the washing-machine on its own - was after the owner had declared the pipes to be not blocked. Yet it still leaked, and our own investigations then found a blockage which we had to clear ourselves.
If we did cause the blockage, please explain how one use of a washing-machine can cause the blockage of a waste-pipe - unless that waste-pipe is badly fitted.
Please also address our specific comments regarding the state of the plumbing and wiring of the washing-machine and dishwasher - did your inspections find that all was satisfactory there ?
External rain-water leaking into the house.
We cannot understand your letter's comments at all: please explain how it was our
fault that rain-water leaked into the house.
Central heating pilot light.
Thank you for ackowledging that we could not have caused this problem.
Bleeding of radiator in second-floor bedroom.
We cannot understand your letter's comments at all: please explain how it was our
fault that the radiator needed bleeding.
Thus in summary we do not believe that you have addressed any of our points in any detail. In light of this we are still firmly of the opinion that Welcoms Cottage Holidays were responsible for a ruined holiday.
Please let us know as soon as possible how you propose to compensate us financially for the experience.
Yours sincerely,
(signed) Hugh Everett
Hugh Everett
After a protracted telephone conversation on Thurs 26th Feb Hugh send this letter
Hugh Everett
4 Dunchurch Road
Sale
CHESHIRE
M33 5FD
2 March 1998
Dear Ms Haynes,
I write with reference to our conversation on Thursday the 26th of February about our complaints following our stay in Pentre Bach (Llandyrnog), property number 3485, booking reference 0000208021.
We are glad to here that the property is no longer being offered for rent, because we still firmly believe that it was not in a rent-able condition before we got there and in some respects was positively dangerous.
We are, however, sorry that the owner had to withdraw the property from rental himself, rather than you as the responsible agency inspecting it and asking him to take it off the market.
We were very upset to hear that the owner was blaming us for causing some of the problems I detailed in my previous letters and that some additional allegations had been made against us. We would like to state for the record our refutations of those allegations:
We categorically deny having caused any sort of damage as the result of any sort of party.
We categorically deny that we ever had more than 10 people in the house at any time (and one of the 10 was a three-month old baby).
All the 9 adults always slept in one of the beds provided. No-one at any time slept on the floor in sleeping-bags or any other sort of temporary sleeping cover.
We categorically deny having caused any avoidable fire damage. Only two of the group smoked and they were considerate enough of the rest of the group not to smoke indoors.
We resent all implications that we were at any time not in control of ourselves; we are all responsible adults (all over 30 years old !) and would not countenance being the cause of damage to a property we were renting.
We believe that some of the above allegations may have been as a result of the owner finding a copy of the information pack which I sent to the group of friends and misconstruing the information.
In that pack I named 16 adults who had originally expressed an interest in joining us - not all of whom were expected to join us because we knew the limitations of numbers in the house. As it turned out only 9 adults could join us.
This could be where the allegation of 16 or 18 people in the house came from.
In that pack I suggested that one or two people might need to bring sleeping-bags or similar. This was to avoid the embarrassment of two people who weren't partners having to share a double bed. As it turned out no-one brought a sleeping-bag and so no-one ever used one.
This could be where the allegation of people sleeping on the floor came from.
Regarding the allegation about fire damage: we lit the fire in the sitting-room hearth on most evenings; sparks from this fire could have landed on the carpet in the sitting-room.
However our recollection is that the sitting-room carpet had already been marked by a few sparks before we got there. Also, given that the fire was a main feature of the property, some spark-damage to the carpet is inevitable. This is why we deny having caused any avoidable fire damage.
Thus in summary we still firmly believe that Welcome Cottage Holidays and the state of the house before our arrival were responsible for a ruined holiday.
We are discussing our options and deciding whether to take any further action.
Yours sincerely
(signed)
Hugh Everett