I am sorry to hear that you had such a bad holiday.
However, if you are thinking of pursuing a claim for a refund rather than just informing our members about the accommodation you rented and why it fell so far short of your expectations, I think you should perhaps give us a bit more information.
First of all, was this accommodation provided by a private individual? If so, how did you come to hear about it?
If it was provided by an organisation such as Clévacances or Gites de France, AFTER you tried to raise matters with the owner, you should contact them.
If the accommodation was publicised by the local tourist office in Tremolat or by any of the tourist organisations of the Dordogne department, such as the ADT or CRT (Association Departementale de Tourisme and Comité Régional de Tourisme respectively) you should take up the situation with them.
It is only reasonable to expect cleaning between rentals; and I presume that somewhere in your contract you would either have had to agree to do so, or a sum of money would have been taken as s supplement to cover this. And this would have also been on the contract of the person who hired it before you.
We knew that the decor and furniture was not from IKEA, however, the owners insult paying guest's intelligence by providing broken, dirty and tatty furniture.
There aren't that many IKEAs or their equivalent in France, so don't be surprised that owners do not visit a 'one stop shop' to furnish holiday accommodation. Holiday accommodation should be fit for its purpose, but is unlikely to be furnished to the taste and quality of individuals who live there 24 hours a day 365 days a year! It is not unusual for holiday lets to be furnished with unmatched items, and sometimes rather too sparsely for the taste of people of different cultures who rent them.
Filth is everywhere! Its nigh on disgusting on how some people live their lives;
Quite so. But this may not be the fault of the proprietors, because you don't know who was in the property before you ...
even worse when they expect paying guests to do the same. We arrived to find the rubbish was still in the kitchen from the last unlucky occupants; stinking the room to high heaven. Muck on the floors & thick dust over everywhere & we noticed rubbish under the chairs (we never moved it, so it's likely to be still there! ). A bottle of red wine lay on the table to greet us, regrettably the plastic wine glasses were ingrained in filth - we declined.
I would have taken this up with the proprietor when you arrived and asked for it to be cleaned before you moved in. As for the wine, would it have been too much trouble to wash the glasses yourself if you had been unsatisfied with their cleanliness? Perhaps you are feeling over-sensitive to what was meant as a kind gesture.
As for the pool - what a joke! It looked like a builder's yard, with rubbish, chairs etc. strewn around the pool area. The swimming pool cover remained in place for all our stay, however, did not really concern us, as we had absolutely no intention in swimming in a pool with filth, stones, flotsam etc.
It's good to here that the pool was covered - and hopefully enclosed as French law requires for health and safety purposes. Did you check what the state of the water was like? If it had been as bad as you said, the local town hall would have been happy to send a specialist to check on the quality of the water.
As for privacy - Well there isn't any! They forgot to tell their "paying guests" that their (actively used) back door is approx 4 feet from the guest's back door and as such privacy is a joke.
If this is rented accommodation adjoining the family home, which is very common in French letting, your comment suggests that you had not read the description of the property you were renting or looked very closely at the illustrations provided (if any). You had a separate entrance. That's legally all you are required to have. And of course the family would have access to their house all the time you were there. Had you wanted more 'privacy' you might have been better advised to choose a property physically separated from that of the owners. It's quite normal for a family to use a back door, and there are some parts of France, as in England, where the front door is only used for special occasions.
As for the showers - downstairs filthy cracked tiles, filthy floors, filthy everything. The shower is just about hanging onto the wall! The shower upstairs was nothing short of a joke. The DIY disaster resulted in people unable to get into the shower and if you drop the soap - it's impossible to retrieve.
OK - fair comment based on your experience.
Of greatest concern is the quality of the house electrics. Amateur DIY electrics have left wires hanging about & make this dump a potential death trap for guests.
Now this is a real problem, and sadly not only confined to holiday accommodation ... not only in France, but as I live in France I know that wiring is often not up to the UK norms which are normally excellent. This is worth pointing out to the organisation offering this accommodation, or even to the Union des Consommateurs (the French equivalent of 'Which') who must have a branch somewhere in the area. However I think you'd need to back this up with photographic evidence. You might also send a copy of your complaint and evidence to the local tourist board, or either of the Departmental (County) organisations I mentioned above.
We enjoyed the dump so much we left a day early and after reviewing our stay, wished we had left much sooner.
If you are thinking of booking this dump - don't!
If you have paid a deposit - get it back if you can!
Vindictive I'm not, however, this standard of accommodation falls well below civilized standards and as such, my honest suggestion is to stay somewhere else.
If you found so much wrong with your stay, why didn't you either tackle the owner about your concerns or leave earlier? Leaving one day early doesn't hold much water in making a case for a curtailed stay.
I would suggest that whilst you are not normally vindictive, there are elements of your post that beg the question, because I am sure that this matter could have been resolved in part during your stay. However you haven't told us what you did or didn't do as regards this, so I will not speculate further. Had language been a problem, I am sure that you could have found an English speaker able to help or sought help from the Tourist Office where they could have found someone to speak on your behalf. The Dordogne has a large English-speaking population, and you would have found sympathy and support locally had you thought along those lines.
Your definition of 'civilised standards' does raise the question of what you were expecting. It is possible that the accommodation was too successfully 'window dressed', and that you were let down. It's very easy to say with hindsight, but do check any accommodation offered thoroughly, if it was offered by an organisation. Obviously it's harder to do so with privately-offered accommodation, and it is a risk. Perhaps if one cannot afford to take that risk or if a guaranteed standard of accommodation is required, it might be better to stay in a hotel or accommodation provided by a known agency.
That said, I'm sorry that you had such an unfulfilling holiday, and hope that you will chalk this down to experience and put it behind you soon. Thank you for telling us about your experiences, and we can all learn from them? Are you planning to seek any form of redress for this holiday?
