Portland Avenue, Dovercourt CO12 3QN
November 2022
Reading through some of my recent blog entries, you may begin to detect a theme: large, corporate hospitality is often of reasonable value and quality in the UK, whereas the old-fashioned, traditional standalone BnB or accommodation business, run perhaps by one individual, is in a sorry state - not necessarily because owners are deliberately trying to rip off travellers, but perhaps also due to a lack of knowledge of how to run a hospitality business.
We often travel to Harwich, and have stayed at Plum Tree Cottage on three occasions in the last three years. Sadly, our experiences have been less good on each return visit.
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This one was in late November, and it may be that those renting out holiday properties don’t expect to let them out much at that time of year, but we had expected the property to be prepared for us. We were told we could check in from 4pm, so, in driving rain and near darkness we approached a few minutes after that time on the appointed Monday evening. The front door was approached along a narrow path, which, at the time of our visit, was difficult to walk along due to the untidy, indeed overgrown state of the surrounding garden. The grass and weeds in the lawn were at least five inches high, and a sedum had grown over the whole width of the path.
We had been given the code for the key safe; unfortunately, to use it required enough light to see the numbers. It was a good job my mobile phone was working to provide the necessary illumination while I moved the dials; the whole process was accompanied by a drumming sound, of water dripping out of a gutter onto the lid of the recycling boxes on the other side of the path.
Once I had the key we entered the property, expecting it to be warm and welcoming. We deposited our suitcase and rucksack in the hall and realised it was neither; cold and dark would be better adjectives. I found a lightswitch so we could at least see a few things around us, before hunting around for an information pack. I could only find a neat handwritten note on the dining room table from the owners saying they hadn’t provided an information pack ‘because of Covid’. They either weren’t aware of the discovery back in early 2021 (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4) that Covid isn’t spread through contact, or, I thought, ’perhaps it's just another excuse to provide a poor service’.
The note explained that the heating would come on at four thirty. ‘A bit late for a horrible winter evening’, I grumbled, before reading further to find ‘you can override it by pressing the override button’. I went to find the controller, through a rather strange pair of narrow, glazed doors to the lounge, pressed the override button, and, expecting to hear the boiler fire up or something,… nothing happened. I looked at the controller more closely: the LCD screen was blank. I walked away, back to the dining room to check the note once more.
Memories of Shanklin, December 2021, sprung to my mind. ‘Surely another property owner hasn’t made the mistake of just assuming their heating worked? Surely they’d tested it recently?’, I wondered. I went back into the lounge and looked around. The boiler was, in fact, a back boiler, behind a gas fire. I checked the gas fire: that seemed to work. ‘We have heat’, I told Viv, ‘even if not everywhere’. I looked again at the controller. It must have dated from the 1980s, it was rather like one I’d had in a property I bought nearly thirty-five years ago. There were no lights on it, just the blank LCD screen.
The blankness of the screen puzzled me. It should have shown the time, and, perhaps, a flag to say whether the heating or hot water were supposedly on. I looked around more. There were sockets on the skirting board, and an unlabelled isolator switch, in the ‘off’ position. I pondered for a moment. ‘What did that isolator control? Was there anything there other than the heating controller? Had someone switched off the heating controller at the isolator, to save a tiny number of watt-hours and perhaps less than ten pence over a couple of months, and not remembered to switch it back on?’ I flicked the switch, and, hey presto, numerals appeared on the LCD. They should have shown the current time, but didn’t, so I set the time, pressed the override switches, and the sound of something firing up behind the gas fire triggered a smile. ‘We might be in business’, I called to Viv.
I couldn’t find a room thermostat, so I opted to just leave the controller and boiler running, then wait and see what happened. I had spent almost half an hour fiddling around trying to get the heating going; it felt that the property owner, and Hoseasons (through whom we had rented it), had no thought as to the value of my time; it was as if they couldn’t be bothered to check things properly themselves before a rental, they just left it to the customer.
If you rent a car for a few days you expect it to be checked over before you take it over. Shouldn’t that apply to a holiday home too?
***
Heating hopefully working, we looked around a bit more. We checked the lights in every room - kitchen, lounge, dining room and hall downstairs, and bathroom, two bedrooms (although we would only use the master), landing and an office upstairs; most light bulbs were the old fashioned either halogen or fluorescent type, the latter giving poor illumination and taking ages to warm up. (Having just one of these in the centre of the kitchen ceiling seemed crazy, it was a good job there was an illuminated cooker hood there as well.) The cost of the lighting was not really my concern, but I thought that there was a good chance the electricity bill just for our stay would be more than the cost of a few LED bulbs.
Once the lighting was working we could see the rooms better, and there was plenty so see - that is, if you like cobwebs and dead spiders. One of the latter in the corner of the dining room, and cobwebs on most of the light fittings. I couldn’t believe that the owners, or their cleaners, had decided not to provide tourism and property information in printed form through hygiene concerns, yet hadn’t used a feather duster above shoulder level, clearly for some time. (We had had concerns over cleaning when we visited previously, in 2019 and 2020, but it was never as bad as this.)
Apart from the bathroom and kitchen, the building was floored throughout with laminate flooring, presumably over aged floorboards. This latter observation I drew from the fact that, in one or two places, there was a noticeable movement in the flooring when I stood on it, probably due to very uneven floorboards.
***
We popped out to the nearby Asda supermarket and stocked up on essentials and something for supper. It wasn’t far, we were back by five thirty and I started in the kitchen.
The microwave didn’t work; tracking the cable, it became this was due to the socket switch being off. Another sign, perhaps, of obsessive energy saving, and also of no pre-letting checks. I also noticed an oven glove on top of the microwave, possibly blocking the vents. I moved it, for a kitchen problem was the last thing I wanted.
I then felt the cold again. Viv pointed out an electric heater in the lounge; I moved it into the kitchen, plugged it in and switched it on. ‘I’ll try to remember to switch it off’, I thought, ‘but it's bound to be costing more to run than that radiator (next to it) would, if it was working’.
***
The heating was now starting to come on. I went from room to room checking the radiators; most were working well, but the one in the kitchen - not a warm room anyway, being in a wing at the rear of the building - was stone cold, and that in the bathroom - above the kitchen - was warm only half way up. ‘Probably needs bleeding’, I thought, ‘but I’m not going to tinker with it. I wonder when the heating was last serviced, whether there is a report on it and whether they have a landlord’s gas certificate?’. These latter documents are one of the things I’d expect to see in an information pack (Visit England used to insist on them for a property to be accredited), but Covid seems to have been an excuse to toss all other aspects of customer safety to the wind.
***
The cooker - an electric ceramic hob type - was surprisingly easy to use, and we enjoyed our meal, before, of course, needing to clear up. I had shut the sliding kitchen door between the kitchen and dining room to keep the latter warm; a mistake, I realised, because the door was a bit ropey and had a tendency to come off its runners. I managed to refix it, an exercise I would repeat several times in our week-long stay, before heading for the sink to attend to the dishes. This gave rise to another problem: detergent was provided, but the only device available to wash up was a very worn sponge, the scourer side looking like it had had plenty of work experience before our visit. I would always expect a new scourer to be provided for this sort of thing, for hygiene reasons if nothing else, so added ‘washing up brush’ and ‘scourers’ to our shopping list for the next day so we might at least be able to ensure the pans would be as clean on our departure as on our arrival. Again, it was strange that they had worried about covid to the point of not providing information, yet left a grotty sponge that might have been used for heaven knows what for us to wash up with.
After clearing up we went through to the lounge, with the idea of watching a bit of television. I turned it on, and on the remote, and the screen came up …. ‘No signal’. ‘Another thing they didn’t check’, I said to Viv. It looked as if the set had been moved a little recently, so I checked the aerial, and sure enough, the lead wasn’t properly connected. I also traced it to the wall socket, where, again, it was hanging somewhat loose. I made the necessary adjustments and we enjoyed a few minutes of ‘Heartbeat’ before I found one of the DVDs we’d taken with us, and we watched that - for regular television has, we often feel, reached saturation point with its ideas.
***
Later we found the bedroom to be, well, adequate. The bed was generally comfortable, perhaps due to a mattress topper that, I believe, was not there when we last visited the property, just over two years earlier. However, there was a strange combination of mattress protectors that didn’t quite fit the combined mattress and topper, coming adrift in the night and giving a somewhat less than ideal night’s rest. The bedroom itself was poorly ventilated, the secondary glazing preventing any air circulation; I opened it and a fanlight to give us a little fresh air, but, even so, the window was awash with condensation in the morning.
Storage was rather limited, I opted to keep my clothes in the open suitcase in the adjacent office, and a strange feature of the bedroom - and, I realised, other rooms - was that there were some, what were to me, quite collectible antique items of furniture in them, seemingly being stored, some perhaps prior to restoration work; also, the desk in the office room contained all manner of things, and some drawers were locked. This was certainly different to what had been there previously. I can understand the owner’s desire to use their spare property to store furniture - especially if they are in the trade - but I would have preferred the space to have been used for items we could have used - a proper wardrobe in the bedroom, perhaps (rather than just open hooks). Some of the units contained vases or china, I am not sure what the position would have been if any of this had been accidentally damaged.
***
Our morning routine being to have a cup of tea before we shower, on rising I went downstairs, turned on the electric heater in the kitchen, and got the kettle going. I then found the teapot; inside it looked as if it had been used to boil up tar.
Fortunately we had a little bicarb of soda with us, which, with a little boiling water and a couple of minutes wearing out the already knackered scourer sponge, soon had the teapot rather more visitor friendly. ‘Another item they should have on their checklist’, I thought.
We then went upstairs for a shower. The heating had been on for a good hour, and the limited warming effect from the radiator made the bathroom just about bearable, but the shower itself - an over-bath type, driven by an non-thermostatic mixer tap - was feeble at best, producing a trickle of water under which we had to move to get ourselves clean. It didn’t help that the shower head had clearly been damaged, maybe banged against the wall, for streams of water were coming out of the side of it, wholly in the wrong direction. The temperature was just about acceptable, and it was, with care, possible to adjust it to suit our preferences.
We did use a suction-cup grab handle by the shower that we often take away with us; really, there should have been a grab handle for people to use to get in and out of the shower.
After showering the bathroom window was a fog of condensation. I opened the vent, but it was easy to see how the mould that was all too apparent around the wooden frame of the window had developed - although a bit of cleaning, with a strong bleach solution, would have done wonders.
***
In the morning we went out to explore Harwich in the full light of day. It also gave us the opportunity to see Plum Tree Cottage properly from the street. It's not unfair to say that it was the untidiest property in the terrace; the garden unkempt, the paint on the wooden window frames was peeling in many places, the frames themselves were clearly in need of some attention, and the main gutter dipping, causing the drumming noise we had heard the night before.
I moved the recycling bins to save ourselves, and the neighbours, from further disturbance from that overflowing gutter. Having secateurs with me, I also tackled the sedum, and removed a couple of lengths of honeysuckle, just to make access in and out of the property easier.
***
We did actually enjoy our week in Tendring in November; Dovercourt was a good base for travelling around, we went to Colchester (mostly worth avoiding, apparently it’s the unhappiest place in England and we could easily see why), and Felixstowe (much more recommended) as well as spending time sort out some of my family affairs in and around Harwich. Dovercourt itself is like many old seaside towns, it's not what it was in the days before package holidays (it was a spa resort back in the early 19th century), but some elements of it have picked up in recent years, since Park Holidays took over and have invested significantly in the caravan site on the outskirts of the town. Indeed, those holiday caravans are probably Plum Tree Cottage’s many competitors; we stayed in one in May, and were impressed, and would happily stay there again.
***
Before our departure, Viv and I sat down and contemplated a few points about the property. ‘Why was there so much condensation?’, I pondered. Thinking about it, ventilation was a huge problem. The windows in most rooms were fitted with secondary glazing, sealing them tight. I’d opened the bedroom windows most mornings and the condensation cleared quickly; to me, it seemed that the secondary glazing was a huge mistake, preventing air circulation and allowing build up of condensation - and mould - between the two layers of glazing. Replacement of the windows with UPVC glazing, with trickle vents, might help, but the property being the age it is, and probably not cavity walled, this might cause condensation on the walls, if ventilation is not good.
There also wasn’t an obvious airbrick in the lounge, where there was the - rather old - gas fire and back boiler. Ventilation in any room containing a gas fire has been a legal requirement for many years, that there wasn’t anything obvious (although there was a CO alarm) in the lounge, and no landlord certificate, gave me cause for concern.
There were also no extractor fans in either the bathroom or kitchen; however, each had a source of ventilation - the bathroom a (rather aged) clear circular vent in the window, and the kitchen, a healthy draught around the door. No gas devices being in the kitchen, an airbrick would be of less importance there.
I also wondered about the internal glazing throughout the property, more or less floor-to-ceiling down the stairs, and in the doors to the lounge, and the inner front door. ‘It looks as though it was done in, maybe, the 1970s’, I commented. ‘The glass has no signs of a kitemark or other identification to confirm it is safety glass’. I’ve worked in glazing, I recall the building regs, and non-safety glass of this size is a no-no in any property nowadays. It would probably be illegal to let it on a long term tenancy, and would be flagged up in even the most basic house buyer survey. I felt somewhat less than reassured that the owners were supposedly taking steps to protect their guests from the rather minor infection of Covid and they hadn’t even - as far as I could tell - applied safety film to this glass to reduce the risk of bleeding to death after a slip on the - rather steep - stairs.
There were few clocks: in fact, the only one was in the kitchen, and it didn’t show the right time - it was about 35 minutes fast.
Viv had another observation: a lack of bins. There was one in the small, office-type room on the first floor, but that was an open mesh type - not much good for small objects. There were none in either bedroom, the lounge, or the dining room. Admittedly, the more stuff there is in a room the less space there seems to be, but bins are almost an essential.
Finally, I commented that not only was there no visitor book (there had been one on our first visit, on our second it had been removed ‘because of Covid’; presumably this still applied on this visit), there was also no book, or other means of recording, issues such as the non-working radiator in the kitchen. Having an ‘issue book’, showing problems have been attended to, is one way of showing to guests that you care about them; not having one, nor a visitor book, rather says the opposite.
***
It would not take much to bring Plum Tree Cottage up to at least a reasonable standard - a bit of effort with a duster, and in the garden, and perhaps removal of the secondary glazing, a bit of decorating and most importantly a decent checklist for the cleaners when preparing it for a let. It’s sad that hosts don’t know about these sorts of things, and I blame the so-called progress of the internet. Unfortunately this is all too typical of some small hotels, BnBs and holiday cottages these days.
Pre-internet, accommodation businesses used to compete with one another to gain quality awards - three stars from the RAC perhaps, or four from Visit England. These would be proudly displayed on signs outside their property, and on all advertising material. The Visit England assessment process will help and guide the less experienced host into providing more what customers will be looking for; there’s no need to go chasing after gold awards or anything, they should just provide the basics, well.
The modern equivalent of this is the online review, which, undertaken often by people who know little about the accommodation business, is next to useless; they’re very censored (to discourage critical comparisons of businesses) and, of course, five-star reviews can easily be bought on the internet; I found one site offering ten for $99. In essence, online reviews are worthless for the buyer of any product or service; ideal for the owners of flats let out on AirBnB perhaps. It's a bit like remembering who an estate agent works for when you’re buying a house: you must realise that the reviewer of a hospitality business often works for the business, promoting their services to you. Also, critical reviews are often blocked; I’ve had several refused by Trip Advisor especially, usually on seemingly spurious grounds of ‘not meeting their standards’.
This has led to a situation where real quality assessment of an accommodation business is quite a rarity, and business owners don’t really understand what their guests want. An element of the paying public must be content to pay for poor quality, but it is surely in everyone’s interest that simple standards - of cleanliness, comfort, and health and safety - are maintained.
Demand for holiday accommodation may have been high in recent years, but there’s a recession on its way, mortgage rates are on the up, and people will have to be more careful about what they spend. Businesses that don’t meet expectations will be the first ones to suffer.
There are a few businesses we’ve visited in the last couple of years that need to think about this.
