“On our arrival, opening the front door we were met with a damp, musty smell.”
The whole place felt damp and cold but we realise that due to Lockdown it had been empty for a long time and would probably take time to get back to normal. The en-suite bedroom was probably the dampest due to the fact that there were no windows in the shower-room, just an Expelair. The vertical blinds had black mould up to about 6 to 8 inches and the windows, when we pulled the blinds back, were also black. The first night we woke up in the early hours to that awful damp smell! Over the week we left the Expelair on for extra time after showering and we left the windows open in the bedroom whenever we were in and on the catch when we were out. It might be an idea to provide a window cleaner blade and ask occupants to wipe the shower down after use. We had one in the car, which we brought in and used daily. It all helped because by the time we departed we had just about got rid of the damp smell in that bedroom.
In the twin room the beds felt damp and the boys said they were also not very comfortable. They then found numerous chrysalis' at the top of the walls where they meet the ceiling. After looking around the rest of the property we found loads more downstairs in the bedrooms and hallway. We managed to knock down all that we found and disposed of them. However we also began to see small brown moths flying around the rooms and wardrobes - we suspect they were clothes moths! We went to the Lakeland store and ended up buying moth repellents.
The other negative thing we felt should have been addressed was the lack of cleanliness. The carpets, particularly on the stairs, looked as though they hadn't been properly hoovered and they could really do with some good stain-removal attention. One evening, when we were searching for a lost pen, we found old sweet papers and all sorts of fluff and dirt down the settee. We did clean up with the Henry hoover but when it first came out of the cupboard the brush head was so covered in hair and carpet fluff etc. that we had to pull all that off and give it a thoroughly good clean before we could use it as a hoover.
As per a previous persons comment, the boiler is very noisy and is above the twin room, so again the boys got the brunt of it!
Despite all that, we did have a lovely holiday and the property is in a very good position for exploring the Lake District. It just needs some attention to bring it up to what we would expect for the cost of hiring it. The current state of things isn't reflected by the publicity photos, which gave us high expectations! We don't usually give comments like this but there were just so many niggles that we feel we have to say something!