“DOMVS was in a great great location - a few minutes walk from Windermere town & railway station, and slap on a bus route.”
It is a beautiful house with a grand, but comfortable, living room with large bay windows facing the lovely garden and wonderful views beyond. There is a small conservatory attached and access to the garden and patio sitting areas (one house level and one lower) which were lovely places to congregate at the end of the day for early evening drinks, as the weather was good. The kitchen was a good size and reasonably well equipped (see comments on inventory later) with a useful utility room. Likewise, the dining room has everything needed and just fitted 12 people reasonably comfortably around the table which occupies most of the room. This looked tight but worked well. Of note, it would cause less confusion if Sykes called this property the name actually on the gate as looking for DOMVS reveals absolutely nothing either on Google, or when there, since the house is called Rannerdale! (It’s also impossible to say, DOMVS!). 4 of the ensuite bedrooms were ample or large, and attractive, doubles, 2 seemingly quite luxurious (see later). The 2 twin bedrooms were, by contrast, very small and basic, with some issues (see under ‘rooms’). Of note, all the bedrooms, with the exception of the huge garden facing ‘master’ bedroom, had an aspect onto the road and were therefore subject to traffic noise and less interesting views (curious the house was built with most of the rooms not facing the beautiful garden and view at the back!). Not a major problem, but one needs to be aware of it as it is a well used road. As mentioned, this made it convenient, which was the upside of that. Issues with the property. 1. Very few bedroom windows opened, and if they did, it wasn’t very wide, which was a major downside and should be clearly indicated in advance. Ventilation in a bedroom is absolutely key, especially as most people in a shared property want to shut the bedroom door for privacy. A few of the rooms had fans, but a fan can only circulate air and, if there is no fresh air coming into the room, it is simply circulating stale air. We appreciate double glazing is to keep road noise out, but it must be down to the individual whether they prefer fresh air with traffic noise, or recirculated stale air. This problem was unfortunately, particularly noticeable in the small twin rooms, and in the tower room. This room, although fabulous visually, with multiple small windows along all four walls (so like the master bedroom, had a great view over the back from one set), gave rise to enormous challenges as not a single window was openable (despite a large claw bath in the room, which was a wonderful luxury in one way, but problematic ventilation wise, therefore, in another and had necessitated a dehumidifier in the room which did it’s best). Secondly, not all the blind pulleys worked properly or were accessible (??), so blocking out the sunlight on hot days was challenging. So we had to do some fixing of the little chains, some of which were insubstantial plastic, which came apart at the slightest tug. Since there was a significant amount of (wonderful!) light, it needed occlusion on hot sunny days and of course at night. Opening and closing every single blind each morning and evening was something of a challenge, not least, because there were so many to do, but also because some were almost impossible to reach, due to the geography and furniture of the room and the inaccessibility of the blind pulley chain. A taller person with a longer reach may have fared better. We set up a ‘Heath Robinson’ on one window over the stairs, leading down to the loo/shower room, in order to be able to adjust the blind. 2. No inventory; Sykes were not able to tell us what was and wasn’t there. For example, we were told there were no hairdryers, so some of us went to the bother of packing one, but in fact there were several. As most of us were travelling by train and some from overseas, this was not an inconsiderable nuisance, carrying the extra weight and taking luggage space unnecessarily. Also whether things like tea towels, dishwasher tablets, bin bags etc were provided. Whilst we appreciate that self catering means you provide your own food, by and large, it is absolutely impossible to bring every possible ingredient or kitchen item you might need for cooking, and it is customary for simple basics to be provided. There were some of these things there, but Sykes were unable to tell us, which which meant a lot of extra things being brought unnecessarily by the two side cars. This increases packing and unpacking time considerably and it is a waste of time. Clarity on exactly what is provided is essential, down to the number of cutlery, crockery and glasses sets, the types of kitchen implements etc. Cooks need to know what they are dealing with, which will dictate what kind of cooking they can do. 3. A certain amount of wear and tear was evident; as is to be expected in an old property, but certain functional things do need fixing, eg the dishwasher cutlery holder had large holes in it, which meant that cutlery dropped through, potentially hazardous to the function of the machine if not spotted, and with 12 people was hard to keep track of who knew, and who didn’t and who would remember! The glass shelf over the handbasin in one twin room was loose and hanging off its fixings, rendering it usable; therefore needs repair. 4. The waste disposal system was very confusing. The notices told us to put everything in the one large wheelie bin, where it would be sorted by the contractor into recycling and other. The large wheelie bin had a very big sign on the lid saying “no recyclables“! We’re also not aware of any other company offering this service and remain dubious about it, since, hearing the head of waste management in the UK on the radio recently talking about contamination of recyclables, it is pretty clear that prolonged exposure to grease permanently contaminates recycled paper for example, and it is hard to imagine in any case how any contractor could separate food waste from plastic, paper, card and so on. We would love a full explanation of how this is possible and it needs to be crystal clear. Everyone needs to be recycing as much as possible these days and we had taken great pains to keep our recyclables separate and were fairly astonished and sceptical when it was clear there was only one bin in which to put it all. 5. Rooms. The two twin rooms are quite pokey. It needs to be made very clear that the four doubles and the two twins are of very different sizes and standards. Twin rooms can be just as luxurious, but these were of inferior quality and really best for young children. We were six couples, ranging in age from late 60’s to mid 80s, and it was very hard allocating the twins for obvious reasons! Inevitably, neither couple were happy. If we had known in advance, we may well have chosen a property with more equal quality rooms, or, if we had decided this one was the right property, could have organised the room allocation in advance by whatever means, but it made a very awkward and time consuming first evening discussing allocation before we could all settle into the room we were finally allocated. 6. Other bedroom issues Moreover, the twin beds’ bedposts stick out at the top and catch the unwary; residents of these rooms sustained nasty bruises as a result of a hard knock, which didn’t add to their dissatisfaction of being in those rooms! Poor design. 7. One of the twin rooms had a faulty shower from the outset. The owner was there on our arrival day trying to get it fixed and was extremely apologetic and gave us two bottles of bubbly to compensate for the temporary inconvenience, which was felt reasonable, assuming the shower would be fixed the next day. It wasn’t though and, despite multiple visits from a plumber, remained unusable for five of the seven days of our stay.
