“What a few days of triumph and disaster.”
A lovely house, now passed its best, sparsely furnished badly with second hand furniture that is often horrifically out of period. It became quite homely after the shock wore off. It was warm and dry.
The disaster was the cleaners, who had not changed the sheets from the last visitors, and although they had given a a token clean and hoovered the carpets, they had failed to give a deep clean for a long time. There were sweet papers behind a settee, a crust of (mouldy) bread in a bedroom ...
A lovely house, now passed its best, sparsely furnished badly with second hand furniture that is often horrifically out of period. It became quite homely after the shock wore off. It was warm and dry.
The disaster was the cleaners, who had not changed the sheets from the last visitors, and although they had given a a token clean and hoovered the carpets, they had failed to give a deep clean for a long time. There were sweet papers behind a settee, a crust of (mouldy) bread in a bedroom cupboard, greasy pots in the kitchen. The windows inside remained dirty and cobwebby, did not appear to have been cleaned for at least 6 months.
Sykes did their best by getting the cleaners back twice in day 1 of our stay, with clean sheets and a quick clean up, but the result was a feeling that it did not add up to the sales details, or the Sykes standards. So the cleaners and the gardener needs attention by the owners.
And then there is the garden - potentially wonderful. But although the main lawns were mown, the rest of the garden had gone to weeds. It needed a couple of days work to even begin to get it in order.
The fabric of the building itself is being damaged by climbers and ivy that is even obstructing some of the windows, let alone damaging the brickwork.
I gather the property is for sale, and it is the sort of house we would love to live in. But it needs a lot of TLC.
Dear Peter
Thank you for taking the time to write about your stay at Millwood, and I am glad that you enjoyed your time there.
As you said, it is a period property with a lot of charm, and it is warm and beautiful.
I am glad that you had the cleaner twice on the same day, upon request, and she should have cleaned the areas that you felt needed extra work. Regarding the sheets, I am sure they had been changed before your arrival to clean and fresh ones, but I will make sure to take some pictures next time to prove this. We had instructed the cleaning company to do a deep clean, and we will be monitoring this issue regularly.
There is a dedicated gardener who looks after the garden regularly, part of the garden is a woodland, which grows naturally, and that is part of the charm of the property.
Dear Peter, You are most welcome to come back and have a nice stay with the family and friends, and we will make sure that it will all be a triumph.
Property Owner
