TAKE YOUR TORCH & RUG UP
We were excited by the lovely pictures of this house listing, but on arrival (warning: up a very steep driveway!) the house was very cold and very dark. We found the wifi was not working as it did not connect to the internet and the TV did not work. There was no portable lamp, as listed in the handbook, and we navigated through the blackness (dark floors, black walls, black ceilings and even black wall lamps). A chilly 10 degrees, the house was slow to heat once we found and turned on the heating and we ventured outside to get wood to start the fire. The fireplace began smoking, despite the vents being open, as the chimney itself was so cold it couldn’t draw. Then the piercing smoke alarms went off! I messaged Lauren the owner to call me urgently. Lauren eventually responded by email back and forth – there is no emergency contact phone number in the handbook – but by then we had sorted out the alarm. Getting the TV and wifi to work was problematic and we sorted it by torchlight eventually locating the modem, replacing TV remote batteries and the high tech on/off at the wall solution. The communication wasn’t great from the outset and we needed to chase the owners down twice to ask them to send the entry code details. The house has some other quirks – there is no toilet in the main bathroom off the main bedroom upstairs. The property has some nice mid-century design furniture and flooring details, but there is a lot to be said for functionality in design.