Avril’s house is beautiful in a stunning part of Ireland. I made tremendous use of the piano which was my purpose for renting the place. The house was quite cold, especially considering it was only 40-45 F outside at the night, and I wish this had been indicated in the description. There was one portable heater that worked which I carried around to each room when needed. The other, in the kitchen, would shut off within a minute. The fireplace did little to heat the house - I gave it my best try. I ended up keeping all my winter layers on and finding respite with the electric blanket at night. The kitchen sink only dispenses cold water - the hot water was not connected - so this made the cold even tougher to bear. Again, this should be in the listing.
Avril is a quick responder. The day we were to arrive, I asked how the heat works - I knew we wouldn’t have WiFi to communicate once we got there - and she told me one log would be provided for the fireplace and two portable heaters would be available but shouldn’t be used much. I was surprised there was no central heating in the house, and asked for more logs because the listing indicates that heat is provided and I didn’t want to be driving for miles in a remote area searching for firewood. Avril resisted, saying she was “very disappointed so far,” that no one else complained about this, that it wouldn’t be viable for her to provide three days’ worth of firewood for guests, and that she was very happy for me to cancel. I was already enroute so I kept the reservation, but her defensiveness definitely put a damper on my initial excitement. To her credit, there were several logs when I got there; unfortunately, the house still ended up being colder than expected.
I think this would be a lovely house to rent in the summer, but in late fall and winter, it should either not be rented or done so with explicit warnings.