I shall attempt to stick to facts in this review. Although I have requested a full refund, so far I have only been offered £50 compensation which I assume is a refund of the cleaning fee. I was only there for 2 days and therefore did not have time for all the issues to be fixed.
I arrived after dark at the agreed check in time of 7pm and the porch containing the key lock box was in total darkness. Luckily I had a torch on my phone. The access instructions given to me to access the flat were "The keys can be stiff but pull the door towards you and they should turn. Here is a video if you are struggling - https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tnMOYwJVhKmhqI7W05EsG2ohJQ_6zTxs". This video does not work. There were 2 locks on the door to the flat. I unlocked the top one and immediately accessed the property without any problem. The bottom lock was already unlocked. (NOTE)
On entering the flat the cold hit me. I then entered the bathroom and noticed that someone had urinated into the toilet and not flushed it. The seat was left in the up position as well. On entering the lounge I then noticed a screwdriver left on the floor. Had a handyman been in just before me?
My next task was to switch the heating on using the instructions given to me. However it was very erratic going on and off and 2 of the radiators being warm only on the lower half indicating an air lock. I then turned the heating to constant and the thermostats up to full but it still went on and off with no perceivable reason why. After approximately 30 minutes the whole system went off. Photo attached of the pressure gauge for the boiler at zero.
As for the TV. The only channels I could get were channels 4 and 5. However these had an error message permanently displayed across the screen stating that there had been a problem. Photo attached. The other channels that I tried to access (e.g. BBC 1, ITV etc) advised that the channel had not been subscribed. Photo attached. I also noticed that the instruction manual for the TV had a note from a previous guest back in June stating that the TV was not working then either. Photo attached.
I then decided to go to bed early as there was no TV and I was frozen. I locked the main flat door with both the top AND bottom locks. However despite sleeping in my day clothes I got very little sleep as it was so cold.
The next morning there was no heating to have a shower and the heating was still not working and at 7.45 am I rang the number for “Nicks Team”. This turned out to be a call centre in Dublin and I was told I would have to wait until the team manager came into work at 9.00 am. When I failed to receive a phone call back I rang the call centre back numerous times and was told that someone would be out at sometime during the day to have a look. I had only booked 2 days in Edinburgh so I was not at all happy about this response but was then advised to go to a café and warm up!
However this led to the final straw when the bottom lock of the door failed to unlock. Once again the call centre in Dublin was unable to help and suggested I try wiggling and waggling the key and door while he tried to contact the host. I was in a flat that at that point felt like hell to me and I now could not even get out of! After approximately 15 minutes of this wiggling and waggling the door finally opened and I was able to escape. I discovered that the dead bolt on the bottom lock does not fully retract when trying to unlock it.
By now all I wanted to do was to find somewhere to stay for my remaining day and 2 nights in comfort and with no stress. So I decided to check out and go elsewhere.
Surely the basic functions of an apartment such as heating, hot water and TV should be checked before each guest. It is also plain that there is an existing issue with the bottom door lock and should be immediately fixed.