Unfortunately the stay was far from meeting our expectations of a nice holiday or that of previous ones at other rental properties due to the building work issues . Firstly on arrival the property looked like a building site with the field in front of the property full of builders paraphernalia, stacks of bricks, large holes and plant equipment etc. The driveway had compromised access due to the works encroachment and the owned had trouble placing her car where it would not cause an obstruction for the whole visit. The building site was actually right next to the property and not a small portion of the garden as stated, which was not what we were expecting especially as the property has the bedrooms on the ground floor with large windows looking right onto the building site.
We turned a blind eye to this as your note below ensured the works would not detract from our holiday, however when we met the owner our concerns were raised again as she kept reiterating this point that the building work would not impact on us which made us very suspicious.
Rightly so as soon as the builders came onsite the next day at 7am, the noise started, clanking of bricks and trowels, drilling, radios, plant equipment diggers etc moving right past the property bedroom windows where we were trying to sleep with two primary aged children. This was only exacerbated by the fact the area is so quiet without the building activities which is the reason we came on the holiday in the first place. We had to therefore keep the blinds permanently closed in these rooms to avoid builders (young men) being able to see straight into the bedrooms of my wife and young children.
This came to a head one morning when the owner came ringing on the doorbell when we were trying to have breakfast wanting her plumbers to come into the property to do some testing. this was more of an ultimatum as opposed to a request but either way totally in appropriate. This resulted in a health and safety issue afterwards where the plumbers had accessed a manhole right next to the property and left the cover off with no warnings signs or barriers which our children could have fallen straight into. No one ever followed up or came back to close this so we had to replace the cover ourselves for safety reasons.
The driveway was constantly obstructed by cars and vans at different times and as the property is at the end of the drive it was difficult to get in or out when needed adding unnecessary stress to the holiday. Again this came to a head one day as an additional van appeared one day completely blocking us in and when we wanted to go out in approaching the worker were met with an attitude of why it was so difficult and we should not have been there. His manner during this exchange resulted in much distress for my wife and caused one of our children to cry, which was totally unacceptable.
It is our opinion that the property should not have been offered for rent during this building works period