tavi wrote:Wow AngloD. Poor you.
Sounds like an bunch of accidents waiting to happen, or lawsuits against you waiting to be launched.
I would do more than verbally warn the parents of the dangerous dog and the unsafe trampoline.....I would put it in writing.
I wish we had had the opportunity to do that, Tavi but the guests were out most of Saturday and the whole of Sunday. We were also away for most of the weekend as well. Unfortunately for us, after the damage and state the farmhouse was left in over Easter, this next group has been much worse.
Their children eventually broke the gate (the metal bracket has actually been ripped away from the wooden gate). This must have happened either late on Saturday night or very early on Sunday morning before they went out for the day.
On Sunday morning the guests went out very early and we saw that the gate was again open with the plank removed and placed against a tree. When we got closer we could see that the gate had been completely broken. We tried to block the access by jamming the gate into the entrance with the plank, so as to stop the neighbour's rottweiler from getting through to our property. The plank is 5 metres long and had been placed vertically by us onto the gate to prevent access. What did the guests think the meaning of having the plank there meant? Because it was an adult that removed it each time
We had to go to a neighbour's birthday party on Sunday morning and when we came back the guests were still away. They returned only to hand in the keys and all the grandmother said was 'here are the keys' and nothing else. I looked at my OH and said to the woman, 'Can you tell me what has happened to the gate?`The woman looked a bit sheepish but did not reply. Instead she went over to the remainder of the group that were not already in their cars. Her husband shook his head and said, 'Not our problem. The gate is rotten.'
I had already filled in an insurance claim form in duplicate from Belvilla (the agency through which they had booked) and took it and walked over to them. I told them that the gate was old and that it was an authentic part of the farmhouse but it had worked perfectly up to this weekend. Again they said that it was not their problem, that it was rotten and could have fallen apart anytime. I said that it did not look like it did now on Friday when they arrived. They didn't have an answer to that.
I asked them to sign the form so that we could claim the insurance back through the agency. They refused to sign. The grandfather was grinning and shaking his head. He began to take photos of the gate from all angles as though he was readying himself for some kind of courtroom defence.
I went back inside and told my OH that the guests were refusing to sign. OH went ballistic and stormed out into the grounds.
‘What is the problem? First of all you break the gate, then you don’t say anything to us and now you say that it’s our fault because it was rotten’ said my OH.
‘You should have put a ‘no access’ sign on the gate if you don’t want anyone to go that way’, said the grandfather.
‘The gate is in OUR garden. You asked when you arrived which part of the grounds belonged to the holiday farmhouse and we showed you, and that did not include our garden where your (grand)children decided to play football. As we said, there is a field at the bottom of the bicycle path running alongside the house where they can kick a ball. Your children were in our garden and went through a gate which was blocked off and entered a neighbouring property, which does not belong to us, in order to retrieve a ball,’ OH almost screaming at this point.
‘We’re not paying anything and we’re not signing anything,’ shouted the grandfather.
‘Just go’, said my OH, (turning to me), ‘leave them…if they want to pay the damage using their security deposit, then that’s fine’.
One of the wives said, ‘We didn’t say that we would not sign. If we sign, will the insurance pay the damage?’
After explaining to them that they have paid €15 during the booking process for damage insurance, I said that if they sign the form in duplicate I would give them a copy as well, so they could see what they have signed (it was in our interest to get them to sign the form because we did not know what the cost would be to replace/repair the gate – as we only have €200 in security deposit of course).
‘And there is also a dangerous dog on the other side that chased my grandson as he tried to get the ball. He had to come running back through the gate and only just made it,’ the grandfather continued.
‘Yes, there is a sign showing a picture of a Rottweiler with ‘I am on guard duty’ which you would have seen if you had tried to get the ball via the neighbour's front drive’, I mentioned.
They duly signed the forms and I told them that I would send the form on to Belvilla and that all correspondence would be through the agency. After telling me that my OH was extremely rude, they left.
Last night I emailed the claim form and photos to Belvilla and heard from the agency this morning that they want an official estimate of the gate’s current value, if we couldn’t produce the original purchase receipt (the gate came with the house which dates back to 1839. We are sure that the wooden gate is not that old
, but it was put in before we purchased the property in 2004).
We have just had a carpenter come over to have a look at the damage and a new gate is going to be put in for us tomorrow morning. We have another group of guests arriving this Friday and the important thing is that next door’s dog will not be able to access our property. The estimate we have received from the carpenter is in ‘the region of €200’. So, if Belvilla doesn’t pay out (we have not yet checked whether their insurance covers damage to something which is not part of the holiday rental), then we should be covered by the guests' security deposit.
I need a holiday already and it's only April....