2 Island Square, St Ives. Cornish Riviera Holidays

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We love St Ives and have rented many properties there. However, there's always one isn't there? Following a two week break, we had most of our damage deposit withheld. I consider this as very unprofessional of Cornish Riviera Holidays, as they did not contact me before sending me a small refund so that I could answer the charges. They just accepted what the owners said as Gospel and disbelieved everything I told them. The best way to give you the detail is to share with you the email I sent after they posted a badly handwritten note on a comp slip to me and refunded less than 30% of the deposit. It has quite spoiled the memories of this holiday.......

Dear CRH

I have today received the partial refund of my deposit on the rental of 2 Island Square which we rented for the first 2 weeks in April.

I wish to take issue with various items as listed on your comp slip.

£23 Replacement pillow case and base sheet. I agree with this, a result of teenage daughter's make up - she was told off in no uncertain terms about this and I told her any loss of deposit as a result would be deducted from her pocket money.

However....

£8 Broken Tumblers and wine glasses. We noted the odd number of wine glasses and lack of tumblers on arrival and assumed this was as a result of previous occupations - There was no inventory to check. This wasn't a problem since there was only the 5 of us and only 2 wine glasses were required since our children don't drink. NO GLASSES WERE BROKEN BY US. Was a proper inventory check carried out after previous occupations?

£9 Replacement baking tray and roaster lid. No idea what this is about, we didn't steal them and I assume these items are not breakable. We are vegetarians and therefore did not roast anything! Again, I refer to my previous comment about an inventory.

£31 for additional cleaning. This is where I am extremely upset with the owners attitude for several reasons:

1. Upon arrival we were not impressed with the cleanliness of the home. The carpets in the stairwell were extremely dirty. There was sand in the entrance hall. Shelves containing the glassware (apparently not all of it!) and mugs in the kitchen were greasy and dusty. There were many scuff marks on the walls and dirty hand marks on doors, door frames and the banister newel posts. The bathrooms were not exactly spotless either. We have rented many holiday homes over the last 20 years and have experienced varying standards, so did not complain.

2. If they are claiming extra cleaning because of our dogs I would like to point out two things. Firstly our dogs were never allowed upstairs. Secondly and more importantly we paid £20 per dog to be there. I assumed this must be to cover any additional cleaning requirement, fair enough - £40, which should be more than adequate. So to demand an extra £31 to hoover up a few dog hairs is frankly extracting the Michael!

3. Each weeks rental on the property must include an allowance for cleaning. We paid two full weeks, they obviously only had to clean and change bed linen once. This is surely a saving to them. Never in my experience has anyone expected us to vacuum, polish and clean a holiday home before leaving, the assumption being that the rental includes an element to cover this - after all it is a holiday home, not a work house.

In view of this I think the owners have a cheek to request you withhold more than £23 of our deposit and you have acted extremely unprofessionally in deducting the sum without giving me the opportunity to reply to the charges above.

I will bank the cheque for £29 and await the balance of £48 which is rightly due to us. Do feel free to forward on this email in it's entirety to the owners.

Yours Faithfully