mike r.

HomeAway - France, in Saint-Guyomard Brandecel; Property *******.

The hamlet itself where the house was located had little appeal, and the house was not a house with much charm and character: the hamlet looks a bit like a building site and the house smelt as if it hadn't been cleaned thoroughly in a long time. The bathrooms were disgusting, orange lime scale around the shower tiles with a very shabby old shower curtain and bath mat, nor did the toilet flush properly and on occasions and I had to keep readjusting the cistern. The sofas in the living room smelt strongly of dogs and the rug as if it was starting to deteriorate.

But it go worse... My children, who will be 12 and 14 this year, got verbally abused in an aggressive manor by the owner. The kids were alone near the pool - about 1 m deep - but are strong and proficient swimmers. In addition myself and my partner checked on them regularly. The owner must have seen the kids alone and aggressively and abusively shouted at them. The children arrived back in the house, pail and quite frightened as they had feared he would hit them. I went to the owner and asked what had happened. He stormed at me together with a dog next to him, telling me I would "live to regret it the rest of my life if I dared ask him questions". I insisted in a calm manner that it was important we discussed this and cleared the air. He was furious because of this and stormed at me with his fist raised, ready to attack me. At this point, his wife came out and stopped the owner who stormed away shouting and cursing. I tried to get further clarification from his wife who said "My <name> is just like that, he explodes at people and then he feels better, Some people cannot handle it bit tough for them!" Realizing there was little point in discussing it further; I went back into the house and left it there.

This was the second day of my family holiday and, as I am sure you can appreciate, far from the start of the holiday I had imagined. Following that, my children hardly dared to go out-side again, concerned that owner would be there and would be confronted again in an aggressive manner. We were all craving for a quiet time in the French country side, but being afraid we would run into him again we decided to spend our time as much as we could away from the house; leaving in the morning and coming back home as late as possible to avoid conflict with what appeared a very emotionally unstable landlord.

I have tried raising this with the customer service at HomeAway, but even posting a negative review isn't possible. I read since then online that HA refuses reviews with less than 3 stars.

The owner has also refused paying back the deposit: he basically waited for my complaint to HA and now is essentially blackmailing me. "remove your complain or you don not get your deposit back". He naturally added a whole bunch of unpleasant remarks, which I won't quote.

It's very frustrating feeling this powerless against all of this.

Anybody else out there with similar experiences with HA?

MR