Air conditioning not working in holiday rental

Participant said:
Boohoo.

"Fully air conditioned" in our 2 week holiday rental turned out to be some ineffective underfloor cooling rubbish that doesn't do anything and it's 30C + down here in the south of France.

We've obviously immediately told the owner who's making all the right noises and called a French air conditioning "specialist", but it seems unlikely that he'll suddenly be able to turn a rubbish system into one that actually cools rooms.

We basically want to up sticks for the 2nd week and go somewhere that gives us what we paid for, but the T&C are all stacked in favour of the lessor, with clauses basically absolving the owner of any blame for technical / equipment issues.

We booked through a booking agent rather than an ABTA travel agent (as is typical for French gites), but then we don't know if we're being reasonable with our gripe...from our point of view we've paid for aircon we don't have access to, however others may feel we should just suck it up and open the windows (with the inevitable mosquito onslaught).

WWGDD?
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Ask for a partial refund as the accommodation is not as advertised. Open doors and windows in the morning to fill the gite with cool air and then button the place up as day starts to warm up. Keep any shutters closed during the day to keep the sun out.

Are there any fans in the gite?
 
CaptainRAVE said:
French, they hate us, they won’t do anything. They are probably laughing at you.
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They may be laughing, but I doubt it.
I used to spend a lot of time in France pre Covid, among both friends and family.
Their attitude to rosbifs runs from “I don’t get them” to “I pity them.”
 
Its France, they'll give you a gallic shrug of the shoulders and someone may turn up sometime next week. Or they may not, its France afterall.

Should've stuck to a staycation! Its raining and blowing a gale here. Why head to somewhere with heat which is presumably why you went there then complain when you can't avoid it?!
 
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Lol GD has not disappointed from a comedy point of view, especially the photo of the air con specialist :cry:.

Firstly the owner is English so doesn't appear to be shrugging, laughing at my misfortune, or other Gallic stereotypes.

He has made a couple of comments about his own aircon not working either and his swimming pool leaking, as though we're all in the same club so don't worry about it.

Regarding fans, he dropped some round yesterday as the underfloor cooling is still not doing anything. My cynical side says this is just so he can say he's tried to sort it when I lodge a dispute. He doesn't appear to know anything at all about the system or how it works as he's 'not an engineer'.

He also said he's trying to get someone round today to have a look. We'll see.

Plan if it's not sorted today is to ask him to cancel our 2nd week's reservation and we'll go somewhere else. He won't agree at which point I'll ask for some compensation instead.

The place is ok but it's just generally not that nice for €2.2k per week.
 
You moaned when you couldn't go on holiday, you moaned when there were covid restrictions to be able to go on holiday, you're now moaning while on the holiday.

I think you just like moaning! :p
 
Freakbro said:
You moaned when you couldn't go on holiday, you moaned when there were covid restrictions to be able to go on holiday, you're now moaning while on the holiday.

I think you just like moaning! :p
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Possibly, but it's very British to just put up with not having air conditioning when you've worked hard to pay for it.

I prefer to see it as being unsatisfied with being ripped off.
 
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