Classic Cape Town Rental ******* : Beware Daubrey Cottage 3 Upper Wheelan Street Newlands Cape Town

Item: Daubrey Cottage
Rating: 1
Author: Graham B

I rented through Place Makers (Heather on: (+27) 82 ********** Tel/Fax: (+27) 21 ********** ********** 'Daubery Cottage' - 3 Upper Wheelan Street, Newlands, Cape Town from Dec 2016 - end March 2017. This is not a rental for long terges or for those with thermoregulation challenges. ...there is no ceiling insulation between the ceiling and the tin roof, during these summer months the cottage baked heat inside! Most of the time, the ambient air temprature outside was cooler than the temprature inside the house. Seriously uncomfortable, and inescapable. A once weekly garden service was assured, the garden service never happened as informed. I had to call to have a the small garden court yard area maintained. Would have been easier to do it myself, however i didn't have tools. Agent informed me that 'they' keep the small garden area water irrigated(using potable water out the tap) - DESPITE THE FACT THAT CAPE TOWN WAS SUFFERING IT's WORST DRAUGHT IN DECADES! Honestly, how inappropriate. The Agent requested I do the same. I didn't oblige. The stove/oven in the kitchenette is old, and the electrical earth is faulty. Despite reporting the same to the managing Agent, the dangerous fault was not seen to with any urgency, my wife and eldest son repeatidly shocking them selves when trying to use the oven. An electrician eventually visited the property, was rude and abrupt. Reported he had repaired the oven, departed, however the fault persisted. I gave up, we were VERY careful using the old stove/oven from then on! The cuboard storage space is wholly inadequate, and extremely dated. Windows on the front of the property can not be opened, as passers by will look straight into your privacy. Keeping them closed with shutters closed, meant there was no airflow through the cottage. Very uncomfortabel. The main bathroom shower/bath combination, leaked. No matter how i adjusted the glass splash-gaurd and the shower, water poured onto the bathroom floor. This must have been an ongoing accurance, not just my experience, Agent/owners could not be bothered to remedy. There is off-street parking, but beware, the owners haven't bothered removing the top of two protruding boulders that are in the path of parking a vehicle. Ok, to approach, however when you reverse your vehicle the angle of the road and of the off-street parking is such that your vehicle will hit the top of the protruding boulders. I tried every which way to approach, and reverse off the off-street parking, however could not avoid the protruding boulders. About +-- R20k worth of damage that the owners have sent me a Lawyers letter instructing me they will 'resist' any attempt by me to claim dmages on them (?). All I did was make a claim on my Insurance company, listing location incident and contact details. The owners chosen respons to a legitimate claim - Lawyers letter. A true South African syndrome. I then parked my car on the street. My car was broken into. My R100K would have been better spent elswhere. Only my lack of pro-active planning ended in me choosing Daubrey Cottage, but NEVER again. I wonder why it was still available over those peak months? An example of the classic Cape Town rental rip-off.

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