Casa das Xaras

My friends and I rented the place for New Year’s Eve as part of our annual reunion. The photos looked unbelievable, and the spot and surroundings of the house absolutely lived up to them. We had a few issues during the stay but didn’t focus on them while we were celebrating. After we’d left, though, a friend realised he’d forgotten his shoes. We expected to get them back, but the manager or owner threatened to charge him 50€ to ship them to us, even though we live only a few kilometres away in Portugal and shipping couldn’t possibly cost more than 10€. The owner also said we’d left the place in poor shape because we left a bin bag and moved a couple of pieces of furniture. The bag only had recycling in it, no general waste, but we apologised anyway. Still, if a plastic recycling bag costs 40€, I’d like a refund for the pots I had to wash before making dinner on my first night. They were extremely dirty. I’d also like a refund for the faulty gate remote, which made me walk a few kilometres up and down the drive, the toilets, especially the pool one, where the cleanest things were the toilet roll and hand towel left hanging there, and the toilet paper we had to buy because a house with five or six bedrooms had only one roll per toilet. It felt cheeky to ask for 50€ to return a pair of trainers when, judging by the photos online, the house may not have had a deep clean since before summer. We paid a premium price and could have asked for a partial refund ourselves, but didn’t. Please be kind, we helped you close your financial year with a very positive bank account for four days’ use of the property.