De Plaashuis

We arrived on 10 Sept 2023 planning to stay for two nights, but the cleanliness was the worst part of the experience. The bathroom was filthy, and the bedding looked as though it hadn't been changed after the previous guests. There were spiders and old webs everywhere. The glasses and dishes were dirty, with hand marks and food still on them. They gave us coffee, but there wasn't even a gas canister in the stove, so we couldn't make it. I wouldn't recommend this place at all.

The place smelled of mold, the Wi-Fi didn't work, and the furniture was extremely old. The mattresses and linen were worn out, with springs coming through the mattresses. Our room had no bathroom inside it. The toilet was outside the room, and to shower you had to close the toilet door, which felt unhygienic. They wouldn't show us the room before we paid, and the people were very unfriendly. I'm very dissatisfied and disgusted. This place should be closed down.

I didn't want to leave. The owner and his family are wonderful people, and the staff are down to earth, warm, friendly, welcoming, and helpful. The house is the real thing, and the garden even more so. There are four different braais to choose from, among lots of options.

We visited Die Plaashuis on Barrie street, George, on Monday 25.02.19, and paid for two nights. I ended up losing the R600 for Tuesday and paying for another guest house instead. The Wi-Fi was unusable, and when I asked the owner the next morning for a refund for the second night, he said their policy didn't allow cash refunds. He said that if something happened and we had to leave in a hurry, we'd get a discount on a future visit. I felt we'd been treated unfairly. Given all the problems, I thought he could at least have returned half the deposit, if not the full R600. The first room had dead geckos caught between the back door and its frame, and the toilet was leaking. The clothing cupboard was dusty, and one drawer held paperwork, cards, and wallets that had been missing. We told the owners, who were relieved because they'd been looking for them, and we were glad to help. They moved us to another room, which seemed like an upgrade, with a kitchen, bathroom, and two rooms. While unpacking, we found lots of dead spiders and webs on the walls. The cleaning lady came to dust them off after we reported it. We stayed calm and weren't rude to the owner or cleaners. Then we opened the microwave to make supper and found old food in a glass bowl. A lot of fruit flies flew out. We reported that too, still without getting angry or rude. There were lots of mosquitoes, which wasn't really an issue since the room was under many trees. We asked reception for a plug-in mosquito or bug repellent, and the owner's wife happily gave us one. That night we kept feeling bites while trying to sleep, though the next day there were no visible marks. Maybe our skin was sensitive to the washing powder used on the bedding. After the first set of problems, I hadn't expected more trouble in the second room. The following morning I calmly raised all the issues with the owner, without shouting or throwing a tantrum, and asked for the second night's payment back. I thought there could have been at least some compromise.