Seminyak, Villa Umalas

We had actually booked 2 weeks in July my family were flying in from Australia meeting up with my best friend and her family from the UK. We booked this last september, we were in contact with Carla who said that seminyak and the beach were walkable which I felt a bit strange as we have been to Bali a fre times and from checking the the map it didn't seem possible. Two weeks ago we received an email from Carla to say that she had had to sell her villa due to major work being needed to be done which didn't seem right as the photos made it look so nice but having read the review it makes you wonder who's villa she took photos of. She offered to reimburse us our money which we have received albeit $120 Aus dollars short but that is nothing compared to the nightmare of a holiday we could have had.

Report on Villa Umalas, Seminyak, Bali: AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

This refers to Villa Umalas at Jalan Umalas Klecung 27, Seminyak, Bali.

It should not be confused with other villas with similar names.

AVOID VILLA UMALAS AT ALL COSTS. The publicity representing the property misrepresents it. These are the miss-selling issues:

? It is sold as 'glamorous and luxurious'. It is nothing of the sort; it is run-down and neglected.

? The blurb on the net promises you the opportunity to 'unwind', but the state of the place (and the cynical behaviour of the owner - more on this later) induced only stress.

? It promises 'freshly cut tropical fruit every morning of your stay'. This simply never happened - not once. We weren't even provided with drinking water or toilet paper.

? Many bedroom and bathroom walls are damp, with peeling paint and plaster. There was mould on our bathroom walls and ceiling.

? Some unseen device - probably a pump on the water-heating system - whines like a wounded animal at 2-second intervals, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

? There are no long drinks glasses and only a few, mismatched whisky glasses.

? The shower head fell off in one the bathrooms. It was not repaired.

? The pool is shabby and held together in places by silicon. It is on two levels. The top pool evidently leaked, but the pump serving it did not work, so it periodically ran dry. Also, without a pump, the water was never aerated or filtered.

? The standing board at the foot of the outdoor shower is decayed. It crumbled under feet and may be a hazard.

? The building is lit by downlighters, only about one third of which are working.

? The bedding is old: our duvet cover had holes in it (as did the curtains); some of our pillow-cases had ingrained stains; the under-sheet was so old it was semi-transparent; others of our party had holes in their mosquito nets.

? The sofas in the lounge are stained.

? There was the promise of fresh bath and pool towels daily. What towels there were were grey and washed out, and there weren't enough to go round. As they were taken away to be washed we found ourselves sharing towels or even drying ourselves on our clothes.

? The blurb says all bedrooms are en suite. They are not. The two connecting upper bedrooms share one bathroom, which is accessed from only one of the rooms, so that occupants of one bedroom have to visit occupants of the next to use the bathroom (or cross the garden and use the one in the living area).

? All rooms have TV, but they don't all work. The one in our room did not work.

? The blurb also implies that the top bedrooms and living area are accessible for the disabled. However, to get from the lounge to the top bedrooms you have to descend 3 deep steps and then cross the garden, which gets waterlogged when the rains come; and there is no path across it.

? The promised wi-fi did not exist. The box was there, but disconnected.

? The door lock on our room did not work.

? Rooms had aircon units which only worked via a remote. The one for our room was missing. We had to share one with the guests in the next room.

? Our room was at basement level and had an en-suite bath/shower room partly open to the air, i.e.: the 'roof' of the shower area was a grating at ground level in the upper garden. Charming in principle, but it had no insect net, which meant that at night, when we switched the lights on, we were invaded by insects: mosquitoes mostly, but we also had an invasion of cockroaches one night, and on another an almost biblical invasion of what, to untrained eyes, looked like locusts. We tried to zap them with spray, but large numbers kept on arriving, and faster than we could down them. We retreated, turned the light off and backed into the bedroom, at which point, like something from a horror movie, they started to emerge from under the door. We blocked the gap with clothes and forewent cleaning our teeth that night.

? Our bathroom smelt of drains, mould and toilets. There was a mirrored cabinet; it had been smashed. There were two sinks: one had no plug; one had a wobbly tap; both were stained and grubby. Far from being 'glamorous', it reminded me of a doss-house shower in Amsterdam in the 1980s.

? To get from the living area to the upper bedrooms you cross one garden; to get to the lower ones, you cross two. When it rains they turn into quagmires and neither has a path or stepping stones. Mud and whatever the local fauna have left behind tread all over, and anyone wearing delicate or high-heeled shoes has additional problems.

? There were frequent power cuts. They were seemingly caused by internal faults, as the power could be restored by resetting the circuit breaker, if we happened to be in when the power went off.

? We all got sick. There is no way of knowing if this was to do with the villa or not. Perhaps it was caused by something airborne from the stinking drains; or by something trod in with the filth from the garden; or maybe it was something caught from insects (the live ones that bit us, the dead ones we often shared the pool with, or the tiny ones that patrolled the kitchen sink); or perhaps something had happened to our food in the fridge during one of the many power cuts. But it may have been entirely unconnected.

If there was anything more shocking than the state of the villa, it was the cynicism of the owner, which was quite breathtaking. We arrived on 22 December 2010 and complained immediately to the handyman. He said he was in touch with her, but added that she already knew about all the problems and would not do anything about them - this had been going on for ages. He told us that everyone who stays complains and that she never does anything about it. She just pockets the money and hides. He told us that some guests had threatened to move out to a hotel if she didn't sort things out. Her response boiled down to: do what you want; I've got your money. Others had threatened to take the electronic goods from the place to try and recoup the loss (i.e. the gulf between what was supplied and what was charged for).

We tried to contact her directly. The organising members of our party listed the numerous problems and asked for a 25% refund, due to the miss-selling of the place. I thought that was generous, as this place was very expensive and was sold as 'luxurious' and 'glamorous' (see the website) but the peeling, decaying, doss-house standard of parts of the accommodation and the numerous other problems suggest to me that a full refund would be more appropriate. She did not answer the phone, reply to texts or respond to emails. We finally got a reply on 2 January 2011 - the day before we left. In this, she expressed her dismay, as though she had no idea of the condition of the place. She promised to visit as soon as she could, but - surprise, surprise - she wouldn't be able to find time to do that until after we had gone.

She went on to say that the wi-fi had gone due to a recent storm and she had not been able to get it repaired due to the holidays. However, it was already disconnected when we arrived and, as this is a Hindu country, things run as normal throughout Christmas. The only holiday locals observed was New Year's Day. Moreover, the handyman had told us that the wi-fi had gone some time ago; gone the same way as the telephone: they had both been cut off due to non-payment of bills.

I write this back at home on 8 January 2011. Carla Swinnerton has now visited the property and sent a message to say that everything is our fault because we should have complained sooner. Given what we have already learned, this is hardly a surprise; another of her cynical tactics: respond to the complaint at the last minute, and then say it is too late to do anything about it.

We have been treated contemptuously and despicably. What makes things even worse is that we are the latest of many to have been ripped-off in this way. However, the international nature of the transaction makes it impossible to see justice done. It is clear that she will continue to do this until she is stopped. I can only ask those who read this to pass it on and generate as much coverage as possible in order to try and stop this woman ripping-off other people.