Unwind Holidays

Stay away. It will wind you up, or worse. I cleaned for hours on this holiday – We had an extremely bad experience renting Seacliff Escape from Unwind Holidays. As we booked direct with Unwind, we had no recourse to air bnb reviews etc. We did however need to contact Consumer & Business Services in Adelaide for help with this rental. None of the phone numbers for the contact details for this business worked and we found it very difficult to get help. Some sort of call centre overseas handles the calls but I could not call any of the numbers used and advertised by the business.

I submitted a condition report by email to Unwind, largely because their documentation was over the top, and very much weighted in favour of the rental company, and I was worried that if I did not submit a report with photos, we would be accused of creating the mess ourselves. In fact there was no dispute over the cleanliness and despite apologies from Unwind when we could eventually get them on the phone (see above) and a promise of a partial refund - we received none.

I had to clean the kitchen after our 12 hour day driving from Victoria. Even the dish drainer needed washing before I could wash all the cutlery, and even remove the cutlery drawer insert to put the cutlery away.

No cups or plates were properly clean. This may also be because the dishwasher is not working properly and was not clean when we came but has not been working well no matter how we loaded it or what cycle. My husband cleaned the filter. The spray arm also appeared blocked. We washed our dishes by hand.

I had to clean the microwave before we could use it. The oven has since been cleaned by your cleaner who was sent to do another clean on Sunday - though if I was looking for a rental deposit back I am certain the standard would still not pass for rental standards.

Bathrooms - main en suite dirty and unclean floor including hair and dirt in the shower.

Bathroom shower curtains very basic and not at all pleasant.

Cleaner left the front door wide open and did not hear me call out to him where he was vacuuming. Thankfully we had left our valuables hidden in preparation for a cleaner visit but this was of a great concern since of course we did have valuables small and large in our possession.

The outside condition of this property was quite unbelievable. it is the worst kept we have seen at a holiday rental. The BBQ was in no way useable, the garden is overgrown, the fire pit area was a disaster with rubbish and weeds and overturned chairs. A far cry from your advertising.

I felt as though were camping in this house.

The cleaning materials were beyond unhygienic. Again some of this was rectified and the cleaner bought some extra supplies -including a brand new vacuum cleaner. The cleanliness between guests was substandard to say the least.

The wheelie bins were overflowing and there was no room for our rubbish even when we checked in. There were also no bin bags. We had to buy these basic items. There was no information sheet about the property so its not surprising no one had put the bin bags out. We googled to find the bin day and had to deal with the old rubbish left by others before we could deal with our own.

On submitting our report largely for protecting ourselves, and asking for a partial compensation, we were threatened with eviction and asked to move out "so that we could better enjoy our holiday". The last time I looked, being homeless with 6 children, 4 of whom below the age of 18, was not a good plan for a vacation.

Consumer & Business Affairs were helpful but in the end because I was afraid of being evicted (wording from email included below) I simply said that we would not be moving out and would be finishing the holiday we had already paid for. I felt threatened by the emails we received from Unwind whilst staying and this did cause the family distress.

Unwind attempted to delay the deposit refund saying it would be inspected in the next week and our deposit assessed. At this point I mentioned Consumer & Business Services and the case number I had with them. Shortly after, an email was received that the refund was being processed. At this point I had already read the sole other review on this company and it seems that another person had a similar experience. I was very grateful for their review - but sadly I read it 1 booking too late.

We made the most of our time in Adelaide catching up with family and friends but the accommodation was most uncomfortable and as parents we were on edge and completely unable to relax all week.