Clos de La Richaudière

This place has really gone downhill. This was our 5th visit to Clos de La Richaudiere but will be our last. The last time we visited was 2019 and Covid has got in the way since. The original owners sold up and retired during Covid and the site has a new owner. We knew things would have changed but assumed the new owners would have kept things similar on the basis it was always full and, for the peak season, you had to book months and months in advance. The first thing was communication. We heard nothing from the owners in the run up to our visit. The only communication was an email sent on the Saturday morning through Vrbo, asking what time we would arrive. As we were on the autoroute at the time, we didn't see that until after we had arrived. When we arrived, we eventually found a sign with the owner's number which we phoned. Got in and that was a reasonable start. We were staying in Villa Saule, we have stayed in this on all but one of our visits so we were very familar with how it was. The first thing that struck us was the general condition of the grounds / public areas. The small patios outside the doors of Villa Saule and Villa Chene were overgrown with ****s and dirty. Also the glass in the doors and windows did not look as if it had been cleaned in a long time. Between Saule and Chene there is a passageway which is part of the original building. This was full of dead flies and clearly a pigeon had been sleeping inside. The resultant mess was still all over the floor. When we got in, the place had been cleaned but it would be fair to say not very well. In the second bedroom, the wardrobe had a door missing. It was propped up on the first floor landing........ The top of the fridge freezer had half a pack of toffees and a broken door from the freezer in the dust on top. Curtains in the bedrooms were damaged and past their best. None of the bathrooms had any handwash in. This is a basic I would expect. The cupboard door in the downstairs toilet had clearly been damaged and was roughly screwed into place. When you went outside the main patio for the gite was filthy. Clearly had not been cleaned properly for a while. The plants in the surrounding beds looked unkept and plants were growing across the patio area. The driveway outside the gites was covered in ****s where it used to be pristine. I could hear something hiding in the ****s at night. Since we were last there there have been canvas awnings put up over patios. These were scruffy and covered in mildew. The barbeque had not been cleaned in some time and was still full of ash from the last time somebody used it. The pool used to be immaculate. Not any more. The glass cover was filthy with green mould or Algae on most of the panes of glass. The poolside had not been cleaned in some time. It was covered in dead insects and leaves. As the pool was never covered at night, there were lots of insects on the bottom of the pool too. Partway through the week a pool cleaner was used an