Dear Mary | 11 September 2010

Q. I recently rented a villa near Nice belonging to friends of a friend and did it without an agent, which was probably a mistake. A faulty pipe caused flooding on the lower ground floor. Four plumbers came in and out of the house over four days but still one of my sons had to sleep on the drawing room sofa for three nights; the bathroom of the main bedroom was out of action for two days, as were the pool loo and shower throughout our two week visit, during which time the whole of the house was pervaded with a pungent smell of damp. I had deposited £2,000 for breakages and a final clean, valued at £300. I left a note suggesting that, to compensate me for all the problems the owners would let me off the £300 for this ‘professional’ clean which, it turned out, would be undertaken by the gardener and his wife.