I notice in 2011 Acanthus promised to improve their customer service. Sadly this hasn't happened as we have been extremely unhappy about our dealings with them this October. We rented an excellent property in Pier Avenue, Southwold. When we picked the key up from Acanthus we remarked on the roadworks outside the property and along the road. We were told that the road works were British Gas and Acanthus could do nothing about this. Obviously we accepted this. But when we asked why we weren't told about this we were informed the roadworks had only been there for a week. We knew this to be untrue as they had been there three weeks previous when we visited the town. We were then told that in all likelihood they would be finished and filled in the following day. A week later they were still there and looked like being there for some time. At no time did Acanthus apologise for the inconvenience or offer any rebate. On the Tuesday we had to make ourselves available so that the workers could access the property to re-fire the boiler, having turned the gas off during the day. We had no success in trying to contact Acanthus and had no knowledge of where the boiler was. It turned out to be in the loft. The only number we had for Acanthus was for emergencies only. We pointed all this out to Acanthus who obviously had no interest and just told us in an aggressive manner that it wasn't their fault and that they weren't aware of what was going on outside their properties as they didn't visit them regularly. We suggested that they should. A simple apology for inconvenience and some pleasantness would have helped. The roadworks caused inconvenience to a number of visitors we had during the week. If we had been aware of this we would possibly have considered renting another property but we weren't given this option due to lack of information. Almost one month after our holiday we hadn't received our deposit back. We contacted Acanthus who informed us that a cheque had been sent but they would check on this. A few days later a cheque arrived, suggesting none had ever been sent. We certainly wouldn't use this company again or recommend them to anybody. It is difficult to see just what they do for their fees! read more

We had a very bad experience with Acanthus in June 2011. My partner used there services 2 years ago and there were no problems whatsoever. Not so this time around. We stayed at the Blue Cottage in Southwold and the advertising for the property mentioned that there was a toilet/bathroom but did not mention that it was an en suite bathroom which meant we had guests walking through our bedroom in the middle of the night. In addition, the property wasn't cleaned properly so four of us used 2 hours to make the place look presentable. When Acanthus finally did call us after we left repeated messages on their answering machine they said that they would change the advertising about the bathroom but weren't exactly helpful regarding the cleaning. They sent cleaners over 2 days into our vacation but the place had already been cleaned at that point. Our complaints feel on deaf hears there were other problems as well. Acanthus suggested we talk to the owners of the property and wouldn't take any responsibility whatsoever. We were very dissatisfied to say the least read more