Gray Haven is a spacious 3 storey property in a quiet residential area five minutes walk from the centre of Whitby. Four double bedrooms, spacious and comfortable lounge area, dining area with enough space for a large family (there were 8 of us), fully equipped kitchen, family bathroom with shower and bath, en-suite to the master bedroom and a fully equipped kitchen. A great property sympathetically modernised to rental/holiday home standards. Whitby is an extremely popular destination and commands high holiday rental prices. It’s not especially cheap in high season so you expect very high standards for your outlay and rightly so. It’s a great house but does need some TKC in areas and the standards of cleaning when we arrived were sadly lacking in the important areas. The house was generally very clean though we got the feeling that the pre arrival cleaning had been rushed. You expect a little damp in a house if this age and the odd bit of staining here and there. Full mound growth in the kitchen was unfortunately missed by the cleaning contractor -large areas of FURRY mound to boot-and the toilet pipe was loose leading to a flooded toilet in the first flush. It took a while to locate the problem (fixed by us) and 8 of us had to use the en-suite for the first three days. Annoying. We couldn’t get the heating to work to air the property (it was very warm the week we were there but the house felt and smelt damp especially in the kitchen and dining area)…cue mound growth. It was only on leaving that a plumber arrived dead on the 10am kick out time (unnecessarily early in our view-the next customers not due to arrive until 4…6 hours to prepare? Is that necessary or actually a good deal when paying top dollar Host & Stay?) that we were told that he had come to fix the boiler which had been switched off. We either got hot water or heating but not both!!! Really? This is not acceptable. It is neither fair to paying clients or good value for money. Fresh sticky ham on the bannister could have been a toddlers farewell (we all have kids) but again it was not cleaned or found as was the gift down the back of a bedside cabinet. The used condom thankfully turned out to be a flesh coloured balloon but still should have been found and removed. This sounds like rant. It’s not. It’s fair comment. It costs a lot to take 8 people away for 4 days and hard work by us to afford the trip should mean hard and diligent cleaning prior to arrival. Gray Haven should be magnificent. It’s a quality house but it was let down as the basics were not attended to properly.