Hen party shows up on man’s doorstep after renting new home in Bath

A man unpacking boxes in his new home answered the door to a cowboy-hat wearing hen party who had booked the property for the weekend.

Gary Temprell’s new house used to be listed as a holiday rental on Booking.com, which said the previous owner had not told them it had been sold.

Mr Temprell said he opened the door to a confused-looking woman in a pink cowboy hat and van full of six other pink and sparkly women behind her.

He said he tried to find the group another place to stay before they eventually had to leave “dejectedly”.

Mr Temprell, 60, said: “I was literally unpacking boxes about two days after moving in.

“I looked out of the window and there was a lady looking through the door.

“She was looking rather confused and I went outside and said “are you OK?’. And she said ‘are we at the right place? We’re booked here for the weekend’.

“I saw a van full of about six women all wearing pink cowboy hats and hen night T-shirts and I said ‘I’m really sorry but I moved in here a couple of weeks ago. The place has been sold and not rented out for a while’.”

The retired retail director thought it was a one-off and when he contacted the estate agent that had sold him the property, he was assured there were no further bookings.

But a week later a family arrived to celebrate a 16th birthday.

They tried to reach Booking.com but could not.

Mr Temprell said: “I said ‘if I were you I would just book a hotel. You’re not going to get anywhere with this tonight. Just don’t spoil her party’.

“And again I sent them off.”

When Mr Temprell later tried to reach Booking.com he found he could not speak to a person without a booking reference – so he booked his own home for a break next year.

“It gave me a 10% discount, which was lovely,” he said.

Even then he said he made no headway so he got in touch with the BBC and since then his home has been removed from the website.

Booking.com said: “When a property is listed on Booking.com, the owner is responsible for managing its availability and updating us on any closures or changes in ownership.

“Unfortunately in this case, this did not happen.

“We regret that our investigation and the removal of the listing took longer than our usual timeframe, and the difficulties in reaching our customer services team.

“Listings that are no longer available can be reported through our dedicated reporting portal.”