Basil Fawlty of the caravan park
Don’t rent them to people who haven’t got a job or had a bath, boss tells owners
THE boss of an upmarket holiday park has been likened to Basil Fawlty after complaining about caravan owners subletting to what the fictional hotelier would have deemed ‘riff-raff ’.
Aaron Scantlebury said some guests were like the Addams Family, while others were in need of a bath.
He accused them of turning Sunnyvale Caravan Park, near Rhyl in North Wales, into Benidorm.
However, his rant to residents on a private Facebook page went viral after being shared on a national holiday park forum.
It has led to him being compared to the misanthropic snob, played by John Cleese in the Seventies BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers, who
‘A buggy with a child of ten in it’
famously put ‘No riff-raff’ in his hotel adverts. Mr Scantlebury, 56, whose park is rated highly on Tripadvisor, said that while the vast majority of owners had sublet their caravans through the site’s system, a ‘tiny number’ were renting out at low prices to ‘guests who do not belong on Sunnyvale’.
He wrote: ‘It is for the most part the same subletters renting out to the same types of people. We are seeing increasing numbers of sublet guests who have never seen hills, beaches, a job, or a bath for that matter, in some time.
‘You will have no doubt seen them pushing their buggies with a child of ten sat in it, being pushed by nana in her paper-thin leggings with at least three of the ten children walking in the road while the adults are busy concentrating on not spilling a drop of Fosters from the can in hand. They usually speak in (un)intelligible tongues and very loudly, making sure their parenting skills can be heard, with comments like, “Shut up Chantelle or you won’t get an effing ice cream”.’
He complained that the ‘Addams Family’ types create a trail of antisocial behaviour, ending in rows and the police being called.
Commenters accused Mr Scantlebury of being ‘condescending’, ‘absolutely disgusting’ and ‘extremely unprofessional’.
One said: ‘He is a modern day Basil Fawlty.’ But another said that although the remarks were rude ‘we’ve all met that type of family’. Mr Scantlebury defended his comments, saying they were ‘tongue in cheek’. Since making his remarks, sub-letting complaints had disappeared, he said.
‘We are a quiet park with no nightclubs or arcades, and residents want to keep it that way.’