Dean

Jan 14, 2025

Bed bugs and no air-conditioning!

We hired a Jucy 6 berth motor home for our family of 4 to drive down the Qld coast. We had issues with the vehicle from day 1 and noticed beetles and small bugs in the overcab bed and around the kitchen table fold-out bed on night 1. Initially we didn't think too much of it and just removed the bugs and searched around all the beds - removing all the beetles we found. In the mean time we had the following problems: - AC issues (we sweltered through drives) - Cruise control not working intermittently - Cabin door lock not working - Toaster and cook top smoking - so we could not cook inside - Toilet door loose and opening when turning/driving Then a few days into our trip, we came out in bites and skin rashes and had to get medical attention and creams to treat ourselves for bed bugs / beetle allergies. We again searched the motor home and found more beetle larvae and beetles that we photographed and removed. Throughout our journey we reported all of our issues, but Jucy was unable to coordinate repairs / cleaning or replacement due to a number of public holidays and a long weekend. They expected us to travel hours out of our way, to sacrifice a day of travel to facilitate repairs after the weekend, but we were on a tight schedule to drive 1000s of kms over 5 days and would have missed our flight. They were not willing to have a technician meet us on site at a stop over. We considered staying in a hotel, but had already paid so much money for the motor home and caravan park sites that we decided to squash onto the lower beds and barely slept. My kids cried one night because they were worried about getting more bug bites. Jucy initially were very empathetic and promised a refund for our inconvenience and I would honestly say trauma. We also incurred costs of a few hundred $$$ in creams and Dr bills. We then spent 2 full days laundering everything we owned the day before our flight, instead of enjoying our last night in Brisbane and the day we arrived home. We continued to use creams for 3 months. It was a horrible experience to ensure we rid ourselves of the bed bugs / beetles. We then emailed Jucy over a 4 month period, as they periodically disengaged and eventually just stopped replying to our requests for updates on our complaint. Months later after countless calls and emails and promises a manager would call us, the calls never came. The last reply stated we should have reported the issues during our trip and nothing could be proven - they essentially called us liars. This is despite reporting our issues at the time and on return - over and over to customer service and them promising our issues were logged. It's been exhausting and a terrible and expensive experience that we just want to forget. Getting no compensation for a holiday ruined, bed bugs / skin irritation, medical costs and trauma on the side is a real slap in the face from Jucy. There lack of action and response and dismissal of our complaint is negligent. I do not recommend you hire a Jucy rental if you want to have an enjoyable and trouble free (bugs free) holiday!