Couple reports ant infestation at festival campsite cabin

Dagbladet reports that Sylvia Blomberg Møller and her husband found dead and live ants throughout a rental cabin at Saga Camping and Hytter in Treungen, Telemark. The campsite owner acknowledges that the cabin had not been properly cleaned.

The couple, who live in Nittedal, travelled for four and a half hours to attend the Treungenfestivalen with several friends. Møller said she had called the campsite a week before their stay to ask about kitchen equipment.

According to Møller, the owner then told her that the cabin they had booked had an ant infestation and that they would instead be given a better one. When they arrived, however, they were told to stay in the original cabin.

Møller said the cabin was dirty, with dead and live ants scattered throughout it. The couple used paper cups, slept on a mattress topper they had brought with them and did not use any of the cabin’s facilities.

“It was absolutely awful,” Møller told Dagbladet.

Owner Arve Aarak said the cabin had previously had problems with forest ants. He said the couple had been informed about this and that the ants were thought to have been killed by strong insecticide before their arrival.

“We did not have time to clean the cabin completely, and that was not good,” Aarak wrote in a text message to Dagbladet.

Møller and her husband questioned why they were placed in the affected cabin rather than the one described as better. They said the other cabin appeared to remain empty during their stay.

Aarak disputed that account. He told Telemarksavisa that the larger cabin had been rented to a wheelchair user. He also said he did not hear from the couple during the four days they stayed at the campsite.

“They could have told us that ants had returned during their stay, and they would have been given a new cabin,” Aarak wrote.

He added that a woman with a dog stayed in the cabin after the couple left and saw only four or five ants. According to Aarak, she was satisfied with her stay.

Møller said she and her husband were left puzzled by the situation. She also criticised what she described as high prices for the cabins, while stressing that they had a positive experience at the festival itself.

Aarak said the campsite has charged double prices for its cabins during the festival weekend for many years. “Here, 99.9 percent of guests are satisfied,” he wrote to Dagbladet.