Holiday let, disrespectful guests.

I think you have to step back a bit and remember it is a business and not take things personally. We have three holiday lets originally a long coach house. Perhaps we are lucky but they always seem to be left immaculate. Even our cleaners are complementary about how they are left perhaps it’s because we live on site and make them welcome. Or perhaps its the home made afternoon tea. The only rule we have which must be obeyed is to relax and enjoy Yes the odd thing gets moved. We put it down to putting things out of the reach of tiny fingers or waggy tails

We had our "cleaning charge" refunded after our 17 person stay!
I couldn't believe it. The owner told me she pays the two cleaners for x hours anyway and the "cleaning charge" is used only if she has to bring in extra staff.

I thought this was a good way to go, personally. She said sometimes she needed as many as 3 or 4 extra cleaners for the changeover! She came to visit at checkout and had cleaners on "emergency standby". Obviously she didn't need them.

We have a holiday home and this is precisely why we don't want to let it out, though we could obviously make money from it. Even friends and relatives who have been staying don't always leave it in a good state.

In another Air bnb we rented in France for about a month the end of stay cleaning instructions were on two full sheets of laminated A4, on both sides. We had to clean the property from top to bottom - dusting, polishing, hoovering (including under the beds), washing hard floors and outside areas/outside furniture. Kitchen and bathroom to be keft immaculate. This guy clearly never wanted to bring in professional cleaners!

We recently stayed for a week in an apartment. The shower curtain fell down, an electrical socket in the kitchen was loose in the wall and risky to use, the lock on the common entrance door was tricky to open with the key and the small safe needed new batteries. The owner was miffed because I wouldn't rate it at 5 stars when I generously gave it 4.

I always leave where we stay immaculate. When I was a child my mum looked after 5 holiday lets and I often used to go with her to help on changeover days. I've never forgotten the state they were occasionally left in and saw how hard she had to work to get it ready. I know we pay a fair amount to stay in people's places, but I'm always grateful to walk into a beautiful clean home from home after a journey and leave it as we found it. To me is common courtesy and respect for other people's property.

We once arrived at an overseas holiday apartment (after a evening flight) to find wet towels thrown on the bathroom floor and no clean ones- and dirty dishes and mess in the dining area. The only thing clean was the tea towel! We think the previous occupiers had returned after their check out time, after it had been cleaned and serviced! Its the only time we booked a package deal- never again.

We stayed in a nice holiday home in France and the owners who lived nearby were very pleasant and helpful.
However, as we were leaving at the end of the holiday the owner came by. DH was actually swabbing out the large kitchen floor at the time as I was tidying but the owner had a conniption fit because we hadn’t polished the huge leather suite in the sitting room with the special leather polish - and then took 50 euros from our desposit for this. We had already paid the obligatory end of stay cleaning fee. (suite had not been mentioned in the house literature - we would have noticed!)
So we were going to give them a rather good bottle of single malt scotch as a thank you but DH immediately scooped it up and put in the car as we left.
I don’t get this at all if you’re still expected to clean, sometimes to a very high standard, as above, as well as pay an end of stay cleaning charge. So the property is left in a good state, no dirty dishes, everything wiped and swept with only the beds to be made (always stripped them and sometimes even put the linen on to wash) . You’re cleaning it for the next guest, who would also gave paid an end of stay cleaning fee as well as cleaning up. And so on. We find France is particularly bad for this.

58Treetops05 Great idea!

our ^ son

*wrecked

After finishing his A levels we said our could bring 10 friends to stay at our holiday home. The pool liner was recked because they played water pool all day!

Ive stayed in good and bad, 1 was so damp upstairs we dragged the mattress down and slept in the living room, and another where there were so many signs I felt I was on a motorway. We only ABNB'd once, in Holland. Non smoking end terrace, except the aunt 'caring' for the place smoked like a chimney. We were told we couldn't use the main bedroom as she was and had left her laundry throughout the house - clean and dirty. She also left her insulin in the fridge, intending to return daily to take it...and entered the house at least twice when we were out.

Wouldn't it be nice if GN'ers had a holiday letting page, so you know you're booking a lovely place and they know they are getting nice customers? We have an annexe, but my FinL is moving in with us soon and I'd thought about letting it for walkers...I think I've changed my mind.

sazz1 - maybe we could (and would) if we wanted to holiday in a caravan.

I like a property these days and in the past liked to camp.
Some of us only do a "significant" rental a few times ever... We were a family of 17 last time we rented a holiday property. We had our own private pool and each bedroom had its own bathroom. We had enough seating for everyone both inside and outside, an outdoor kitchen and barbecue area a pizza oven and a big garden to play in.
The house was immaculate.

Although I have spent years camping (and my childhood holidaying in a caravan) I don't think it would have been the holiday of our dreams in a caravan this last time!

It is not often that we do holiday rentals but when we do, the place is always left in a clean and tidy state.

As for the bedding, unless requested, we don't strip them but leave the bed linen turned down tidily so the bed can air. Sometimes we have stripped the bed - if we have time.

On a cruise ship DH works on, we strip the bed on the last day of the sea contact - cabin stewards are very pressed for time especially when it is a turnaround port. In between, we keep the cabin tidy so that our poor cabin steward can get his work done without hindrance. We have heard (Chief Housekeeper letting off steam) about the state of some of the cabins, including entitled people expecting cabin stewards to fold and put away clothes, pick up dirty underwear, etc.

We are always respectful of any place we stay in.

Some English neighbours had two large houses which they used to let (they've since retired back to England) Each house had a pool. After the tenants left they found that the pool was leaking and that the liner had been slashed.

M0nica

but I should have added, but you do have my sympathy. I had a flat I let out by the year, for several years and I had two lovely Irish boys as tenants one year. Completely unhouse trained. Back home their mammies made sure that their blue eyed boys never did anything for themselves.

They ruined the beds and bedding because it took them several months to getting round to buying bedlinen, burnt the bedside lampshades by letting the bulb touch the shade - and leaving it there, burnt out the grill on the cooker, forgetting to turn it off one night. All the hob handles melted in the heat and - as we discovered after we had paid back a small proportion of their deposit, the overnight grill incident also did damage to the consumer unit, the electrician doing the electrical checks before the next tenants discovered this and that had to be replaced and it cost over £500.
Tthe rest of my tenants were fine.

This reminds me of the house next door to us in Brixton. The first tenants were 4 medical students. As they completed their training and moved out they were superseded by trainee estate agents.

Both lots were appalling and probably did nothing around their own homes, looked after by mummy as you said. They put the rubbish sacks out after the dustmen had been which meant the local cats and dogs ripped the bags apart. They threw empty beer bottles out of the windows. One day they burnt a rubber backed carpet in the back garden along with empties and bottles and the usual domestic rubbish. At that point I complained to the council. I can't remember what happened.

When we rented a house in the French countryside, the agreement was x units on the electric meter was included in the rent, anything over was charged extra.
I have heard on MN of people charging electric cars and taking washing to be done and dried in holiday rentals, so I think a charge over reasonable use is perfectly reasonable.

That sounds awful. I often wonder with people like that what their homes are like and how they were bought up. Even when I stay in a hotel I tidy up before the cleaner comes in. As for stealing products from where you're staying again I would say down to upbringing and having respect for other people and their property!

Just a thought. If young children or children with disabilities were staying perhaps that's why matches, lighters, scissors, sharp knives etc were moved up higher.
Never stayed in a holiday let myself but had a touring caravan. By the sound of these prices after 4 or 5 holiday let stays you could have bought a second hand caravan in gd condition for the same price or cheaper.

Some years ago we rented a gite in Honfleur - 8 of us. As we were driving over the Pont Normandie we got a phone call from the couple who had arrived before us. Beds unmade and a heap of dirty be linen on the kitchen floor. BU this time it was after 5.00pm and we weren't sure what to do. In those days supermarkets didn't open on Sundays so we had little time to buy bed linen.

The owners were English and had provided 2 phone numbers, neither of which were answered. Just before we arrived two teen aged girls arrived with clean linen. They offered to make the beds up but we did ourselves.

This gite was for 8 people but there were only 4 outside chairs and an outside table which was about 1 meter in diameter. One day when we were eating lunch in the dining room the table started to collapse. We managed to stop it falling over and my DH (who used to be a furniture restorer) looked underneath and found broken parts which had been wedged in but were gradually coming adrift. The owners, when finally contacted, were quite offhand. There were other problems too.

Mizuna

My son was letting his flat as an (immaculate) Air BnB. The last people left it in a disgusting state. They were living in a van, travelling, and had obviously used his flat to wash everything they owned and had a dog whose fur was everywhere. The kitchen was filthy, grease all over the place. The carpet was full of unidentifiable dirt, the tablecloth saturated in some sort of oil. In a two night stay I can't imagine how they managed it. They turned the heating up to 30°, presumably to dry the clothes. Sadly it's put my son off letting it now although it was an income he needed.

When we rented a house in the French countryside, the agreement was x units on the electric meter was included in the rent, anything over was charged extra.

We don't stay in holiday lets as we are bondholders in an organisation which has properties in the UK and abroad. It used to be, maybe still is, advertised using Judith Chalmers as a spokesperson. We have never had any unreasonable demands about cleaning and, as we and other guests are 'members', we have never indulged in the type of behaviours I see described here. I hesitate to use the name of the organisation as this might be viewed as advertising - but I think if you look for Chalmers and holiday bond you might find it!

My family probably don’t put things back in the right place. Mainly because when we arrive we have to spend a long time looking for things. At the end of the holiday no one can remember who found what and where they found it. I just assume that the next people will do what we do and look in the logical places. I certainly can’t remember which glasses were in which cupboard.

I guess there will always be some guests who don't adhere to the basic rules of respect and courtesy. We have hired self-catering accommodation for about 50 years and always leave properties in good order. I used to be fanatical about cleaning when I left. The joke in our family was that Mum always leaves the holiday house on hands and knees going backwards out of the house, cleaning cloth in hand. I'm less fanatical about it now that old age has taken a grip. DDs regularly use AirB&B and have (almost) persuaded me that no cleaning is expected.