Holiday let Owners, help me please?

[Ickythumpego]

Hi, Any holiday let owners available it would be great to have some advice. We are renting out a property for the 1st time.

We rented it out for holiday lets over the summer and have had great reviews until this week. Its the 3rd week of August- which is peak week here. Our house is beautiful but not without faults, so we lowered our price by at least €1000 per week compared to others in the area for the whole of August. We made everything very clear in the booking.

This weeks guests have been messaging with questions/ compalints since they booked. To be honest, I was surprised they kept the reservation because they seemed so upset/ unhappy before arriving. I hoped they would see it and fall in love... not so.

Its only Monday.... So far they couldn't find the coffee spoons at 1030pm on Sat night. They wanted me to come over and look for them. I told them where they were... they couldn't find them. I said if they genuinely couldnt find them, and they wanted to buy some, I would fully reimburse them. They weren't happy.

Sunday morning more complaints about coffee spoons. I explained where they were. They couldn't find them.

Monday, they have broken an new dishwasher. Apparently it wasnt them. However, we video'd the appartment before they checked in and it was all good. We came over, no "Hello", very poor manners. I gave them extra coffee spoons- no thanks!

My husband fixed the machine. Simply it had been put on some weird setting. We explained again how to opperate it. They didnt like that, so told us they had found the kitchen filthy- again we have video evidence. I was polite and didnt argue, as I wanted to double check the video.

At the same time, they had SO MUCH trash in the house. Multiple full bin bags!

I feel like chucking them out if they dare complain about anything.

Please, some wise person, tell me how to get these people on side. I did leave a welcome bottle of wine, freezer with ice creams and bought ice cubes.... no thanks... I have done everything they ask and more. For less than my competitors.

Help!

[Seeingadistance]

When I was a teenager my mother did holiday lets in our farm cottages. Some people are just moaning faced arseholes, unfortunately.

[isseywith4vampirecats]

these sound like they are lining up for a refund and will probably use feedback as a weapon and will probably leave the place in a right state

[areallthenamesusedup]

we do holiday lets....some people are nightmares...I had a complaint the king-sized bed was too small....guess what...its the size of a king sized bed.....anyway, keep doing what you are doing but do not worry about a negative review....if you get one, just answer it honestly....i think most people who see a negative review in amongst good reviews just know some people are idiots.

[NachoNachoMan]

I'm sorry you've got shit people in your accommodation. I'm sure for every shit group there is 99 fab ones.
Am I correct in assuming you're not in the UK? (As you used € not £)
I agree you've done the right thing by videoing beforehand to show how clean it was, have you got previous positive reviews from guests? Or could you email some with a feedback form or something? So you've got some evidence if they try to claim the money back from you.
Did you let it out through an agency? They may be able to offer advice. I'm not sure on the laws in other countries, but in the UK people can go to a small claims court to get their money back, or if they paid with a credit card, have protection through that. Hopefully it won't come to that, but if it does you can be prepared with positive reviews and video/photo evidence which will show the times & dates they were created.
I hope you've had no more issues today

[NachoNachoMan]

P.S. I don't run a holiday let or anything like it, and hoping my comment will bump it so someone with experience can offer some advice

[Lonecatwithkitten]

Used to have holiday let some people will moan about anything and some people will break anything.
Client complain the kitchen was insufficiently equipped from proper cooking and had no real casserole dish - I would live there sometimes in the winter with my daughter the only thing that there wasn't was pans to bake cakes and the casserole dish was Pyrex.
It was a seaside location guests were politely asked to rinse swimming costumes in the kitchen sink the first sink you came to in the house. No these guests had to rinse them in the bathroom sink which was a third of the size, when the flip plug wouldn't close easily due to the sand grains they forced it closed for it never to reopen again and have to be replaced.
Finally the guests who complained that the bed linen was too good quality as they wanted to apply fake tan overnight and would ruin the bed linen.
Just refuse repeat business from the crazy people ( though they mostly won't come back) and build the repeat from the lovely people. Soon you will be full with lovely people who enjoy your beautiful house.

[SunshineChatter]

Question for holiday let owners: what do you do with things left behind? Because posting them back wouldn't be cheap...