What little things annoy you in a holiday home?

[Callistone]

We're in a lovely holiday home at the moment, really nice decor, plenty of crockery and cutlery, a food cupboard of cool bags and beach rugs to help yourself too, definitely one to visit again.

However they have provided three dishwasher tablets and no spare bin bags. Hardly the end of the world but for the price of the rental I always get mildly irritated when they are so stingy with something inexpensive like dishwasher tablets. If it was me I'd just have them in stock like washing up liquid.

Anything irritate you?

Stucknoue me too! DH used to think I was mad for bunging in the Le Creuset casserole dish and two sharp knives but he ended up appreciating it!

We once stayed in a holiday cottage with the dc where there were 6 wine glasses but no ordinary glasses. The DC thought it was great drinking juice, squash etc out of wine glasses. Also, very oddly, plastic sheeting on all the dining chairs with notes about not removing it. We did't stay there again

When Ive stayed in self catering I invariably have to go and buy a mug for my tea. I cannot abide teeny 'mugs' that hold 2 teaspoons of fluid.

We have had knives that buckled under a cornish pasty in cornwall and no corkscrew in france. 1 thin blanket in scotland and no towels in Bridlington.
I really do wish people would stay in their properties themselves to see how others would fare with the provided utensils etc.

Cheap polyester duvets and pillows. I always wake up a sweaty horrible mess, which is especially bad if it's an early wake up, thanks to thin curtains! I am not fussy and can work around most things but I do want a comfy bed and good night's sleep!

Cheap cutlery. Mismatched and chipped crockery. Nylon sheets and poor quality mattresses.
We stayed in Wales last year and in the welcome pack she said she may come water the garden but would otherwise leave us alone. She showed up four times and twice when we weren’t there! Plus no cable or satellite. Too many rules how you can’t do this or that. Silly hand written notes everywhere.

I came on to say what @Scrowy did - I suspect that people don't just leave boxes of things as many guests feel "entitled" to trouser them - "they're charging enough" /"we've paid for it"/"they've factored it in to the price" etc

I'm chortling slightly at people not realising how poor WiFi coverage is out of the suburbs-we're 45 minutes drive from central London, Home Counties, and don't get 2g except on a really good day. We have WiFi but the only option is BT and you couldn't eg run a smart TV from it, or stream a film, even on the best day. Shock horror, a village down the road (c 3 miles), very desirable, much photographed... doesn't have WiFi at all. It's been what, twenty years since Blair promised "broadband Britain" lots of us are still waiting - and are very aware that there's WiFi and "WiFi"

Major extension being built on her other property directly behind, workmen starting at the crack of dawn. Drove me nuts.

A property we’ve stayed in several times is fabulous, but they redid the kitchen with tiled flooring but the grout is below the level of the tiles-huge trip hazard and collects every single crumb! They also moved all the hot drink making stuff eg kettle, cups etc to the opposite side of the kitchen to the sink and enormous cutlery drawer, so you go and get a spoon, go back to the kettle, see it’s empty, take it to the sink opposite, take it back to the other side. (The kitchen is vast) Bit bonkers.

YY to the scratched up non stick pans - and why are they always so small? You have to do pasta for a family in shifts!

Also yes to crappy small cups - and no teapot. But give me a nice big mug any day.

I always bring a corkscrew as half the time there isn't one.

I know there must be a lot of breakages, but do the wine glasses have to be those really cheap, thick-rimmed ones?

I too thought it was just me hating glass chopping boards !

Shit mattresses. With the amount some charge, I expect more than the shit blue bags of springs and pebbles that you get for £40 in Argos.

Just one pillow per person. And a shit foam one, to boot.

One small towel. Really?

No Salt & Pepper, broom/dustpan, binbags or washing up liquid/sponges/teatowels. I'd quite like to keep your investment property clean. And if you aren't going to provide a bathmat or enough towels for more than two handwashes, then don't lock the sodding mop up.

Books that look interesting, but are on a shelf about 8 foot up.

Probably all of this.

Insufficient kitchen equipment
Blunt knives
Small pans
Cheap frying pans which burn food
No wooden spoons
Not enough glasses, or the wrong sort
No first loo roll
Too-small double beds
Nylon sheets-the absolutely pits
Broken stuff
Stuff clearly not replaced
Dirt
Crappy, uncomfortable sofa.

Oh, glass chopping boards!! Yes. Just WHY is this a thing?

Ah, I have found my people. Have just come back from a holiday cottage which was absolutely beautiful, but fur coat, no knickers. Butler sink. Looked fab, but would have taken forever and mucho water to fill. Really needed a bowl in it. Round bowl type bathroom sink. Again, looked fab, but nowhere to put soap, handwash etc. No handwash provided. Or binliners, or cooking oil, salt and pepper. I have never been anywhere where there wasn't salt and pepper, even if just a cheap one! I realise every holiday home is different, but it would really help if they provided a list of what was there. I had given up carting salt and oil about, because it was always there, and when we left our house, it looked like we were leaving home! Also, if you are going to do stuff like switch the wifi off, and leave the car-parking permit somewhere unusual, a note to that effect will save me phoning you! I prefer somewhere with off-road parking, but generally find that this means staying out of the centre. This also has the advantage of making it quieter IME. And yes, you wonder if the owners have slept there!

Ooh yes, cupboards filled with every kitchen utensil know to man but no space to unpack food!

No kitchen roll
Glass chopping boards. Why?!!
Saying you've got WiFi when you mean there is WiFi if you stand on one leg in the bath with a saucepan on your head. If WiFi is crap at least say so!
Crappy wine glasses. Too small and grotty thick cheap glass, 50p each from Asda.
No plug near the bed for phone charging

No hooks on doors or a teapot

Small mugs

Lack of tea towels or cloths

We used to provide loads of products but people just left with them all. To be honest self catering is just that you provide for your self. They should just provide enough for the first night IMO.

Stayed in one place which was in 40 degree heat for most of the holiday. unless you didn’t want to see your sizeable deposit again, the place had to be spotless and gleaming. However, they didn’t provide any cleaning products.

Thin curtains.

Not enough towels.

Off road parking that is really tiny/difficult to access.

Lots of bathrooms, but none of the showers had anywhere to put shampoo, shower gel etc.

Nepresso coffe pod machine provided, but no pods. It also wasn't mentioned on the details, so we didn't bring any of our pods.

Like a PP, also stayed somewhere with loads of DVDs, but no DVD player.

Stayed somewhere many years ago (before food waste bins) where the owners expected everyone to use their composter for food waste. It was absolutely full of maggots, so we chucked everything in the bin.

And at the same time providing random stuff! (Do they just take stuff they don't want at home?) Our cottage included baking stuff, including those baking beans you blind-bake pastry cases with. I'm on holiday! and I wouldn't go that far at home anyway

Also yes to crappy sofas that sink, with ratty old itchy fabric.

Last summer we went to a holiday home from hell (in the US) due to a last minute cancellation at our usual place. The whole place stank of cigarettes and damp, the sofas I didn't dare sit on, the rooms and hallways gave off a Shining vibe with its 70s coral and mint bedspreads and furniture. Argh certainly much worse than 'little things that annoy you'!

Yes to blunt knives and glass chopping boards. Also, light bulbs, why don't the cleaners check? Not worth complaining about but so annoying!

Wally I can see how that would go, but do people really remove salt and pepper and oil? Can't imagine the appeal of taking a sticky oil bottle, them may well spill on the journey.

I also hate it when there’s one kitchen draw packed full of utensils, cutlery, random shite which has just been dumped in, no organisation.

I hate trawling through it to find a decent serving spoon or fish slice.

There’s always at least one thing that has gone rusty, or not been cleaned, makes me wonder what sort of germs are harbouring in the drawer of doom!

Carpet fleas. I went home from an otherwise lovely holiday cottage in Norfolk with badly bitten ankles and an unbreakable rule that I will NEVER AGAIN stay in a holiday let that allows dogs.

@OldJoseph, really you'd expect dogs to be allowed on the furniture and upstairs? Would you not then expect to pay an extra cleaning fee? Hosing of dog piss is a joke though.