If you own a holiday cottage

[Twospaniels]

If you own a holiday cottage please pack a bag and go and stay in it for at least 4 nights.

We have stayed in many holiday cottages around the UK and every time there are niggly things missing or broken or unsuitable.

For instance, this week we are in a cottage. There is a bedroom and full bathroom upstairs, a bedroom and loo with sink downstairs. There are no mirrors! Not even in the bathroom! We had to pop to the supermarket to buy a small one to use. Also no socket for shavers or electric toothbrushes.

In the kitchen there are no sharp knives. Luckily we brought a couple with us as often knives in holiday cottages are poor quality and/or blunt.

This is a dog friendly cottage but there is no hose on the outside tap for washing mud off the dog.

Basic things are ofeten missing which could easily be remedied if the owner went and stayed in their property for a few days.

I don’t have a socket at home in my bathroom. Is that a normal thing?

daisy There should be a shaver socket which are also used for electric toothbrushes. (Not a standard 3 pin one which would be dangerous.)

I don’t have a shaver socket, no.

We have a gite in France. In order to get the star rating we had to be inspected and comply with a huge list of requirements- and absolutely everything was counted: number of mixing bowls, did we have a salad spinner, pressure cooker, pie dish, bedside lights/tables, shaver socket, quality of curtains ( they have to be lined or you have to have shutters) exact amount of floor area in bedrooms per person- pages of it.

We passed and get excellent reviews- but we are on site and do use the cottage ourselves.
Oh, and although DH is 6'4, there are footboards on the beds - king size but made extra long!

Oh yes! And if you are going to allow toddlers/babies and are going to provide a cot then could you provide a high chair as well? They are only £15 from IKEA and make a huge difference. Went to a cottage recently which didnt have one. So I brought DDs portable high chair which straps on to a regular chair. Except they did not have a regular chair in the house. They had benches at the dining table.

”The sharp knives thing could be because people might stab people or cut themselves and make a fuss. So I can understand that one.”

Or skin them alive with the potato peeler!

We don’t have any mirrors in our bathroom. Nor do we use our shaver socket. We don’t have a dog either. And we prefer to eat out when away. I don’t think it would have been much use if we owned the holiday cottage you stayed in.

Feedback is wasted on some hosts. We've stayed twice in a cottage in the lakes where guests have written the same feedback year after year and it's ignored. No rack for drying wet clothes, for example. Same with a cottage near York, where the drop leaf table is broken so you can't put it up. Why ask guests for feedback and then ignore it?