The holidaymakers next door

[mindutopia]

Just a rant really, I know I’m not being at all unreasonable. We live in a very rural area that is somewhere people like to visit. It’s pretty and remote and lovely. The only house within about a mile or more is a holiday let. Owners are lovely and actually bought the property back that their grandparents used to own 60 years ago. We have no issues with them. We also have no issues with 95% of their guests. They are usually very quiet and respectful and all that.

We had a family arrive yesterday for the week, with a 5 & 10 year old (we have a 4 & 9 year old, so great we thought!). They came over to play yesterday afternoon, fine.

I woke up this morning to their 5 year old in our lounge (we have like 5 doors, it’s a big old farmhouse, we don’t lock them usually at night as literally no one bothers us down here). I returned him to his family.

They attempted to come over several times today but I sent them back as we were having an Easter egg hunt in the garden and also having lunch. They finally came over again in the afternoon (I was in the house tidying up after lunch). We live on a farm so I can’t really see much from the kitchen, or else if I’d seen them, I would have intervened.

The 5 year old got into our chicken pen, let all the chickens out, threw about £5 worth of food and grit everywhere, and then appeared in my lounge (I was tidying up toys) and chucked 4 eggs on the floor (thankfully didn’t break!). I’m over it.

I only discovered the chickens let out (for foxes to eat) and food thrown everywhere just now as I went to tidy up outside for the evening. I went to knock on holiday let’s door but was dark inside downstairs and I could hear kids in bathroom upstairs so they are obviously doing bath and bedtime now.

I’ll speak with them tomorrow, but I just needed to rant. We’ve had so many people traveling to our lovely part of the country the past couple years and it does provide income for many local people (not Dh and I, we work in careers totally unrelated to tourism). But these are the first CF we’ve had in a long time and it just irritates me. Every time I’ve returned their children to them, they’ve just been in the kitchen, drinking, and oblivious. We had a bonfire burning today. We have a river with deep fast flowing water. We also had our puppy out this afternoon, who is lovely but very big and jumpy, which is why we are careful to only have her off lead on our own farm. She definitely could have injured one on these kids in excitement if we hadn’t known they were wondering around our land. And also just the damage and expense to our livestock. I’ve had to clean out the duck and chicken houses because they filled them with pellets and they can choke without access to water. They’re here 5 more days! I will go have a word in the morning, but in the meantime, just arghhhh!

Lots of private land signs.

What about this one?

I'd go back again and nip it in the bud now firmly and say what you've said here.

@Bunnybingesoneggs It’s very obviously private land. They have to come through a gate, past our house, through our garden to access the farm. However, I’m pretty sure the 5 year old I found in my lounge at 8am this morning can’t read. 😂 I would assume his parents should be awake and supervising him.

I’d go and knock now, otherwise you’ll have a breakfast guest.

Just lock your doors like normal folk do !

They are beyond lucky he came to no harm.

Do they think you are part of the holiday entertainment since you invited them around on the first day? Yanbu

Contact the owners and tell them that their guests are an absolute nuisance.

State clearly that they are allowing very young unsupervised children wander around your property.

They are CF and you need to tell the owners that their guests need telling to respect your property.

If that 5 year old fell into the water it would be your responsibility as it's on your land, when it really isn't your responsibility.

Don't allow this to continue.

billy1966 it wouldn't be op who would be responsible it would be on the parents.

Oh god, that does sound terrible! Do you think there's any chance they somehow think their holiday let is allowed access to your farm?

Although, TBF even if it was, adult supervision would be required around livestock/animals & the river. And there could be no misunderstanding that your lounge was part of their property .

Hopefully they will go on long days out for the rest of their stay.

I have locked all the doors on that side of the house tonight, but yes, will go back to speak to them in them morning. It’s just the whole thing about letting them wander without supervision. The older girl is lovely and was really respectful when I said she couldn’t come over while we were having lunch. But the 5 year old is something else entirely. I suspect he probably had SEN (he isn’t very verbal), which is fine, but obviously all 5 year olds need supervision and shouldn’t wander around random places. But especially it seems like he probably really needs supervision as I’m not really sure how much he understands what I’m asking him not to do. And perhaps isn’t as easily able to assess if something is safe or not. My dc obviously know now to do things (like run in front of a tractor or through themselves in the river), but it’s hard to know if other children are the same and especially if they have SEN. I’ve literally never even met the parents except for them I shoved their dc back to them yesterday as they were all in the house drinking.

Next time an unknown 5 year old appears in your home, I’d suggest considering phoning social services to be honest.

Reading the op had my heart in my mouth. Farms are extremely dangerous places for many reasons (I live on one and spend enormous amounts of time educating my children on being safe). Anything could happen to those children and no matter who's fault it would be devastating. The parents of the children would definitely need to buck up their ideas.

My house is one of 3 properties which used to form a farm but were split about 7 years ago.

The previous owners used the farmhouse as a guest house, lived in our little cottage and had a barn conversion as a bunk house (now lived in). They had keysafes on both properties with the same code that no one has ever bothered to change. The properties do not look a like (2 storey farm house rendered and painted with front porch, single storey barn conversion with original stone work, no porch also very very different inside).

So, barn conversion neighbours were Airbnbing their spare room. On this occasion farmhouse neighbours were away, Airbnb guests arrived late in evening, and having been informed of the keysafe code just incase they arrived when hosts were out, let themselves into the house that looked nothing like the one they had booked, sat in front of the massive Inglenook not featured in the pictures of the Airbnb, admired the Aga, not a feature in the Airbnb profile, then took themselves off to bed.

Next morning on going outside in the daylight they saw the barn conversion, realised they had been in the wrong house, and were found by barn neighbours looking a little embarrassed.

I swear some tourists leave a part of their brain at home when they come away on holiday.

Thanks all, I have calmed down and feel a bit less ranty. I’ve messaged the holiday let owners and asked them to deal with it. As it’s their issue ultimately to handle as they are the ones making like £1500 off them this week.

@Bananarama21

billy1966 it wouldn't be op who would be responsible it would be on the parents.

Of course it would. But if a child was injured or killed on my property I would feel a huge responsibility.

The parents are idiots. Apart from reading them the riot act, I think you should contact the owners of the property and ask that they add information online and in their in house literature that surrounding farms are private properties and unsafe to enter for unsupervised children.

I don’t understand why you had them to play - I wouldn’t start all that with guests tbh.
And when he was in your lounge that was your reading the riot act moment surely?

Telling the owners the right course I think - they can ensure they don't take any future bookings off these numskulls.

@mindutopia

Thanks all, I have calmed down and feel a bit less ranty. I’ve messaged the holiday let owners and asked them to deal with it. As it’s their issue ultimately to handle as they are the ones making like £1500 off them this week.

OP, you have done the right thing. They should be telling any prospective guests that yours is private property, a farm and absolutely not to be wandered on to.

You need to protect yourself here, particularly where there is water, not to mind farm machinery.

I presume you have good public liability as part of your property insurance.

If you are not sure, you should check.
It is a fairly normal part of house insurance I think.

I think the mistake was you inviting the kids in to play. All you need is a review online, written by the current guests saying how welcoming you were to their kids, and you're fucked.

@LemonViolet

Next time an unknown 5 year old appears in your home, I’d suggest considering phoning social services to be honest.

This. That'll focus the parents ' minds.

@ENoeuf Because it’s the only house for miles and families often come to stay during the school holidays and I’m totally happy to have kids over to play. My dc enjoy it and I know having gone on holiday, it’s fun to make friends and have someone to play with. No issue with that.

But I would never let my dc wander around unsupervised in a random place. We had a chat with them yesterday afternoon, said happy for them to come over to play in the garden. I don’t think (I mean maybe I’m just not an asshole!) that implies we are providing childcare for them for the rest of their stay. Totally fine to come over and play if parents accompany them and ask if it’s okay and until what time. Totally not okay to just send them off roaming into our lounge or our livestock pens or generally roaming about. We were moving turf around with the tractor this afternoon and Dh is very cautious, but we totally could have just run the little one over!

The owners have been back in touch and were super apologetic (they’re so lovely), so hopefully they’ll just sort it. And I won’t have to unleash my rage tomorrow. 😂

@LemonViolet I mean to be fair, that sounds great and all, but I can’t give their names (I know the dc’s first names) or their address. I can’t imagine our local authority would be at all interested in annoying roaming holidaymakers.

I think you’ve given mixed messages then. They’ve sent the kids over on the back of your offer - did you explicitly spell out the dangers of farms because not everyone will have the first idea.