I want some bin bags and dishwasher tablets - tight arse holiday self catering company

[Pancakeflipper]

Booked a holiday apartment over looking the bay in Wales. Paid over £2k for the week. But has the sea view, parking, balcony.

Apartment is lovely. Very mod cons.

But I'm slightly narked and still narrowing my eyes whenever I walk to the kitchen area....

We are here for a week.
The company renting it out left a bottle of wine.
They left 3 dish washer tablets.

No washing up liquid.
No bin bags.
The shower was full of sand and we found finger and toes nails on the rug in the lounge.
Pillow cases stained.

I think it's cost cutting tightness. And they expect us to leave it sparkling (there is also no surface cleaner)..

Had to go out and buy the bin bags, washing liquid and cleaner.

We stay regularly in holiday homes (have a DC who has medical needs - this makes it easier for both them and me). Never had this tightness.

Have you asked why it wasn't cleaned prior to arrival?

I hope you took photos of the shower, rug and pillowcase and contacted them.

Am in Spain in a villa, cost £4k, no soap, no cleaning/washing/dish cleaner, no bin bags, not even a dust pan and brush. There’s just a sheet on each mattress and then another sheet on top. I’ve emailed the management company with a list and told ‘it’s self catering and rural, what do you expect”!
A whole new level of tightness this year! Grates doesn’t it. But what can we do.

That’s gross. I’d have contacted them and asked them to come and clean and provide clean pillowcases. Or a significant refund

I think the dishwasher tablets is standard from experience but they’ve usually left bags and a small washing up liquid!

Wow! They can’t expect you to take your own dustpan surely!!!

Oh my eyes would be super narrow with tutting involved. We have a brush here but no little dust pan and brush.

About the cleaning - thankfully most of the apartment was ok (main concern the room for 1 of the DC). I have emailed the company - weekend only doing emergency stuff.

The washing up liquid, bin bags and dishwasher tablets are tight.

But what would irritate me more is toe/finger nails and sand in shower.

I always take a small container of washing up liquid, dishwasher tablets, detergent for the washing machine and loo paper with me. You just don’t know what you are going to get. Very often all these things are there but they usually count out 1 dishwasher tablet per day.

Don’t accept a dirty property - complain until they come back and clean it.
I’m currently staying at our holiday let (South Wales overlooking a gorgeous bay with balcony and parking and far less than £2k per week 😊) and it’s nicer than my home, because that’s what I want on holiday - a bit of comfort and luxury after a day on the beach. The clean done before our arrival wasn’t up to scratch so the cleaners have been back and are in no doubt of my expectations.
Fairy Liquid, dishwasher tablets bin bags etc are provided but people seem to top them up anyway. I also provide basic groceries such as cooking oils/tea/salt etc.
We were with an agency and they didn’t give a * about the property, owner or the customers so we’ve ditched them. I’d rather manage my own asset so that I know it’s being looked after.

Me and friends rented a huge (12 bedroom 18 toilet)mansion type place for 20 of us for a weekend. There was one loo roll in each loo. No cleaning spray. No dishcloths. One little half bottle of supercheap washing up liquid that I think the last people left. We had paid a bomb.

We’ve just left a ‘sleeps 8’ where they provided a tiny tube of washing up liquid - I mean, how much does a bottle of Fairy cost? Or even a cheaper Tesco equivalent?

Also the one supposedly non stick frying pan was absolutely no longer non-stick, and the other wasn’t even compatible with the induction hob. So the big batch of pancake batter made by dd had to wait until we’d bought a proper non stick pan.

And there was no implement, the thing I call a lifter-upper - for removing e.g. a fried egg from the pan. Another thing we had to buy.

The property was generally well furnished and equipped, and certainly wasn’t cheap, so these small tightnesses do rather grate.

We run a holiday let and leave, 7 DW tablets, WU liquid, hand soaps by every sink, surface spray, a sponge, washing powder, a roll of bin bags, a welcome pack with biscuits, choc, coffee, tea plus salt, pepper, oil and a pint of milk.

We've changed to new cleaners this season and are now getting 5* reviews at last. The cleaning is the most important thing to guests and the little extras, mean so much.
When we travel abroad I take DW tablets and washing powder as I'm not buying big boxes to then leave behind! I always compare other people's holiday lets to ours. We've put a great deal of thought and regularly stay, so know what's needed, to make it a home from home.

Agree, some places are tight!!!

It should be clean.

i’ve been going on self catering holidays since the 1980s and I now have a bag of stuff I always take including bin bags, washing up liquid, dishwasher tabs and laundry tabs. Plus pegs. So many places have drying racks or a line but no bloody pegs.

Should be clean but I’d never assume washing up liquid etc will be provided , we take a few bits from home like foil , laundry tablets and dishwasher tablets and pick up a cheap washing up liquid when we go grocery shopping

dirty accommodation is unacceptable, regardless of the cost imo.
But things like dishwasher tablets, washing up liquid etc, some places leave you enough to get you through the first day or two and then expect that you’ve had to go to the shop by then for any supplies anyway so presume that you’ve picked things up.
I do think they should just be left but some people are skanks and would just take home any excess of stuff that was provided because ‘they’ve paid for it’ so from an owners perspective it’s easier for them to just not bother.

Dirty accommodation is unacceptable and you should get them to send out a cleaner to fix that asap. We self cater a lot and how much supplies are left varies so much between properties. In my experience the properties that provide a full size bottle of washing up liquid, surface spray, plenty of dishwasher tablets and a basic cleaning kit tend to be cleaner overall than the places that provide nothing. Having a starter kit is perfectly normal though, and if staying there a week I'd definitely expect to have to buy more loo roll.

I have a holiday let. I leave bin bags, tea, coffee, fresh milk, salt pepper, toilet paper, washing up liquid and tabs for the machines. Tea towels, oven gloves, vacuum cleaner… However we do find people take stuff too - if many more do it I’m not providing them anymore.
We used to do a welcome basket of jam and biscuits /cake as well as the milk but people didn’t eat them.

At over £2k I expect washing up.liquid or enough dishwasher tablets for the week and bin liners. If want a clean property leaving then they need to provide a few basics.

I usually do take some dishwasher tablets but it was mad rush packing and I forgot lots of bits. Had to get coffee as soon as we got here - cant believe I forgot that..

It’s a complete lottery as to what you’ll find!

We’ve just arrived in our Italian Agriturismo place and I’m glad I brought:
handwash
plenty of toilet roll
bin bags (compostable)
ice cube bags (had some at home)
microfibre cloth and sponge
mozzie candles
oil, pepper, herbs (there was salt).

I’m also relieved I brought picnic cutlery as there are only 2 table knives!!! Plenty of crockery and loads of tea towels though…

We're just back from a week self catering, and it was the first time we didn't have to top up loo rolls etc. It cost £3k and we had loads of supplies, dishwasher/laundry tabs, tea, coffee, milk, bread, crisps, wine, eggs, tin foil, cling film, kitchen roll, cleaning stuff, loads of glasses cups etc, - even dog treats. Made such a difference to the holiday

I have a large holiday let and leave pretty much everything. Guests seem to appreciate it, and considering what they are paying it really doesn’t cost much. Nothing gets taken and if anything some things, such as teaspoons and corkscrews seem to breed, not doubt because guests bring their own and forget to take them home.

I really do think it’s tight not to provide things, and it immediately puts guests’ backs up. I remember staying in a house in Devon with super fierce instructions as to how it had to be left, yet the vacuum was broken as was the dishwasher (and full of dirty crockery) and nothing to clean with. And as it had been booked direct with owner there was no way to complain, as they definitely didn’t care.

I want my guests to arrive and relax, not stress about mundane but important bits and bobs.

I hear you OP! You expect it when staying on a caravan park, but generally not when staying in a holiday cottage. We just got back from one that only provided 3 dishwasher tablets for a week and no spare bin bags and I was 🙄. We stay in a few Airbnbs etc a year and have never seen such tightness before.

It will backfire on them anyway. I didn’t think I’d need to bring dishwasher tablets and refused to buy any as I have plenty at home anyway, so just used a squirt of washing up liquid in the dishwasher each time after the tablets had been used up. Probably not great for their machine but what do they expect?

The same with the bin liners. The shape and size of their bin was completely different to ours at home so I refused to buy a whole roll I wouldn’t get the benefit of. So when the only bin bag was full I emptied it then put waste directly in the bottom of the kitchen bin. Did empty that into the wheelie bin also on the last day but it will need a thorough clean out as it didn’t have a liner in.

So their tightarse penny pinching might cause them more expense in the long run with damage to the dishwasher needing it to be replaced sooner and the cleaner needing to spend extra time cleaning the kitchen bin out as there were no more liners.

We did a week in Wales earlier this year. One toilet roll for each bathroom - cheap thin rubbish as well, three dishwasher tablets and no spare big bags. And the frying pan was fit for the bin, the non-stick coating peeling off. There was a nice selection of brew tackle and a few biscuits but no milk. And the usual selection of random abandoned condiments, veg oil etc, which we usually leave alone.
We do quite a lot of self-catering and Air BnB and it's very hit and miss. But loo rolls, a DW tablet for each day and plenty of bin bags should be a minimum. Access to the clean-up kit is handy as well.

Places are so variable. We've just returned from a brilliant cottage that's looked after and cleaned by the owner, who lives on the site. Everything you can reasonably want is provided, and her house-keeping standards are top notch!

This isn't Sykes Cottages, by any chance?
We rented a place with them a few years ago; we were asked to bring our own bedding, we forgot! And had to traipse hours the next day to buy bedding for 5.
They consistently come out bottom in Which magazine reviews, in fact, I think they may have been a "Don't buy".