Holiday Let Complaint

[LessMissAbs]

DH and I run a holiday apartment. This week we have in a booking from what we expected to be 9 people, but when they arrived, they had 3 young children (4 - 7) which they didn't tell us about. We don't normally let to families with children, but we wouldn't see them out on the street, so simply sucked it up, didn't comment and let them in. I'm unsure why they didn't mention the children, perhaps they thought it would have cost more.

Have had a number of phone calls from them, asking where things were, etc but last night or rather early this morning, at 1.20am to be precise, got a call which woke me up while I was in bed. They were complaining that they had run out of hot water. Now the hot water tank is pretty large, and we've never had people actually run out of hot water before, but they were at a local event which ended late and all wanted baths, including the children, that night.

AIBU to have been a tad frosty with them and told them there was nothing I could do?

1.20 phone call!!!!! YANNNBU. They sound insane. Hope the rest of the let is less trouble...

Are you going to charge for the extra occupants?
1.20 in the morning, yanbu. No way would i do that unless an emergency. Not being able to take a bath is not an emergency

Shameless place marking. I think it's going to be a good week

They've departed! I went round to meet them in person on exit, as I wanted to check the property was properly locked. They had said they were leaving at 8am and I had to be there for that time, but didn't leave til nearly 10. A couple of the women of the group started making complaints that the property was "dirty" when they had moved in (again, never had any complaints before, and it definitely wasn't). I had a feeling that they wanted me to offer them money back or something, but I am pretty experienced at dealing with lettings, and just came back at them with "That cannot be possible".

I tend to avoid disputes unless its really bad...they've gone. They will not be allowed back! The property was actually left reasonably clean. Looking back, phoning someone in the small hours and waking them up to complain about a lack of hot water is incredible.

Agency are useless. Never found one that wasn't! I also advertise myself on Gumtree, but most people prefer the "security" of booking through an agency...

Beds were not stripped!

You just rented to a large party of out of control toddlers.

That's basically it.

Entitlement is an understatement with people like this. 1.20 am call for something that is of little conséquence and completely beyond your control is to m expected, sadly.

Lesson learned. I'd suggest you stipulate NO Children in future.

You got off lightly. :)

Phew!

LessMiss, have you heard of Airbnb? It's a great website for holiday lettings, properties all over the world. Husband and I use it a lot, love it!

As an owner I believe you can set your own 'house rules' as well as payment terms. Might be worth considering in addition to your agency?