to be angry with our holiday let guests

[birdladyfromhomealone]

As Holiday makers, have you ever wondered why you are asked to pay a refundable damage deposit?
The reason is - not every one is respectful or treats rental homes as they would their own.
Just a month ago we posted pictures of our newly refurbished studio apartment in our villa in Spain with a brand new day bed that pulls out to two singles or a double.
With thanks to our first guests of this season we will now have to refurb again although the deposit may not cover the cost of their "the bed just broke"
We have a great team of cleaners that keep our Villa in immaculate condition but they should not have to clean up what has been left.
Why would anyone leave a holiday villa in this condition?

Having owned an apartment in Spain for a number of years in a block of 8 apartments I have been amazed by how some people treat other people’s property and have no respect to the others around them.

That’s why I weighed up the risks of renting and decided it outweighed the benefits.

It’s not a case of people being in holiday mode . Some really couldn’t care less as it’s not their home.

Some really couldn’t care less as it’s not their home.
the sad thing is that some people don't care even if it's their home! Kids are jumping on the sofas, snacking on the carpet, the laundry is drying on the radiators, and so on

What's wrong with snacking on the carpet and laundry on radiators? 😂

the laundry is drying on the radiators
The horror

The bed needs explanation, whatever happened they should have contacted you about it.
The rubbish, I don't know it's tied up neatly. I don't see it's a massive issue.

As a renter of holiday homes, I find it annoying when the owner expects you not to use things as they are intended.
We've had one complain we wanted to use the air conditioning, apparently it wasn't hot enough. Maybe not for her who had lived there 20 years but it was boiling to us from wet Wales!
Also been told not to sit on pool lounger cushions with wet costumes due to stains, why have them then.
Other things like being expected to leave by 9:30 and strip beds, not leave a full dishwasher, take rubbish down to bins in the village etc.

I know that it would be cleaned again for the next let, but I think it’s disrespectful to leave somewhere other than how you would like to find it

There's nothing disrespectful about letting people (in this case the cleaners) do the job you've paid for. Do you clear the table in a restaurant when you've finished eating, barge into the kitchen to stack the dishwasher before setting out new cutlery and polishing the glasses?

Leaving food in the fridge is pretty rank

Is it? I didn't know that. We left some lovely cheeses in our last holiday cottage as didn't want to take them on a 6-hr train journey home. We thought the cleaner might enjoy them. Whoops.

I expect that instructions were left for the taps because the owners had received multiple calls from guests who couldn't work them out. Agree that people don't want to be struggling with non standard equipment so simple instructions are appreciated all round.

We were about to report a hob that was either broken or uselessly crap in a holiday rental until we noticed the apparently cryptic diagrams next to the controls, which explained that setting 1 was the hottest and setting 5 was the lowest. I'm not sure we would have ever thought of that ourselves.

What's wrong with snacking on the carpet and laundry on radiators?

see, here you go... If people do that on their own home, what do you expect in a holiday let.

I'm quite capable of snacking on the carpet without making a mess because I'm not a toddler.

I think if you take issue with people using radiators to dry laundry and you haven't provided a heated drying room (a tumble dryer doesn't count as they run clothes) then perhaps the holiday letting business isn't for you.

How do you dry laundry if it rains?? I never knew I was such a slattern.

Seriously , I don't leave holiday villas in a mess (although we do need to consider people are sometimes leaving at the crack of dawn and people don't have time for lots of cleaning ..)but I really don't have any time for people who judge how I behave (or don't clean) in my own home. I probably actually keep a holiday let cleaner than my home as I am invariably terrified of the owners. If anyone has ever stayed in a Dutch caravan , you will know how fussy some people can be!

I don't think that's 2 weeks worth of rubbish for 9 people. A couple of days which will mount up in a hot country with drinks bottles. I think if they'd been really disrespectful they'd have left rubbish lying around.

I was expecting worse to be honest. The bed is broken is the main thing. How old is the bed and how much deposit you planning on keeping?

Run = ruin

then perhaps the holiday letting business isn't for you.

Well, I expect and would prepare for the worst clients because I know that not everybody has the same standards. I have seen enough tenants complaining about damp and mould they created in their own rented home, I wouldn't have much hope for holiday lets. Thankfully, most people are decent and do take care of things.

I've left unopened food behind for staff to use. I hope they did? I throw away anything that was opened as I wouldn't eat it myself if I didn't know the guests cleanliness.

This is a learning curve. Those slat beds can be a nightmare, I had one and the slats kept falling out and one broke. Got rid in the end. You can't prove they misused the bed, and they may well make a claim against you if they were injured if the bed collapsed through no fault of theirs.

White cushion covers, as someone else said, either you go high end and suck this up or you change the colour.

The only thing that is genuinely a massive issue here is cracked tiles as they are hard to mend/replace and if you don't, others could trip on them.

It is awful, we have had home rental places trashed, furniture trashed, walls gouged, graffiti in one instance, so bad that the whole income of that year was wiped out fixing it. Lesson learned about who to rent to.

Letting holiday properties isn't that much fun, it's lots of cleaning of other people's dirt, doing laundry etc. It seems like easy money but it is not.

That rubbish is not outrageous though, I'm guessing it is what they got together from their last day or so. And- if you want the fridge emptied, specify that although many will simply put it in bin bags for you to remove anyway!

Expecting a deep clean before they go is not at all realistic and that's why you have a cleaner!

Think OP needs to detach emotionally from the property if they're going to carry on letting and stay sane - cos ranting and raging every time you get a bad set of guests is just going to do you no good really in the long term.

Bed looks flimsy as fuck to be honest - even by Ikea standards (and me and DH are fat as fuck and managed to conceive 2 kids on an Ikea bed so I know they're often sturdier than they're given credit for)... surely if you're going for furnishing a let you go for durability purely AS you can't control how its used in the same way you can your own home (where you can bellow at your own kids to stop jumping on a bed or whatever).

I wouldn't be properly cleaning a holiday let though - I'd be cleaning round the bathroom, leaving the place tidy but not getting intimate with the dettol and marigolds!

Are you ok ikeepaforkinmypurse? Do you need some smelling salts? Cup.of tea? a
grip?

We've been on 2 holidays this year. One hotel AI and one Air bnb.

Hotel- last day stripped all beds and folded sheets etc, folded used towels on top, wiped over all services (bungalow style so kitchen attached), washed and dried glasses, cups etc, emptied fridge, bagged up all rubbish ready for cleaners.

Air bnb- same as above, except sheets went into the washing machine, towels from previous night put on drier to dry, and took the rubbish out. Only thing we did do was leave 2 unopened bottles of wine and 6 unopened bottles of cider in the fridge (we were flying), and food wise left a bottle of olive oil, cracked black pepper corns, some dried herbs, 2 packets of unopened pasta, a bottle of unopened water and a jar of unopened pasta sauce, just incase the next guests could use them as it seemed a waste to throw out.

However I'm now doubting myself on these items

And did someone really suggest instructions should have been left for how to turn a tap the right way? Words fail me ...

when I had my new sink and taps fitted I thought the plumber had left the water turned off, I couldn't work out how to turn it on, it is different and a bit fiddly, most people who come to stay with me have to ask.

The bed shown is not suitable for a holiday let where you are going to get a lot of people sleeping or sitting on it, the mattresses are not Ikea they look cheap and nasty, I helped a friend for a year cleaning her gites she had Ikea bunk beds, traditional french beds, ikea sofa beds in the sitting room. They lasted the 7 years she was running it and are still being used 4 years later in the gites now by the new owners.

she had some people in who did not respect the properties, they left it filthy, damaged stuff and left marks on beds and furniture, others left rubbish, bathrooms & kitchens needing cleaning, food in fridge, the place generally needing a good clean, but there was a cleaning charge, people expected the place to be cleaned after they left, so did not feel obligated to do more than a tidy up. As others have said you dont do a proper clean in a hotel when you go on holiday.

you have to see this as a business in the same way you would a cafe etc, not as your home, put sturdy functional pieces furniture in, good quality comfortable beds etc

I would be interested to see a picture of the broken pool tile, and damaged wiring. Tiles are very hard to break, if they are properly laid

So basically the op deserves it?! What a horrible way to treat a holiday home

Some of the comments on here by entitled scuzzers make me very glad I’ll never own a holiday let.

Isn't it nice how we're all different?

I'm really quite intelligent and well educated but sometimes I struggle to work out a strange tap or hot water system.

It really is beyond me what's wrong with drying laundry on a radiator.

And really, sitting on the carpet to eat a sandwich is outrageous too? I'd sweep up any obvious crumbs but the act of doing it is disgusting?

My standards seem perfectly normal in the world I live in.

We're usually struggling to get out the door by check out time to spend time cleaning, especially when we've paid a cleaning fee.

DH's aunt runs a business cleaning after holiday lets.

Some of them are left in a truly repulsive state: as though pigs have been holidaying there. They seem to believe that being on holiday means they don't have to clean or tidy at all.

Her worst was when she picked up a vile-smelling, bulging bag left in the kitchen and it burst, covering her with slime and maggots.
How anyone can make the filth and mess that some do in just one or two weeks beggars belief. Makes you wonder how they live at home.