To ask your pre holiday house preps?

[7yo7yo]

Can I ask what you do to prepare your house for holiday?
My DH thinks I’m strange but I like all the beds changed, bins emptied, house cleaned generally etc.
I like to be the last one out of the house so I can put toilet cleaner down the toilets and plump my sofas for the 5 days we are away.

To me this is normal but he thinks I’m strange!
Aibu to ask what you do?

Ps none of us are packed

A carton of UHT milk, just sayin'

I only started clearing out food after coming home from 2 weeks away to the most appalling smell. I'd left an open bag of kale in the vegetable drawer, during a heatwave. It was the second most disgusting smell I've ever smelt.

I don't go mad (I'm a slacker when it comes to housework) but I do make sure the laundry is done, there are no dirty dishes, the bins are emptied and that there's nothing perishable to rot. DP runs the hoover round and one of us chucks bog cleaner down the lav.

blue ah, see that’s why! If it’s all orderly anyway, you won’t have the weird need to chuck out half of your house once or twice a year.

Booking next holiday does help, I totally agree, but had to once cancel a holiday that we’d booked a year before. That’s kind of put me off, and now I try and aim for about 6 months before so I’m clearer about what’s happening ahead.

Same. Nothing worse than coming back to a messy house.

My dp thinks I’m cracked too.
I do a deep clean of the entire house before going on proper holiday. All beds are changed the night before we leave (we normally book early morning flights)
The pyjamas and towels used overnight are put on a quick wash and hung on an airer to dry before we leave. Then coming home we use those towels and pyjamas.
When packing to come home I pack the clothes in washing loads whites, dark and colours all in separate bags so it’s easy to just take out a bag and chuck it in the washing machine.
We use up all the fresh stuff in the fridge before we go and it’s properly cleaned out and scrubbed. I get some uht milk for coffee in the morning and have bread in the freezer for toast. Then order a supermarket delivery for later in the morning after we return

I always catch up on laundry and make sure the dishwasher is empty, bins emptied, sofa cushions pumped, beds made and house tidy. Will clear fridge of anything that won't last till we get back. We have cats so I suppose it's partly because I know someone will be coming in to feed them. We generally vacuum as soon as we get back because of the cat hair that will have accumulated in our absence.
I thought this was the norm until I started feeding cats for a few other people in the neighbourhood and many of them leave their houses as an absolute pigsty - sink full of washing up, wet clothes in the machine, fridge full of leftovers, fruit rotting in the bowl, beds unmade (so they're usually full of cat hair by the time their owners get home). Their house, their rules - but I am sometimes torn between "interfering" and emptying smelly kitchen bins when it's rubbish day, or just leaving them to fester until the owners get home.

I am so ashamed of myself after reading this thread 😆

I just have zero time or energy to do this stuff and I am slaving around the house all of the time, but it still looks like a bomb site. I’m clearly doing something very wrong.

We (well, I saw 'we', but washing-up is my husband's job) left a bowl of dirty dishes in the sink when we went away for five weeks this summer, and when we came back, the water in the sink had receded, but a copious web of slime remained, webbed intricately across the dishes.

We had to open the windows, stick some incense on, and go for a walk while the smell abated.

I was both horrified by our slovenliness, and slightly awed.

I’m with you on this one OP.

Clean from top to bottom
Clean sheets
Bins emptied and bleached
Toilets scrubbed and bleached

Basically just a large scale clean. We are lucky to have a cleaner and had him spend 8 hours giving the place a good going over.

We call it cleaning up for the burglars ☺️. Everywhere tidied, clean sheets because we took the bedding (caravan), my cat stays home so all his food out on the top ready for my mum to put out, same for my bird. Same with the toilet as others say, squirt some toilet cleaner in and new toilet block in. Leave the landing light on, so house doesn't look empty 🤷.Partner has been known to paint walls etc before we leave so it's extra fresh.
Embarrassing for me too is I look forward to doing my holiday washing when I get back, I don't know why, I plan it and everything

But what do i do with the steredent!?

@ThighThighOfthigh I put mine in the toilet bowl.
And I don’t use steradent I use any cheap alternative form B&M/Poundland etc

But no one else had said.... do you hoover up the settled dust as soon as you come home? Or am I extra weird?

@PrettyShiningPeople I do!
And I do the flat sheets on a fresh bed thing!

Bins emptied - beds changed - laundry n ironing baskets empty, check nothing left in fridge which will go off, water house plants, tidy garden

Lock the door and empty the fridge other than that I'm out of there 😂

Been up and weeded the garden, mopped the floors.
Ironed the uniform that I have scraped together.
Just the fridge left which DH can do.
We can all have eggs for breakfast and that’s all the perishables used.