Holiday home left in a real mess

[BigOldOakTree]

I wonder if I can call on the wise of Mumsnet to help me with a question? I manage a couple of holiday homes and we've had a very busy Christmas. I'm not new to this and know the ups and downs of this business. Our guests in one of the cottages over Christmas were given a complimentary welcome pack on arrival, I'd checked beforehand and they were vegetarian so it was catered for their diet. The cottage was decorated with a real tree and I went to a lot of effort to make it warm and welcoming for them. It is a five star holiday cottage and they paid quite a lot of money to stay, but they did receive a lovely property (in my opinion). It's not my cottage but I take a lot of pride in making it nice.

There are a few basic instructions, nothing too bossy, but the main one is please bag up your rubbish and put it in the outside bins on departure. When I went in to clean it after they'd left I've never seen anything like it in three years. It was utterly disgusting. All of their rubbish was in the house, some bagged, some not. They'd moved furniture around. The bathrooms were not fit for a dog. The kitchen was full of dirty pots and pans, food on the counters. The place was a real mess, not just the things I've written here. I couldn't believe two adults and two teenage children (older teenagers) could make such a mess.

We won't withhold their deposit as it could all be cleaned (even though it took me 7 hours to get it back to how it should be) (3 bedroom, 3 bathroom cottage). This is because it will only lead to a negative review and that is so damaging to the business, but am I being unreasonable to think this is out of order?

I will defer to your experience in terms of negative reviews, but blacklisting this family would be reasonable. I would never leave a holiday home in a state. We always empty bins, make sure dishes and pans are washed, dried and put away, counters and cooker cleaned, floors swept, beds stripped and used linens stacked at the foot of the bed. The idea is to make life as easy for the cleaners as possible without expending a lot of effort - all of the above takes an hour max between 3 people.

We have a cottage on the farm and have had to blacklist one couple. Seem perfectly nice, came for Christmas a few years ago.

They completely rearranged the house, including rehanging pictures by banging holes in walls, putting furniture in shed, bed in living room. They left human poo in the kitchen bin. The bed linen was destroyed as were the duvet and pillows. It was absolutely disgusting. My mother in law had a row with the, upon departure mainly about the furniture, as she had not seen the rest at that point, yet they still called to book the next year.

On the other end of the scale the cottage now has a massive telly brought by someone who comes every year who prefers a large screen........

@Frenchfancy thank you! Someone who understands the impact and hassle of a negative review. I often think it's not worth the hassle of taking the deposit in the first place as if they'd damaged something it would probably cost a lot more than the deposit to fix it.

We have a holiday rental.

We ask for bins and fridge to be emptied as like above if there is a gap in bookings we might not necessarily arrive the same day to clean. And then 3 days later it would stink.

I prefer people don't take bedding off when they leave. It is easier for me to check all the sheets for marks when they are still on the bed. Otherwise, I still have to go through the pile to closely check incase I need to add vanish or deeply clean a mark before it goes in the main wash.

I wouldn't hold back a deposit though either. If it is fixable it is hard to argue for a deposit nowadays. Plus we rent with cleaning fees included so can't just add extra on afterwards. I would block any future rental though from them. It takes me around 5 hours to clean a 2 bed property fully to a high standard, even when guests have left in a good condition. That doesn't including washing and ironing time ontop later.
I can't simply glance over and leave if someone has already cleaned as I wouldn't know how thoroughly or with what. I pull out all beds, sofas, furniture and take every piece of cutlery/ plates etc out and wipe drawers, then check every item is clean before it is re-rented.

As a holiday cottage owner what are your views about people leaving food.

I sometime leave half finished box of cereal or pasta, maybe some cheese or milk in the fridge. All well wrapped. Last time I left most of a bottle of olive oil and some satsumas and apples in fruit bowl and a frozen pizza in freezer... stuff basically I didn't want to take home on a train with 2 DC. It was summer holidays and I knew people would be in immediately after us and / or that the cleaners may take it. Does it go straight in the bin?

Absolutely blacklist them, not much else you can do! People really are grotty at times, I would be mortified to leave a place in such a mess and I am by no means the tidiest person in the world!

A family member rents out a log cabin and regularly have to replace carpets due to vomit and weirdly sinks as guests like to pull them from the wall? Odd behaviour!

Some people are just disrespectful and inconsiderate. Personally if I hired a holiday home, I would do basics like put out the rubbish, clear away any crap lying around, dirty towels in the bath, dirty dishes loaded into the dishwasher and put, on a quick wipe down of counters etc.

I would absolutely never leave it in such a mess. It is just basic to wash up and put everything away and leave it tidy ready to be cleaned. I usually am very irritated with holiday cottages that expect the guests to scrub out the house to get their deposit back but what you are asking for is basic and how most people would leave it anyway regardless of rules. Unbelievable! You might find that they are so wealthy that they decided they couldn't be bothered and were prepared to take the hit and pay for cleaning.

Why don't you just charge a cleaning fee with the booking? Most rentals do.

As a client, I don't clean any of my holiday rentals - but I am not a pig and it's kept tidy because I don't like mess. Surfaces are wiped as we used them, I wouldn't leave rubbish everywhere, it would make my own stay very unpleasant! I don't want to hoover and dust, it's a holiday.

I prefer to pay a set charge, not worry about it and that avoid any disagreement about cleaning standards.

YABU to not withhold the deposit. How do you expect people will learn not to be pigs if you let them get away with this?

I just wondered what you expect from your holiday home and how you leave it?

Obviously a family with money but no manners or class.

Some people are like that - they think their money buys the right to behave badly.

I find it useful when I get to a holiday let and there’s ketchup, vinegar, salt, oil and cling film. They are things you only use a little of, but need. So it seems so wasteful for everyone to buy and throw.

I leave it tidy, and wash up any bits that need to be washed. But I think that holiday home owners should always clean in between bookings, you usually pay for that in your fee anyway.

Not easy to judge because (no offence) I don’t know you and don’t know if your expectations are that much higher than most people’s. Taken at face value, YANBU.

TBH I’m not at all surprised by this. It's often the people who spend more on these things who think they’re too good to clean and tidy, or who treat staff like trash.

As for reviews...... this is why I completely disregard review sites. They are populated by people who think they’re God’s gift and write bad reviews to trash the reputations of perfectly good service providers who won’t kowtow to them.

@listsandbudgets - if someone leaves non-perishable items I usually leave them, so cereal, salt, pepper, that sort of thing. I go through cupboards at the end of the busy season to make sure nothing is out of date. Anything in the fridge would go in the bin even if guests are straight back in. Anything meat related in case of vegetarians would go in the bin also. Freezer stuff would depend what it was, I might leave a pizza.

How would someone go about finding a person such as yourself to manage a holiday home, OP?

YANBU to be disgusted and very right to blacklist them. Also agree re not withholding deposit.

I have to add a caveat to my post up above about cleaning, I will clean it if the owner has left equipment and cleaning stuff to do that. Otherwise I will buy a generic cleaning spray and just do basics.

@loobyloo1234 its not my job to teach people not to be pigs. If they can't do this anyway they shouldn't be self catering. It's basic human decency not to act like a pig.

We use holiday rentals a few times a year and would never even consider leaving a place like that. We have even been to a few where we were asked to strip the beds and we did it as part of our agreement for using the property.

@Jumpi thank you! There's some very good agencies around that could supply a management service to start with. Where are you based?

I started in an agency and then moved over having been offered a very good deal by an owner I got on very well with.

I would have retained some of the deposit and replied to any poor review in a measured and factual way i.e. The X% of the deposit was retained to pay the cleaner the additional hours required to return the property to an acceptable state for the next tenants.

Not RTWT but are you sure it was 4 adults? Sure that the parents didn’t book it and in fact just teenagers went?

I use holiday cottages a lot, UK and Europe. I like to think that we leave the properties in as good as, if not better, condition than we found it!

We’ve actually been contacted by owners in that past thanking us!

One place we regularly use actually gives the option to “not clean on departure” and they charge an additional sum (payable in advance) for extra cleaning. Perhaps that’s an option for you.

I would have withheld the deposit and had plenty of pictures to support that decision.

I would have taken pictures and then informed them that I was witholding the deposit.

Another vote for a cleaning charge, or it being built into the rental cost. I don't want to clean after a stay, though I'd always put bins out, check bathrooms are decent, wash up and put away etc. I just don't want to hoover, dust, strip beds on my hols.