To think you shouldn't have to spring clean a holiday cottage?

[Takemetomiami]

Staying in a cottage booked through one of the large companies. I use a lot of air bnb and it's standard to leave the place as you found it which I always do.

In a holiday place booked through a company I clean the sink/loo, rinse bath, make sure fridge and bins emptied, wipe down kitchen surfaces. I assume they have professional cleaners coming in who will do a thorough job.

This morning got email from the holiday company with a long list of jobs including stripping beds, mopping through, cleaning shower, basically "leave it spotless". Is that now expected?

To respond about the dishwasher, the cycles are 2hrs plus and then it needs to cool down after as the plates etc are red hot.

When you are on a site with multiple properties you get teams of cleaners who probably have an hour to turn each one around (places like forest holidays etc). So if everyone left the dishwasher running at checkout (say 10am) would massively delay the cleaning.

I have 2/3 cleaners working at once.

It's not unreasonable to ask guests to have ensure the dishwasher has finished before they check out or just hand wash a few plates.

It also means that the cleaners can check the dishwasher is clean, check the salt/rinse aid and empty the filter.

All our guests have been very happy to do this.

In seeing this more and more, it puts me off booking, I don’t want the stress at the end of a holiday.

@Happyoldbat

The point of not leaving a dishwasher running is that the cleaners may need to use it themselves as part of the cleaning operation.

If all the dirty crockery is in the dishwasher, what are the cleaners going to put in it?

This thread has inspired me to reread the info about the cottage I'm staying in may half term. We have to be out by 9am and they ask us to load and run the dishwasher.

Like a pp, I quite often put a load on when I arrive as things which have been washed up by hand are frequently not terribly clean

The mad thing is about these French properties with the strict cleaning criteria is that most are actually not that clean when you arrive.

@rookiemere

The mad thing is about these French properties with the strict cleaning criteria is that most are actually not that clean when you arrive.

Agreed. It was a house in France where we found a soiled nappy under the bed 🤮

I can't remember when I last stayed in a place that didn't have a cleaning fee - and I would always pay it to save myself the hassle. Did you opt out of paying this OP? If not then that list of jobs sounds unreasonable. I would still expect to empty the bins and would usually strip the beds as well (mainly as a pp has mentioned to make sure there was nothing tucked in there). Slightly surprised to see so many people reporting problems in France as I live in France, frequently rent holiday properties here and have never encountered this.

It's a pity you can't often find individual cottages/properties on Tripadvisor, isn't it?

Maybe we all need to get into a habit of asking standard questions before we book, like 'what is your expectation of cleaning before we leave?'

Years ago I found it was quite common. As soon as the children were older I insisted that we rejected places with this stipulation or book to stay in hotels. In our case it was because we stayed in very remote properties. Very lovely but I then discovered other lovely options.

We own a holiday cottage. On departure we ask for beds to be stripped and for the dishwasher to be loaded and on with the previous nights/breakfast dishes.

Most people are great and it's often tidy and clean enough for the next occupants though I still pay my cleaner to come in. The very best people have dogs, they're always so grateful to have found a place with their dog that they're happy to make it fine afterwards.

The worst are the entitled professionals (and I've been renting out for 23 years) who immediately moan about lack of WiFi (which is made 1000% clear on the advert, and is often cited as the reason people choose our cottage) who are pretty much always City types who leave the place as if were their servant, dishes in the sink, mud all over the floor etc. I looked back through our booking spreadsheet for the last few years for some HMRC stuff recently and all the difficult tenants we'd had were London based. No idea what.

@AhNowTed

No that's ridiculous.

Last year we were asked to strip the bed and leave bedding in a black bag - but it was COVID related.

And how are you supposed to get all that done before your 10am leave time.

Agree, we had to do the same with bedding and towels for COVID reasons but nothing more.

We've always left things very clean, the owners have generally contacted us afterwards to say how spotless the place was when we left. I say this as someone who would describe herself as rubbish at cleaning but clearly people have different standards.

3 or 4 years ago we rented a lovely see view house in Dorset. 7 of us iirc.

When we got there (3pm) the cleaner was still cleaning ''running late, been here an hour already!'', and we had to all sit in our cars and wait half an hour. PITA as we all needed a pee after 2 hours on the road.

Then when we'd all got in a settled down we had a look through the 3 ''guest manuals''. The list of what we had to do on the last morning ran into PAGES Clean everything basically. Skirting boards were mentioned and the exact position of cushions and throws. AND we were expected to sort the recycling and drag all the big wheely bins and carry recycling down the road to the point where the bin men ''like to come for them'' ...

There were pages and pages of rules and regs way above and beyond anything mentioned on the holiday website. It was so extreme it was quite funny actually. We did most of what we were told on the last morning ...

But answer me this: if each guest has to do all that cleaning WTF does the cleaner have to do? Let alone which takes an hours and makes her run late??

see? sea! :)

I think that more than a whip round to ensure beds stripped, surfaces wiped and dishwasher stacked is too much. There are massive margins in the prices in the holiday rental market and there should be an expectation that a cleaner comes in a and prepares the house for the next guests. You can be civilized and courteous but I don’t expect to book a holiday and then spend a day of it deep cleaning someone’s else’s property.

I just strip the beds, rinse obvious oomska/pubes etc from the sink/loo/bath, empty fridge and bins and cursorily wipe down kitchen surfaces.
Anything else is the professional cleaners' job AFAIC.

No that is ludicrous

You expect to leave it in a respectable state but mopping and sheet changing are for the cleaners that come in after you. There may be an option to select this for an additional cost. Otherwise I’d look to cancel.

Tell them to get stuffed - you actually pay a cleaning fee as part of the price. And everyone would do it to a different standard anyway, it seems a dodgy way to go about things.

I generally strip the beds, empty the bins, make sure any washing up is done, make sure the toilet is flushed and not messy, and give the surfaces a wipe, that's it.

#Neilbuchanan - if you have multiple properties you need a bigger team of cleaners

HarebrightCedarmoon Thu 06-May-21 12:25:38

Tell them to get stuffed

Now this is the kind of advice i like! Straight and to the point

I don't book anything unless the booking includes a professional clean at least on departure.

I am not spending a minute of my holiday cleaning, and even worst arguing about the standards. When cleaning fee is included, there's no possible argument.

I keep things tidy and normal, I don't go on holiday to live in a dirty mess so I am definitively not a bad guest!

But I do expect professionally cleaned standard when I check-in too. That's what I pay for.

Standard in places I stay at

Not acceptable. My family have always gone self catering, 30 years ago it was the budget holiday option and yes in cottages and Youth Hostels you were expected to clean, usually took own bedding, towels, T towels, washing up cloth.

These days the whole experience is meant to have a more luxury, home from home feel to it and you pay more!

Yes to stripping bed, emptying bin, fridge, wiping worktops, but I would never clean. We usually pop dishwasher on as we leave so don't even empty it

@CaraherEIL

I think that more than a whip round to ensure beds stripped, surfaces wiped and dishwasher stacked is too much. There are massive margins in the prices in the holiday rental market and there should be an expectation that a cleaner comes in a and prepares the house for the next guests. You can be civilized and courteous but I don’t expect to book a holiday and then spend a day of it deep cleaning someone’s else’s property.

This made me laugh! Massive margins? I wish!

If you've booked via Sykes/Cottage.com etc then at least 25% ( when you take VAT into account) of the cost is creamed off by them.

My cleaners get £120 for each turnover.

Taking into account fixed costs etc I can assure you my margins are not massive!

I've just paid nearly £2000 to my electricians to upgrade garden heating and lighting and my insurance is due in a few days. Guests will love the new luxury summerhouse but it's just to keep up with modern expectations. It won't directly feed into higher rental costs but may get me a few extra shoulder bookings.

I'd make more by working part time in a minimum wage job.

I'm just a bit anal so I do a bit of a clean before leaving holiday place (except mopping floors) but that's just me.

But if it's mandatory I would expect them not to charge me a cleaner's fee on top of such heavy requirements.