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?

I would send them back an invoice for my cleaning fees lol.

Reading this thread has put me right off a holiday in France

Elphame why do it then? Keeping a second home to holiday let is a pretty contentious issue for locals in most tourist spots. If it's a struggle to make a profit sell up?

I'd like to award @Elphame the world's tiniest violin

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.

I would never, ever book with them again, they are a nightmare and I pity anyone still using them.

I am a very clean and tidy person anyway, nobody would know I had been there but I am NOT about to clean ovens and mop floors.

I think that’s taking the piss. We stayed in one last week (UK) and were asked to strip beds and leave outside, collect towels and leave outside, bag up all rubbish and put in outside bins, put dishwasher on, wipe all surfaces and sweep floors.

Fundamentally I didn’t feel those were unreasonable requests but it was still a real struggle to get done by the 9am Covid check-out time with a toddler and a dog in tow and I found it quite stressful.

I think what you say you do is more than enough OP.

You pay a lot of money to rent accommodation, the onus is on them to clean it for the next person. You just leave it in a "pleasant" condition so that when they walk in they don't think eugh and not know where to start with the cleaning.

I wouldn't be cleaning the loo as a guest but I'd make sure there wasn't a turd/skidmarks left in it!

Cleaning surfaces and sweeping floors is definitely the owners/cleaner's job, not the guest's.

@Sparklingbrook

Why do some owners just do their best to make you feel unwelcome/uncomfortable when staying in their places? Like the ones with little laminated ‘polite notices’ everywhere? Urgh. One such note on a switch said ‘This is the air con but you won’t be needing it’. That went straight on it was boiling.

No way - this is the air con but you won't be needing it 😯

@Laiste

Elphame why do it then? Keeping a second home to holiday let is a pretty contentious issue for locals in most tourist spots. If it's a struggle to make a profit sell up?

It's not a second home - it's available for let 52 weeks a year and normally booked for over 40 of those weeks which for North Wales is an achievement in itself.

The conflating of second homes and professionally run holiday homes is not helpful and I'll be delighted if they do bring in formal licencing.

I guess I could sell up - no one local will want to buy it unless to continue to run as a holiday let or it would certainly appeal to a second home owner.

Why do I do it? I ask myself that sometimes! It's certainly a lot more fun than many jobs. You get to meet some lovely people (and some that are not so lovely). Next week's guest is so excited about their long delayed holiday.

Would you rather stay in an anonymous hotel owned by one of the big corporations or somewhere where you get a real flavour of where you are?

Put it another way, I treat any rental like a hotel room. I am not going to start cleaning floors, shower or the fridge in either of them!

We are already here! It’s through a big cottage company that we have used before, they’ve never sent us reminders about cleaning. They even text me this morning to tell me to check the email!
Just to be clear, I always leave them in a presentable state.

Too many consumers in UK are unaware of their rights when they use a good or service.

Did you book the cottage online? If so then the law says that ALL terms and conditions MUST be available for you to study BEFORE you click the "pay now" button for the booking or deposit. On a website any attached conditions must be no more than one click away from the main site.

So, for example, if you see a note on "checking out" all the terms and conditions thereto must be available for you to check no more than one click away. If this is not the case then your contract is non valid and cannot be enforced.

Owners cannot impose extra terms which are not known at the time of booking although many will try to do this and too many consumers will tamely fall into line.

NEVER NEVER pay with bank transfer (unless you really know and trust the owners) as this is a red flag that something is fishy.

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS pay at least the deposit with your credit card as this makes the CC company jointly liable for your purchase. If the owner attempts to retain your deposit you can go to your card provider and do a charge-back. You can sometimes chargeback with a debit card but the rights are not as strong as with a cc.

ALWAYA ALWAYS ALWAYS take phtos of the condition when you checkout or any other issues you are not happy with and retain for reference in case the cheeky sod tries to take you to court for the chargeback on the deposit. Make sure you take a copy of the email and message the owner back to effect of the above.

Unless all these extra terms and conditions were made clear at the time of booking they are NOT VALID so make sure the cheeky CF knows this.

I also agree with those saying France is particularly bad for this!

I would say you should leave it as you found it, but upon entering some caravans on holiday sites, I would have to say I couldn't do that as they were bloody filthy :(

@GrimDamnFanjo

I've had this before at an apartment in France. Basically we were cleaning for the next family to come in. And it was inspected before we could leave. We'd never leave a holiday place in a mess but being expected to be the cleaner took several hours and a lot of stress. Never again!

We had that in Belgium. As you say, it was really stressful and took hours. Not how you want to end your holiday with three kids

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

I also agree with those saying France is particularly bad for this!

I always pay for cleaners, so that didn't' bother me, but what I found .. surprising in France was the expectation that WE would pay for insurance and our insurance would be responsible for any accidental damage or accident.

I wonder what happens if there's an incident and the foreign tourists missed that part!

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

I also agree with those saying France is particularly bad for this!

But why do it? Honestly, I lived in a France and people just sort of pay lip service to it. English are known to obey without question and break their backs scrubbing the skirting boards. We had one where the man kept coming over to tell us what we had to clean because he heard us speaking English and I would greet him, 'Bonjour, la paresse!' and call him 'L'Aranque' and after a few days he started laughing at this and finding it funny. We didn't leave it a tip but we certainly didn't scrub the grouting in the bathroom.

Would you rather stay in an anonymous hotel owned by one of the big corporations or somewhere where you get a real flavour of where you are?

Well, to be completely honest my personal choice would be a massive flashy hotel, all inclusive, 100 degrees, pool, beach, surrounded by deserts and mountains which i can see if i crane my neck a bit from my sunbed

However ... I love Dorset, was there all the time as a child and i want youngest DD to experience a few good old British bucket and spade/fish and chip holidays. So for the last few years we've done a big ol' static caravan or if not (like this year) a coastal cottage. I do take your point :)

We used to have very CF next door neighbours who let out a shed in the garden. On their kitchen noticeboard were the instructions for "cleaning" it between lets. Included in this was the instruction to check if the towels were visibly dirty and if not leave them there for the next guests. - not envy

@Macncheeseballs

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

I only have 2 properties on a park. The cleaners are self employed and do a number of units on the same site.

This is just how it is. Center Parcs and Forest Holidays are the same.

I get repeat bookings so the dishwasher thing clearly doesn't upset our guests. I think they prefer the fact that the dishwasher has been cleaned,

I rent out our place in France. You are expected to clean before you leave or pay a fee to have it cleaned. The choice is yours and it is quite a normal arrangement in France.

Agree France is dreadful. Clearly remember standing in a lobby full of irate British skiers who'd just discovered they had to give up their last morning of skiing to clean their apartments in order to get their envelope of cash back, thieving feckers

@Respectivehomelands

Agree France is dreadful. Clearly remember standing in a lobby full of irate British skiers who'd just discovered they had to give up their last morning of skiing to clean their apartments in order to get their envelope of cash back, thieving feckers

in fairness, it has always been clearly explained in every place I stayed.

That's why I pay for the cleaning service in whichever country I am. Cost not much and makes life so much easier.