To be infuriated by my mum cleaning the AirBnB?

[MangosteenSoda]

Tbh, I know I’m being somewhat unreasonable and exasperated is probably a better word than infuriated, but bloody hell! Why?

I’m clean and tidy and never leave a mess or dirty dishes etc. My mum is doing a full on deep clean. Polishing the sideboard kind of thing. Cleaner than when we arrived. Check out time is 11 and she started around 7. Everything packed and pristine by 8.30, then sitting around twiddling thumbs. We are moving on to another destination and have an activity booked en route, so no point setting off early. Would go to the beach again with DS, but she would probably freak out by any sand being brought back in. Arrgh.

I’m hiding in my bedroom with a half packed case, Mnetting like a sulky teen I can hear the sound of elbow grease from outside the door.

Love, love, love my mum dearly and my DS loves a holiday with his grandparents. But this drives me mad!

Bless her. I own an Airbnb and clean it myself. When people leave it spotless I worry! They've spent hours of their holiday cleaning and irrespective I have to do it again anyway!

Empty bins. Surfaces cleaned of crumbs. Everything back in its location. Dishes washed and fridge emptied is perfect for me. Unmade beds and Towels everywhere is no problem. I don't want people dusting and deep cleaning! I want them to enjoy their holiday!

Please tell her not to bother and she won't be judged!

Worst things I've had but frankly are expected is hunting for the bloody remote controls (sometimes in cupboards, under rugs, behind the sofa).

The worst group (two older parents, their grown up DD and DH and a 3 month old) left Dirty nappies in a unwrapped pile next to a bin (why?!) and left the place like the Marie Celeste. Like they had made breakfast and then fled in an emergency: half a bread on the counter plus crumbs. Jam open with a buttery knife in it. Half a juice carton side on on the floor and juice everywhere. All the dirty dishes from the weekend all over the kitchen, lounge and diner. Half drunk coffee cups left in bedrooms and a nice coffee stain up the wall. They left a j cloth and cleaning spray in the bedroom as a passive aggressive dig.

They complained that the washing machine broke (they had it going 24 hours a day over 1 weekend and had gummed it up with baby shit) and gave us 3 stars for cleanliness. They were dicks. I digress but I subsequently no longer accept small children to avoid this kind of entitlement.

@Blueskytoday06

One day your mum won't be able to holiday with you or indeed be about at all. Enjoy the quirks while you can.

Oh for God's sake. What point do posts like this serve? We're never allowed to express irritation about people when they're alive because we'll miss them when they're dead?

You must go through life feeling very repressed

We are near the beach too. I expect sand!

@MangosteenSoda

Good plan. I’m normally easy going, so I don’t know why this winds me up so much.

How long have you been together on the holiday OP? You might just be ready for your own space and some I can’t lie, I find myself getting a bit annoyed at really silly things towards the end of a holiday when I’m a bit tired and ready for home!

It’s annoying I agree, my mum would do this I think. It casts a bit of a shadow of those who aren’t doing anything and it’s utterly pointless given the huge clean it’s about to receive.

We are just over halfway through. About to move to another AirBnB in a different location. That one looks fancier, so she will be supercharged when we leave there.

We are about to begin the ‘war of attrition’ phase of departure where I delay loading the car for as long as possible so she can’t dash in my room after me and swiftly strip the bed. It’s a kind of family tradition now

Disclaimer: I love both my parents dearly and enjoy their company a lot. I do not normally behave like a stroppy teen.

I like it when my mum does this - the last airbnb we stayed in the owner wrote us such a glowing review saying her home was cleaner than she had left it (she had left it clean just my mum cleaned the wall marks!)

My mum doesn’t clean my dad does it all 😁

Paying the cleaning fee is the best solution. Someone else does it, no argument over the "professional standard" of the cleaning, and not wasting your holiday cleaning.

This exactly the sort of thing that irrationally annoyed me about my lovely mum when she alive. Of course I miss her dearly now but that doesn't change the fact that small things about her drove me insane when she was alive .

I think the reason this would have annoyed me so much was that my mother also had a sort of martyr complex based mostly on wanting people to think well of her. As her child, some of that rubbed off on me and it is a part of me that I find difficult to live with. All that caring what other people think and modifying my behaviour too much to fit with this led me to a lot of depression in my life.

As I have got older I have become more aware of this part of me and as that happened I was able to deal with it so that my mum's expression of the same thing stopped annoying me so much and engendered instead a sort of fondness for what I saw as a minor 'flaw' really.

Having said that, I still would get flares of annoyance when I visited her in her care home when she was wheelchair bound in her 90s and she would get me to do all sorts of things for the other residents and would tell me how to talk to them and what not to say so that I avoided upsetting them.

Op - you are much kinder than I was when I was younger though. In your place I'd might have just gone to the beach and told my mum that her unecessary cleaning was driving me mad and spoiling the end of our stay in that place and I doubt my tone would have been kind in those days. Thinking back though it wouldn't have changed her, she would have just been upset at my annoyance and I'd have felt guilty at upsetting her instead of being annoyed!

I think your tone in this post is the right one really, exasperation, rather than real annoyance. It is an opportunity for you to maybe calmly assert what you are feeling if you can which may help. Maybe by asking her way she feels the need to clean so much , in a kind and non judgmental tone (very important) and telling her how this makes you feel (e.g like cleaning the place til it is sparkling and taking ages over it is more important to her than spending time with the family - or whatever the problem is)

I couldn't have managed that when DS was younger as my natural impatience and tiredness that comes with having young children would have meant I probably would have snapped.

We usually give the place a hoover, clean the kitchen area, don’t leave dishes. Give the bathroom a quick going over. Take rubbish out. It’s mostly caravans we go too, and use the same company most times. We spoke to the cleaner a few times and she says sometimes she finds some people leave it in a disgusting mess. Dirty nappies lying around, vomit, dishes everywhere. Yuck no respect.

I do this and so did my mum, so I expect I learned it from her. She was a cleaner and used to say she'd be ashamed to leave it anything other than spotless.

DH's aunt cleans after holiday lets. I've seen some of the disgusting places she has to cope with.

My mum does this too, and it is frustrating, because it ruins the last day and often the day before too.

I'd still always make sure that all dishes are clean, things are tidied to their original places, used towels in the bath, fridge emptied, bins emptied if requested, loos clean, and no spills or big messes, but the vast majority of Airbnb hosts are not only double homeowners but charging guests for cleaning, I think that's plenty.

If it was a friend's house then of course I'd be dusting and hoovering and stripping the bed. Otherwise hell no.

Guess if you enjoy pointless cleaning knock yourself out. Not me I will be in a coffee shop or drinking in the last of the beach before we head inland where we spend most of our lives.

There's a middle ground though between wasting your time deep cleaning a property that's going to be professionally cleaned anyway, and leaving a disgusting mess. It's not an either/or situation.

Most people are decent enough to bin all ru bish, not leave food or washing up, and put things where they belong (eg TV remotes where they found them, cushions on the right furniture, towels in the bathroom) so as not to add work for the cleaners. But anything beyond that it pointless and doesn't help, as the cleaners still have to re-clean what you've cleaned..

I find it really odd.

I actually posted about this last time I was away and the consensus was to leave things clean but don't go to town as it would all be redone (from memory a fre Airbnb hosts posted this info)

Putting towels on a wash not required, stripping the beds appreciated but not required, washing up appreciated, wipe down and sweep over hard floors with broom appreciated, hoovering not required.
Rubbish out and windows open is appreciated. Wiping bathroom diwn and leaving clean toilet is appreciated, deep clean not required.

Most hosts have their own cleaning protocols [particularly in times of Covid] so they will re-do it all anyway. Also if there is a cleaning fee charged, then you are golden.

@TheViewFromTheCheapSeats

My mum is like this, but she does it during the stay too. I’ll be ready to flop and relax and she’ll start martyring with the hoover around me. I leave things clean, no dishes, quick sweep etc. We went to one really dusty bitty old house with dark carpets and they showed bits (despite no shoes) in a day. Every day she’d be at the carpets, wouldn’t leave them despite me pointing out the owner was probably both aware and had no idea if they were a bit bitty during the stay. I think it gets me as she leaves my house in a tip if she visits!

'Martyring with the hoover' I love it!

I always leave, e.g hotel rooms, with rubbish in bin, towels in bath and so on. I don't start cleaning them, before I depart, but just leave them as neat as possible in order not to add to someone's workload.

OP, I would still go to the beach, if I were you. Enjoy the rest of your holiday.

Are you my daughter op?

We've just stayed in an Airbnb and my daughter was a bit perplexed by the cleaning I did on the morning we left.

You aren't because I'm not that bad, but I always give a holiday rental a quick clean when I leave.

I did the following:

Stripped beds and bagged up towels (we were asked to do this by the owner).
Wiped kitchens tops and fridge.
Emptied bins and wiped them if grubby.
Wiped tables that we had used for eating.
Gave bathrooms a quick wipe down.
Got rid of the worst of the crumbs.

I don't take towels or loo roll and I don't start cleaning at the crack of dawn, if that helps. No one was sitting around waiting while I did my best cleaning lady impression.

My husband is the same as me in this respect.

It took 45 minutes at the most and I feel better for doing it. It hurts no one (apart from my daughter when I asked her to clean her bathroom ) and I think it respects the cleaner who had to get it ready for the next visitors.

Also we had to be out by 10 am, so no day was ruined. We did more sightseeing and had a meal out after we left.

I don't understand all that "wiping".

Do you wait until the last morning to clean and wipe, so the place is a mess until the last day?

I keep the place clean and tidy for my own convenience, but wouldn't waste 1 hour of my last morning frantically cleaning around.

Your mum and mine are cut from the same cloth, OP! I think it's very common indeed to revert to stroppy teen when thrown together years after you ceased to live with your parents. I certainly do, and I'm now 60!

I love her dearly but she is the most judgemental person I've ever met, after her mother, my late grandmother. Mum expects other people to judge her just as she would if the tables were turned, and it's hopeless to try to convince her that actually other people don't give a toss. At not far off 90 she's not going to change now, so I don't bother even trying. In my Mum's world view there's her way of doing things (which is very largely my Gran's way of doing things, slightly modified for the modern world) and there's the wrong way.

I would've gone out and left her to it.
It's not proper martyrdom unless it's a full on needless sacrifice of suffering alone while everyone else is having fun.

My daughter (early 30s) does this. Maybe not quite so intensely as your mum, but far more than I feel necessary. But she is quite anxious and worries that we'll get a poor review or will be thought less of. It didn't help that one of our earlier airbnb places left really long instructions about how clean the place had to be left. That intensified the whole thing for her.

On the upside my airbnb reviews are incredibly effusive about how well we look after places!

@womaninatightspot

As a holiday cottage owner I'm always slightly bemused by people like your Mum. It takes 8 hours so two of us four hours to clean the cottage including a bit extra for covid and tbh I do appreciate bin emptiers, everything in the dishwasher which is most people but in all honesty everything gets cleaned anyway. All the skirting boards, flat surfaces, handles, windows sills need cleaned, floors need hoovered or mopped. Handiest things to do is empty the fridge, leave damp towels in the bathrooms tidy up any spills as you go. Not bothered about bed stripping as it's easier to spot stains and know if they need treatedif I do it.

This amazes me. I thought we were supposed to strip beds at all self-catering accommodation, especially during lockdown.

I'm like OP's mum. Can't bear to leave bits on a floor, would never dream of leaving bedding on the bed or rubbish in the bin.

@alltheemptyfields

I don't understand all that "wiping".

Do you wait until the last morning to clean and wipe, so the place is a mess until the last day?

I keep the place clean and tidy for my own convenience, but wouldn't waste 1 hour of my last morning frantically cleaning around.

We keep it as tidy as a holiday with 2 primary aged children will allow, without spoiling their fun.

Wiping the kitchen surfaces is the same as you would do everyday after breakfast, so that's not really of note. Same for places where we have eaten.

I don't clean bathrooms during the holiday. Why would I? It just needs a quick going over before we leave.

The only extras on leaving day are the fridge, bathrooms and bins.

If you could see my home you would realise that I'm no domestic goddess. I just like a tidy, cleanish space to relax in. Thats not that odd is it?