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!

@Pebbledashery

Goodness if that's the maximum of your problems. You're very lucky. She just sounds like a typical house proud older generation mother. My mum would've done exactly the same if she was still around.

Do you post that on every thread that isn't about a life or death situation? Of course it's not horrendous, but I agree that the desire to deep clean a fully paid for holiday let is really infuriating, as it makes the last day of what is often a short holiday much less enjoyable because you're either cleaning, feeling guilty you're not cleaning, or trying desperately to keep the place spotless. It's especially infuriating in a parent who the OP was presumably on holiday to spend time with.

@MargosKaftan Thanks from a Mango to a Margo for your kind words on this thread.

Pebbles, I can confidently say this is not the maximum of my problems by a long shot. However, it was the niggliest of my problems this morning. And the only one I wanted to MN about.

Op I get it because my DM does this too! It always makes the last day feel a bit sad somehow, watching her frantically trying to scrub away any trace of us 😂

Not to mention she gets kind of stressy about it and ruins my last few moments of holiday, snatching plates away before I've finished and generally creating this unpleasant sense of urgency. I'm too scared to have a shower in case she rips the towel off me and throws it in the washing machine!

Actually my mil was the opposite. We did a house swap in Belgium and they tagged along so entirely free trip for them. The deal is at the end of the swap you clean the house and strip the beds. Mil had never done a house swap and was scoffing at me for the bed stripping and cleaning. So annoying.

She doesn't fancy a trip up to Liverpool does she?

I think I was the only one who'd actually read the handbook in our farmhouse! We were asked to strip the beds and put our towels and linen in the bath, so I did. I didn't clean the oven or fridge or mop bathroom floors, I just hoovered, because I knew they would be mopped and cleaned anyway.

I do fold quilts to the end of the bed and stack pillows neatly, though, because that's how I'd want to find them!

This year we were asked to strip the beds, bins emptied and kitchen stuff away so I did. I would usually do that anyway.

I leave the place tidy, but seeing that they had stripped out everything that wasn't furniture cleaning wouldn't take too long. Also there was no cleaning stuff left, so couldn't do anything even if I really wanted to.

We left a self catering place yesterday. Towels were in the bathroom, beds not stripped (we weren’t asked to, would have done if asked), stuff was back where it belonged and window were open. Kitchen was tidy with fridge empty etc, bin out. It was tidy and would be easy to clean and sort but it wasn’t ‘cleaned’ as that’s not my responsibility.

Yanbu OP she’d drive me mad too.

@robotcollision I follow the ASSC guidance for covid cleaning and it says that individual operators can decide whether or not guests strip sheets. It's more controllable if I do it as I fold stuff in on itself rather than shake it all out.

@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.

As someone whose late and much loved DMIL used to do the same thing, this is not good advice. Now she's gone, it makes me even sadder that she wasted the last morning of holiday with her DGS doing completely optional and inessential cleaning. I'd rather she and we had fully enjoyed the holidays together while we could.

You don’t have a choice re paying the cleaning fee, do you? The cleaning and service charge is equivalent to another night’s stay in our next one. We stayed in one this week, I vacuumed before leaving because we have a dog. I cleaned as I went, left no crumbs or toothpaste in the sink etc, but I didn’t go mad. I paid about £25 for the post stay clean-why would I go mad?

She can come and stay in my Airbnb if she likes 😁 I really don’t mind how people leave it so long as it isn’t actively revolting, but I confess I do love it when I walk in and someone has obviously cleaned it, and more importantly put things back where they were, before leaving. It feels like a little gift. I still clean it in exactly the same way I would anyway, but it’s so much easier when someone has already swept up the crumbs and dried the glasses. Your mum has given the cleaning person a nice easy day in high season but she definitely needn’t bother.

As an aside, I have a 99% accuracy rate at guessing how the place will be left from glancing in at the window of their car. Tidy clean car, tidy clean Airbnb!

@MangosteenSoda

There’s no dishwasher here, but I wouldn’t ever leave dirty dishes. Last year we stayed in a lovely big barn with all the wider family. I think check out had been moved to 9.30 because of Covid and they asked us to strip all the beds and sort the bedding and towels into different bags which my mum obviously loved

Did a big cooked breakfast for 10 people, cleared up kitchen and stuck the dishwasher on. Mum was freaking out because the dishes were in the dishwasher rather than dried and in the cupboard. She definitely prefers the lack of dishwasher here (I don’t)

I agree about no need to do a thorough clean but I do think that that the guests should empty the dishwasher and put all the plates etc as they found them.

We didnt have a dishwasher at our Airbnb Dh booked and hadn’t read the small print. First world problem but it was annoying - hey ho made us eat out lots as really cba washing up on holiday !

I voted yanbu op. I find constant cleaners and tidiers highly irritating, just one of my little quirks. Even when it's in their own homes!

The cult of Mrs Hinch et al and the tragic videos of women (it is always women) doing cleaning and sharing it online for entertainment make me feel sad/a bit ragey depending on my mood.

I do the same as your Mum. I’ve never really thought about why until now but I think it’s because I want the owner to know we have appreciated being there and want to show respect. I don’t expect anyone else to help me and I do really like cleaning and having a very tidy home anyway. Let her crack on with it.

Don’t think the owner is anywhere near most of the places we’ve stayed it will be the cleaning team who will be cleaning it who get to admire the fruits of your labours.

Agree with a pp seems a shame when people on their hard earned holidays are skivvying around for the benefit of wealthy second home owners - usually when they have already paid a cleaning fee! Abit sad really

This is the main reason I don’t like staying in places like this. I don’t even clean my own house. Sure I tidy and wipe up the counters after we cook, but I pay someone to actually clean.

Why do people think it’s normal to do a bunch of chores on holiday?

Can we pick into the psychology of this a bit more. Martyr has been mentioned as well as people thinking well of that person : praising their efforts. I know someone like this, they will list all the housework competed that day in detail. It annoys me and I don't know why.

Anyone care to delve into the pysch of why a person is a martyr with things like this as well as why us unreasonable lot get so irritated by it?!

We have a small Airbnb cottage. I would love your mum staying ( but still would do the usual cleaning)
We are always busy and fully booked. So far this year we had a brand new cooker chipped on side ( 2nd lot of guests after installing said new cooker) they demanded I take their review down where I mentioned it and said they didn’t do it. Dog shit in garden, period blood on bed and sheets and mattress cover, hair die stains in new towels ( they don’t come out) , ripped Lino in kitchen from dogs, dog vomit on pillows ( dogs aren’t really allowed in beds, and a 4 star review for cleanliness as there were cobwebs in shed where we keep the barbecue for guests.
We charge less a night for a character property with enclosed garden than the local travel lodge on a double roundabout 20 minutes from here. It’s been a hard couple of years for us!

@Window1

Can we pick into the psychology of this a bit more. Martyr has been mentioned as well as people thinking well of that person : praising their efforts. I know someone like this, they will list all the housework competed that day in detail. It annoys me and I don't know why.

Anyone care to delve into the pysch of why a person is a martyr with things like this as well as why us unreasonable lot get so irritated by it?!

I think for me the irritating aspect is the unthinking equivalence of moral worth with domestic cleaning — and that it’s a strongly gendered set of assumptions. I would be extremely surprised if anywhere in the world is a forum of men sharing housekeeping tips, and saying they literally ‘can’t sit down at night’ until the house is clean, or that the reason they don’t like visitors is because it involves making the house ‘visitor-ready’.

Charge more then. You will need a thicker skin if you are hosting the general public. I hosted international teens for 10 years. My tajj my e away from the experience

Majority of people are absolutely fine and decent
A minority are really special lovely people
A similar minority are hideous and possibly deranged.

I think some people place more importance on performance cleaning than others.

We recently stayed in a UK holiday cottage where we were asked to strip the beds before leaving "because covid". It got me thinking how could the cleaners be more in danger of catching covid from taking the sheets off the bed than picking them up and putting them in the washing machine or bundling them up for the laundry service?

I always leave a holiday cottage clean & tidy, you wouldn’t have known my family had stayed there.

Yes, and of course it is always women caught up in this mindset. My step-mother often talks about cleaning. I just zone out. If it goes on long enough I walk away.