To think many people have confused their paying holiday rental with house sitting?

[HeleenaHandcart]

Back from a week away and I’m starting to give up on UK holiday homes.

I obviously am happy to respect the property and be generally clean and tidy, but more and more I see higher and higher costs and higher and higher cleaning expectations. As well as earlier and earlier leaving times.

I don’t want to work as an unpaid house keeper before a long drive, nor generally add towards upkeep of the house I’m paying a ton for. I used to strip beds for example, but not with kids and an early leave time as well as wanting it all bagged up it’s a bit much before 9am. Frankly I’m not watering anything either. Now as well more and more places say you must leave by 9am, yet can’t enter until 5/6pm due to ‘cleaning’ but you must clean the place fully. Bins out and a list of chores for you.

Last week I was asked to be in for the washing machine repair man even (I said no). It’s not a bloody holiday- it’s house sitting and paying to be a house-sitter. My particular annoyance is stating ‘all surfaces to be cleaned and wiped, including the bathroom’ and they don’t leave a single cloth or cleaning product in the property. It’s like they also expect you to either purchase or bring a house cleaning kit.

Oh and ‘quirks of the property’, stuff that generally requires extra work to use stuff like ‘each day the windows all must be opened for 10 min’, ‘the shower cubicle has a daily water mark spray’ or ‘the boiler needs x, y…’

Its time to go back to hotel stays

i did try and start another thread where people could put individual places they'd stayed which were good. three places a person but it didn't take off
we've sstayed in places for years on big extended family holidays all
over the place have had some wonderful experiences but a few terrible
it's always been hot and miss TBH
having to buy stuff when you got there as not even a saucepan to boil water
bed full of ants electric cables on the bathroom floor.
everything rusty and broken looked great on the website
we stayed last year in a place in somerset 5 star reviews on air b and b but the sofa had wires poking out so how did it get these reviews?
all the sites are intertwined now air band b VBRO owners direct etc so very difficult to find independent sites

My favourite place (although it was France so different expectations?) was where we had to leave at 10am but we had a cleaning fee added on after we left as we were apparently supposed to have stripped and washed the bed sheets we'd just been sleeping in!

We now often leave the night before (not getting our full monies worth?) And we eat breakfast after we've left; have a couple of teacups to wash at most.

Last place we stayed we had a message to greet us about not using the electricity/heating/hot water too much and they would be monitoring us and charge us if deemed appropriate. That was a bit off!

I must have been lucky as I have not come across this at all. A couple of times we had been asked to clean but there was no fee. I wouldn’t be doing it either even if they asked if they’d charged me for cleaning. We never leave any where in a mess but certainly no stripping of beds or cleaning the shower. Sod that when you are getting ready to leave.

I read these comments and think we must have been very lucky with Airbnb.
Used twice in uk this year and last and had lovely properties with no unreasonable demands.
I will be very careful before booking again but always read reviews and check in /out times. I am fine with 5pm check in as long as it’s check out at 11am.

we earn our money renting out three converted barns on our land. We have checkout at 10am (people are always late) and check in After 4 (people are always asking for earlier and get quite nasty if we say no). We have local people cleaning but often also have repairs and replacements to make (you wouldn’t believe what people break) all within 6 hours. During this time we are also required to clean and drain hot tubs and filters and generally tidy gardens. People think they are paying lots but we have guests using a months worth of heating in a week to ‘dry towels’ and so on. I think asking guests to check out before 10 is too much but generally people seem to be a bit entitled and that we should clean their mess. If everyone leaves it poorly with dirty dishes etc we can’t get it cleaned in time so need more cleaners so the price rises. The holiday booking company we go through takes 25% and we are considering going though Airbnb so we get charged less and can pay more cleaning staff..it’s crazy! It’s not an easy business to be in and we don’t get as much money as it seems.

There’s an implausibly high proportion of AirBnB reviews which give 5 stars now. Don’t trust it any more. It’s as if anything less than 5 stars for a property is considered bad and likely to generate a bad reciprocal review for the guest, which no-one wants of course.

I have a small airbnb cottage. ( it is on our property next to our house)
I leave loo roll, shampoo, soap, kitchen roll, milk, eggs, tea, sugar, herbal teas, herbs, different oil, real and instant coffee. Washing machine pods, soaps, fairy liquid etc., also a generous ( about £15 worth) welcome basket.
I expect the cottage to be left tidy ( no bed stripping , hoovering, mopping) and the barbecue to be cleaned if it was used and ideally bin bags put outside the door.
I have had dog ripping up kitchen floor, hair dye on towels, dog shit in garden, nail.varnish on bedding, oven and microwave left disgusting, brand new oven damaged after 2 weeks, dog ahit in garden etc
Check out is 10 am and check in after 2pm. ( it is hard to get it clean in this time)
I thinknits swings and roundabouts and there will always be some bad guests and some bad hosts!

"People think they are paying lots but we have guests using a months worth of heating in a week to ‘dry towels."

People have worked years for their holidays. As for their month's worth of heating, eat it up in your privilege and proffit.

Air bnb is vile. Leave it to the professionals.

Thank you to the OP & everyone else who has commented. I've never been to an AirB&B or whatever they are called, & definitely never will now!
I'm not keen on the formality of large hotels, not keen on B&B's either, give me a static caravan with Haven or a Premier / Travelodge & I'm happy! I know what I'm getting with them. :-)

Provide a tumble dryer or electric towel rail.

Many people worked hard for years to buy the holiday homes they are letting out.

Having that sort of business is no more a sign of unearned privilege than having kids is.

The envy and bitterness toward small businesspersons is telling.

Same here.

I leave rented accommodations in a very lightly touched state, with rubbish consolidated, towels in one place, nothing soiled or icky -- but no f ing way am i vacuuming, scrubbing or carrying out garbage.

Give me a hotel any day.

@kosh Of course owning a holiday home to rent out is a sign of privilege.

We have a place we rent out and we’ve seen it all from the entitled pigs who go by the term “guests”.

Muck everywhere, appliances broken, ridiculous energy usage, condoms on the floor under the bed (lovely…), blocked drains from wipes etc flushed, complaints about the gardener, inconsiderate parking, smoking inside, any excess cleaning products stolen, dirty nappies in the waste paper basket, leaking oil all over the driveway. I can’t bring myself to tell you about the sheets - Johnny Depp eat your heart out.

It’s so outrageous we now have a rogues gallery that we keep to try to maintain a sense of humour.

It’s not surprising many owners get a bit annoyed by this and try to set out expectations, although some do go too far.

I disagree, but are you also saying that privileged people deserve to get screwed over by customers who flout the stated rules?

There's nothing immoral or illegal about turning a profit, and no one is forced to book a holiday.

@kosh I am saying you are running a business. Like any business dealing with the public, you have some great people and some difficult people. Managing that is part of your business.

It also depends on your rules some people are flouting. Are they reasonable? Are they advertised before people book so they know what they are getting? Do you do things to minimise the risk of rules being flouted?
Do you take a deposit for damage or have a contract so you can charge for them?
I know when I stay somewhere I can tell the difference between a well-managed property and a poorly managed one.

@tararabumdeay We do provide those things but people want to ‘get their monies worth’ and spend more on hearting that they have paid for the cottage. We work very hard to run our small business but despite all our hard work we don’t make enough money to go on a family holiday ourselves. Many of our guests are really nice (entitled bitter ones aside) and it’s lovely to make their holidays special.

I'm rethinking the whole holiday cottage rental thing. I've become increasingly uncomfortable at the "ghost town' effect of holiday cottages, lack of housing for locals, unrealistic prices due to high demand. I don't want to contribute to this unethical problem.
We do house / pet sitting from time to time which we find a good alternative.
We'd been thinking about a camper van but that's no longer an option until fuel prices go back to normal (if ever).

This is why i dislike self catering. Hotels are everything

We leave everywhere clean and tidy. We wash up and wipe surfaces but we don't strip beds or do the bathroom. We leave dirty towels in one place and we put the rubbish out. We don't hoover. We read reviews before we go. Any mention of cleaning the whole property and we won't be going.

YANBU - but I have rented cottages a few times recently and it's been leave at 10am, arrive after 4pm. Left them clean and tidy, but not encountered any long lists.
Pre covid, I think leave by 11, arrive after 2pm was more common.
Maybe it's a difference between airbnb and cottage rental sites?

@ThinWomansBrain I think those that are managed by a third party aren't as silly with check in/check out times

BUT

We did book ours recently through cottages.com with a 3pm check in and 10am check out only to get an email (once paid) from the owner stating that we must only check in after 5 and check out at 9, which was annoying!

I had a bad review given to me by the owner of the last holiday home I stayed at because despite ensuring it was clean, beds were stripped, all dishes cleaned and put away, hoovering etc, I hadn't emptied the bottle recycling bin. I didn't do it because I couldn't find the flipping thing according to the instructions!! I even texted the owner and informed him of that, he was OK by text.