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'm really shocked by this. I've got a couple of purpose built holiday lets, and have zero requests for guests to carryout chores of any kind, not even to empty the rubbish bins! I take care of absolutely everything at the end of each stay. I had no idea that roperty owners ask guests to do so much.

I'm with you too.

We usually book self caterings, it stresses me out.

I spent a lot of times staying in hotels pre DC where I was comfortable leaving it basically tidy.

I had a thread about exactly this recently. Big no to bed stripping from me, and the 9am check out and 5pm check in is a massive piss take.

My theory is that these measures were put in place for Covid and now it’s just cheaper and easier for people to keep them.

Oh don’t forget

’do NOT leave crockery in the dishwasher’

but be out by 9am.

So you have to handwash breakfast stuff on top of rushing

YANBU. I don't even bother looking at AirBnB anymore as they are awful for this. As well as being ethically dodgy. Extortionate cleaning fees that don't actually cover the cleaning because the guests have to do it all!

If the check out time is 9am, the most I'm going to be willing to do is stick the dishwasher on. If it's 10am I may also strip the beds. I don't think guests should be being made to mop/sweep/vacuum/clean bathrooms. I'd brush up obvious crumbs in the kitchen and make sure the kids haven't left calling cards in the toilet. But if you want a proper clean I believe that is what the £200 cleaning charge is for.

I was looking at renting somewhere this summer but was massively put off by all the 5pm check ins and 9am check outs. They just aren't how I want to be starting and ending my holiday.

I'm assuming the 2% that think yabu are owners of such places!!

I am so with you I found it highly stressful as during the stay all I kept thinking about is mess I didn't feel it was a holiday more like we can be charged for x y z

The whole 'renting out second homes as air bnbs' is a barely regulated racket that's destroying communities.

In Salcombe in Devon nearly 60% of homes are short term holiday lets. In some areas, that rises to 95%.

If people care about communities they need to stop providing the demand for immoral practices like this.

Definitely hotels, B&Bs, campsites etc. for me. I'm not paying the mortgage on someone else's chi-chi second home they're already getting tax breaks on.

I have a holiday cottage and I certainly don't ask people to do what you have listed, nor does anyone I know who owns one.

I would expect people to put dishes in the dishwasher and have wiped up spills etc but I don't tell them to do this, most people just do it

I have had a few disrespectful guests, but not many, eg 20 pieces of nicotine chewing gum on headboard, hair dye dripped on hall carpet (ruined) tea spilt on wooden worktop and not wiped up leaving a huge stain( I got left a note about this. The time it took her to write the note she could have wiped it up) brand new Cox and Cox coffee table smashed ( think they stood on it), microwave put on electric cooker and burned( this was my fault apparently, I should have told them not to do this by taping a note to the wsll)

Some owners leave these rules because some guests are disrespectful and ruin it for everyone

I've never understood the urge to rent houses or villas. Give me a good full-service hotel any day!

We've rented a fair few Airbnb's including during covid and I've never gone to the lengths some of you are being asked to go to.
Wipe the kitchen down, wash the dishes and sweep floor if visibly dirty - yes. Ensure bathroom looks respectable and empty bins - yes. But nothing more. And the last one we stayed in (Aug 2021) did not have early departure/late check in times nor require us to strip the beds - something else I've never done! (With the exception of a canal holiday in Oct 2020 when they were still at the 'fumigating' the boat between customers stage so we had to bag all towels and bedding to be collected by a man in full PPE).

For us it's because our 3 yr old will not go to sleep if we're in the same room. So a hotel stay means us sitting in the bathroom or in the dark from about 7-30pm onwards. If only we could find a hotel room with a little en-suite children's room! But as we can't, we go for 2-bed self-catering options.

Same here. I recently went to a popular holiday area and found a 5* hotel with a 2 bedroom family room for less than a decent house in the area. Housekeeping everyday, a pool, breakfast… so much nicer than having to clean on arrival, clean on departure, follow a list of rules I don’t even follow in my own home and pay an extortionate cleaning fee for the pleasure.

Yep! Totally agree.
Paying nearly £2k to rent a cottage in the UK for a week in July.
The owners are only asking we empty bins and leave tidy.
I don't know what the cleaners are being paid for if all beds are stripped, all areas wiped down and clean, floors vaccumed, shower cleaned etc...and why it takes 6 hours to do so?
I would not stay anywhere that expected this ^

Exactly. Besides, I like the atmosphere of a nice resort or city hotel.

And my checkout time is 11 am.

I think people don't appreciate how much time it takes to clean a holiday cottage. Mine is one bed and it takes 4 hours including putting the welcome pack together and cleaning the outdoor furniture and barbeque. Having bedlinen and towels washed and ironed costs £18 per bed, it all adds up!

Another vote for Premier Inn. I've stayed in many and always been happy with the room/service/staff. My only issue is if you need a accessible room you can't have twin beds. My DH is disabled and I'm a light sleeper, we end up tossing and turning and disturbing each other and are left with choosing a twin room, better sleep but may involve him having a longer walk or using stairs or having the accessible room which will be easy to get to and accessible showers but no twin beds.

I also think some disabled people might need another family member or carer with them and sharing a bed might not be appropriate.

I've never understood the urge to rent houses or villas. Give me a good full-service hotel any day!

Coeliac and allergies mean self catering for us.

Fortunately we've never stayed anywhere with a long list of cleaning asks or a check out earlier than 10am. Covid did push check in back an hour in one place but no big deal.

With air n b
if anything isn’t in the actual listing then you’re not required to do it
plus if you leave a review do it right at the very last moment ie 30 mins before the review period ends

once the review period ends Im pretty sure that hosts can’t leave a review

We're staying somewhere this coming weekend where the check in is 5! And check out is 9. As we have small children and it's a long drive, we may as well leave late on Sunday so we'll be home early hours of Monday morning and spend Monday at home.

The problem is that they charge for cleaning AND expect you to do all/most of the cleaning. Absolute CF.

Yep, fully agree with you. We only use "professional" holiday rentals now, preferably places with multiple properties on the same site.

Far too many "amateurs" these days, especially on AirBnB, many of whom seem to be trying to rent out their dead granny's derelict old cottage for a fortune!

Covid and the travel restrictions have really ruined the UK holiday lettings market with so many people trying to cash in, charging a fortune but not actually providing anywhere near the quality of service/amenities expected.

@Flev Try B&B hotel chain in Germany, France - there's an alcove with a bunk bed for kids, which is great! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%26B_Hotels

The last Airbnb I stayed in had a £30 cleaning fee but I was expecting to put the bedding and towels etc on to wash, hoover, clean all the surfaces and mop the bathroom floor before I left at 10am check out. So I payed £30 for them to put the duvet cover back on

I hear you. Our last one really did take the Mickey. Not only did I have to fully clean the place upon arrival (apparently it had been cleaned three days before our arrival but there was hair in the bath, a pile of dead woodlice swept under a chair, dead woodlice on the hob, and dead spiders absolutely everywhere), but there was nothing to clean with. We were expected to wait in for the cleaner to come again on the first day of our holiday. We left the key in the key lock, which the cleaner left open after she left, and she still didn't clean the parts I couldn't do as I didn't have anything to clean with. The owner was really shirty with me over it.
What really, really pissed me off though, was that we had no control over the heating, they had locked the thermostat. It was set at 24 degrees and was coming on at 5am! I had to ask for it to be turned down and she changed it to 23. We were absolutely melting, especially under all the winter bedding. We just turned it off at the boiler. Who controls heating like that FFS!