To ask why people do this when staying in holiday cottages

[TellerTuesday]

I look after and clean a holiday cottage for a family friend.

I'm having to take an early lunch at the minute while I wait for a friend to come and help me because - for reasons known only to themselves - the guests that have left this morning decided that the massive set of double drawers would be better on the next floor up.

You honestly would not believe how often something like this happens! It's ridiculous!

Once, I walked in to find the dining table and 4 chairs missing from the kitchen, they'd been moved up a tight set of stairs (with a turn) and plonked in the middle of the living room.

Please, please, please if you're staying in a holiday cottage, leave the furniture where you find it.

And if you really can't bear the current arrangement and insist on moving things around..... put them back before you leave!

I've stayed in a lot of holiday cottages.

I very rarely move furniture but sometimes it's necessary especially with small children.

Some cottages are lethal! I used to get in and go round moving/getting rid of anything that my kids would break/damage etc.

We did always put stuff back though.

Weirdest one was a dining table and chairs half way up a staircase. I mean, who thinks that's a good place to eat with small kids?

My guess is they wanted to use the drawers for storage. The table and chairs, was the living room short on seating and so they wanted to be all in there together seated? I shuffled a bedside table around this summer and I'm forever moving lamps. So many sitting rooms without lamps! But I always put stuff back. Especially as a cleaner may be alone whereas most holiday parties will have multiple people who can help with moving.

Very odd, we stay in holiday cottages around 2 or 3 times a year and I don't think that we have ever moved furniture beyond maybe tucking a coffee table out of the way of a toddler for safety But then always put it back.

Fair enough if people want to rearrange while they are staying there but there's no reason why they can't put stuff back before they leave.

Kids. Things that make no sense to you will suddenly make a lot of sense when trying to keep young children safe/comfortable. We’ve moved big furniture to block a window if we were worried our child knew how to open it and could plummet to their death. On holiday you want a good sleep and relaxation - not to worry constantly because you’re too scared to move a set of drawers. But I understand how someone outside the situation would be baffled! It’s very child/children specific.

EDIT TO ADD: We always aim to move it back but sometimes a 9am check out is very hectic with small kids too and you only remember when you’re 15 min down the road 😂

We moved a kitchen island (a small liftable thing) around because it was in a really stupid position. Didn't move it back as wanted to show the owner this is really a better position. But often need to move lamps - why do so many think you'd want the big light, or worse, spotlights, as your only lighting in the living room?

Took my parents on holiday in a rental cottage one year, went out for the day with my mum and left dad at the cottage to " rest up". We got back to discover he had popped into the nearest town, bought some paint and painted the cottage door! Now, that took some explaining!

I've moved furniture because of kids. But always back to where it was

I use holiday accommodation for my job often.

I am proud to say that when I leave, you would never know anyone had been there. It is as spotless as when I unlocked the door on day one.
I used to be a chamber maid in my youth so feel the pain of cleaning up other people’s shite for minimum wage.

How rude - a better position in your opinion.

Do people not look at photos of places they are considering staying at? So if someone thought that the dining table and chairs were not practical in the kitchen then wouldn't they look for somewhere else that did have them in the living room, rather than move the furniture?

I'm sure the owner came to terms with it. Since his furniture choices were style over comfort, I feel completely fine about it.

I have a holiday house rental. People usually move the living room furniture a little and it’s never back in the same position. And bedside tables, they move them to access the power points behind them even though there are power boards they can use without having to move the tables.

One lot of recent guests rearranged a lot of artwork for some bizarre reason, and no it wasn’t better.

I move coffee or side tables, sometimes dining chairs if I need one closer or if the bed doesn’t have something next to it (iv used a dining chair as a bedside table more than once)
or I change the angle of the tv or couch if they are too far from each other for me to see the subtitles or they are set so the windows glare on the screen (I have issues with my hearing so use subtitles)

sometimes I move the bed a bit if I think there is a reason.

I would never occur to me to move entire large pieces of furniture to whole other floors or rooms though! even if that meant I had to keep some stuff in my case

I put anything I move back after though, to the point of putting them back in the marks they had originally left in the carpet 😳

personally I think everyone who lets out a holiday let should once or twice a year spend 1 or 2 nights staying there to actually get a feel for how the place is to stay and it also helps them see things like stains or shower issues or bed mattresses or couch is getting lumpy and uncomfortable.

you don’t notice how annoying these things are until you actually are in there and that’s all you have rather than walking past it for cleaning between guests.

The place we recently stayed asked us to return furniture at the end to.its original position, so they must get it too!

I also leave the house as I find it and as clean as possible - which depends on how many cleaning items they leave for me to use.

This time we took Dad who uses a catheter. Whilst he's not had an accident since being with us I still protected their bedroom from top to bottom. Extra waterproof mattress cover, protective sheet, floor protector and pillow protectors! No accidents but it was worth doing for peace of mind.

This is something my ex would have done. He wanted to leave a sink full of dirty dishes after one stay because "That's what they're paid for, to clean up after me". Seriously. I did make him clean his dishes and put them away, but if all adults in the property are of the same mindset I can see how this type of situation arises.
He was very full of his own self-importance and would definitely be smug and arrogant enough to move something and leave it, thinking his positioning of furniture was "better" than the original set-up!

How weird, I’d never bother moving whole pieces of furniture how odd!

My mum used to do this with a time share apartment we had. DH and I owned one week and my DM and DF owned the next two weeks.

DH and I would go and have our first week living in it exactly as we found it and then DM would arrive for the second week and immediately swap the positions of the two sofas and the dining table and say she couldn't understand why they didn't just leave it how she liked it.

We used to leave at the end of the second week so I've no idea if DM put everything back where it was supposed to be at the end of her stay. I doubt it as she was so convinced her way was better.

She would also tell us how she would completely rearrange the kitchen if she could because it had "obviously been designed by a man"

We have moved furniture, usually tables for some reason, but always put it back where we found it. I couldn’t be bothered to move stuff up and down floors though.

I have moved the odd chair, foot stool and lamp. But if I am cooking in the kitchen in a rental and the cooking gear is all over the place and mixed up, I might straighten it out a bit while waiting for the water to boil. But thats more along the lines of putting all the sharp knives together and saucepans with their lids etc. One place had a drawer with a corkscrew, 3 forks, a coffee scoop and some paper napkins, the other drawers were similarly mixed.

My exh once had an air bnb review that “it looked like they’d left in a hurry” ie it was left in a terrible state. Apparently (children told men the tale). I have no idea how some people still rent him air bnbs as there’s a tale every time!

I agree furniture should be put back whatever your opinion of its positioning, as that’s just good manners.

We always move furniture round when we stay somewhere, most holiday rentals seem to have not had the owners actually try and live/stay there in the current configuration and dont realise how impractical some of the set ups are

However we always move it back when we go

We frequently have to move the sofas closer to the the TV because it is too small for us to be able to read the subtitles and we are hard of hearing.

We always move them back.

We rarely get the furniture moved, but the contents of the kitchen cupboards are always being reorganised - and not generally for the better.

It's very odd. Who wants to spend a holiday re-organising their host's kitchenware.

There was however the memorable guests who actually removed all the furniture for the duration of the holiday. It was returned, just dumped anywhere and everywhere. One of the sofas was upside down.

Yes lamps are often a nightmare, not enough lighting where you need it. Also very rarely side tables or enough space on a bedside table (or sometimes no bloody bedside table). Where do they think people put things or put a cup of tea/water

Yes I’ve moved furniture, sometimes to make room for a travel cot or something. However, I’d always try to put it back! I could see how it could get forgotten though in the madness of packing up and leaving