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 have never moved furniture BUT if you find that people do it repeatedly in your property it means that it is not working with the original setup. Not enough space to comfortably sit at the dinner table, not enough storage in the bedrooms, etc.

Occasionally we will move chairs but only if the cottage sleeps 6 ( we have 4 DC) but there's only enough chairs in the lounge or round dining table for 4 people-why do cottage hosts do this????
Its is a surprisingly frequent occurrence!!!
If that happens and there's chairs in a bedroom we will move it so there's enough lounge seating or chairs round dining table for everyone.

But to move an entire table? That's odd, can only assume they thought lounge was better place to eat than kitchen, but not to return it to its originally position is very inconsiderate.
If we move chairs we always put the back.

We once arrived at a holiday house to find beautiful large glass vases and other decorative pieces on every surface.

I immediately got dh to take ds2 to the park and then photographed each room and moved all the breakables well out of reach.

Obviously I then put each thing back where it came from before we left. Because I'm a reasonable person and not everyone has to live their life catering to children.

People are so odd.

We have occassionally moved furniture or lamps (I can't even remember why) but every time have replaced to original position, before leaving

I always had to move things when the kids were little, usually if it was something that was in the way for bits of kit we'd brought with us or something they could hit their head on/fall onto. Delicate stuff too.

I remember walking into one place, which had a glass chess set on the middle of a table on a tiled floor and within 30 seconds, DS1 had picked up a chess piece, smashed in and then stood on it, cutting his foot!

Wow! 😂

How arrogant of you. Not your property and the owners don't need to be shown anything

I don't spend my whole holiday rearranging kitchen cupboards, but if I'm staying somewhere that has a cupboard that contains only 4 eggcups and a teapot, but there's no empty cupboards to put my food I'll probably do a bit of rearranging to make some space. I do try to remember where everything came from and put it back but it's not easy to remember!

Years ago my parents had to remove some art work from the bedroom I was sleeping in as it gave me nightmares, I have had to do similar for my kids but I do try to remember to put it all back

If the cottage has a stupidly early check out time, people might have the intention of returning things to their original places, but then run out of time. No-one would move heavy furniture around unless they had a good reason for it. Maybe your friend should invest in some better storage options in the bedroom the drawers were moved to?

We tend to move furniture in holiday houses but just things like chairs into a different reception room, I’m not sure we’ve ever moved furniture from one floor to another!
The other thing I always always do is take photos when we get there so we can put everything back where we found it when we leave.
The furniture moving happens when we hire big holiday houses, for 20+ people, once or twice a year, and different groups of people might want to play a game somewhere so chairs get moved to surround where they can all fit in, or moving low coffee tables out of the way of small kids - that kind of thing. Nothing major!

We’ve had to move bedroom furniture quite a few times to make space for the travel cot.

And one particular place we stay at in Cornwall has an incredible beach view. The corner sofa faces the view but means that you’d be facing the tv sideways in the evening. So we always turned the sofa to face the tv for the week as we were mostly out during the daytime.

We always move everything back to where it was though. Can’t imagine just leaving it!

I would always move things back, but the earlier the checkout, more likely the guests are to forget, I'd say.

We've done it occasionally when there's no table close to sofa for cups etc or no bedside cabinet/Shelf but always put back before we leave.

I'm a great mover around of furniture in holiday cottages but I always put it back. It's usually so I can do a bit of yoga on the floor or sit in a more comfortable seat downstairs. Can't imagine moving a chest of drawers upstairs though! Why???

I had an AirBnb review once, which accused me of moving the lounge furniture around- we hadn't
Putting filthy crockery back in the cupboard- we hadn't
Leaving the oven dirty- I'd actually bought foil myself to stop any mess on the grill pan!

I would absolutely love to know his thought process behind this!

We have an AirBNB and this is my pet peeve. Move anything you want to, as long as you put it back. It’s there for a reason 😤

This is classic 😂

This is a good point that I haven’t thought of at first.

Lots of places sticking to times they moved forward during Covid, I’ve heard.

Classic boomer 😂
did the owners kick up?! In some cases I could imagine a lick of paint could make an improvement but it wouldn’t cross the mind of most of us who just want to get away for a rest and a total ban on diy/chores! How funny 😂😂

I don't book places with an early check out or late check in unless it matches with travel plans. But as a rule of thumb <10am check out and >4pm check in can fuck off.

Love it!

The only thing I've ever moved in a (tiny) holiday cottage was to put the the seventeen (yes, we counted) different reed diffusers and gel air fresheners into a cupboard at the far end of the utility room. Othewise I'd have had to go home - it was like a living demonstration of how to induce a migraine, and we had to have all the windows open for the entire first day to get rid of the worst of the smell. I am panicking slightly now about whether we put them back, even though the holiday was six years ago!

Whenever I stay somewhere with breakable ornaments / dried flowers / knick knaky stuff on display I put them them away on arrival and put them back when I leave - I'm a bit clumsy and would rather not pay for breakages. Plus I want surfaces where I can put my stuff down, I don't need someone else's pointless decorative stuff cluttering up the place.

I haven't shifted tables and chairs though, that is bloody cheeky and if people must do something like that they should at least have the manners to put things back before you leave.

I had someone stay at my place once who did move a table and tv from one room to another, where there was already a table and a tv. Fucking weird.