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!

If your dad needs something to occupy his time, our whole house needs redecorating....

Unfortunately he has passed away now but he was a bit of a character. I once went in holiday ( without my parents!) and came back home to find my downstairs cloakroom completely renovated- new toilet, wash basin, tiling and painted! He had booked a plumber in for the week and not told me. You just had to go with the flow, it was all done from a place of love so how could I object.

Mind you, when he started on the kitchen..........

We rented the same house for a family gathering four years in a row. There was a lovely outside deck with no outdoor furniture and a dining table and chairs in the room beside it with sliding doors so we moved the table and chairs out for the weekend, then of course put them back where we found them before we left. Really odd though as we are in Aus and everyone expects to be able to eat outside. There was even a bbq on the deck.

We don't rearrange crockery exactly, but after a few bad experiences with finding dirty plates in amongst the clean ones, and food crumbs in the cutlery tray, we now always run the dishwasher or wash up a load of crockery when we first arrive in a holiday cottage.

Then we pick a couple of shelves to be the ones we'll use for the week, and put all the crockery we've washed on those, and the extra stuff out of the way on other shelves.

I always wash absolutely everything up before we leave, but I might not always get the cupboards back exactly as they were.

I don't get how people can leave dirty washing up in the sink. That's just minging. I remember staying in a villa in Spain one year and we had to lea e for the airport early, so we stacked the dishwasher with the breakfast things and fired it up. The cleaner arrived as we were leaving so we told her where everything was and she was surprised that we'd done it. (We had mopped, swept and tidied too, don't worry).

😂

did he repaint in the same colour or was he doing a makeover??

How bizarre! Can’t believe how many people on here actually admit to doing this aswell! 🤣

I had to move things a few times when DD was a lunatic toddler.

I'm sure owners would rather you did that than have to deal with smashed knick knacks or an injured child?!

I do think if people are going to rent to people with young DC they should have a sample stay and make adjustments as necessary.

We stayed in a posh barn conversion in the New Forest with a stable door as the only door. The wind caught it and one of the catches was damaged. Owners were grumpy about it but clearly they had never tried staying in it as the issue was unavoidable on a windy day.

Another place, for a party, had very heavy self closing fire doors to the dining room which made it challenging to bring food through from the kitchen. It was a requirement from the planners apparently, but did rather defeat the object of using it as a venue for parties. So we had to move heavy furniture to hold the doors back.

Obviously we returned everything afterwards.

Thinking about that one, a simple dining hatch would have solved the issue!

A lot of people fixating on cottages not being functional, trust me it really isn't that.

Another example:

One set of guests stripped the beds (always appreciated) left the pillowcases, sheets and duvet covers on the beds but carried 3 duvets and 8 pillows to the bathroom and left them in the bathtub, how would that ever make sense?

Another set, take the tv from the stand in the living room, place a floor vase on it and lay the tv on one of the single beds in the very top of the cottage, so they carried it up two flights of stairs.

This isn't just limited to me, several friends also look after holiday cottages (tourist town) and weird shit like this happens frequently.

People are just bizarre!

I nearly always move the furniture. But I always put it back before we leave.

Yeah OP that does all sound completely batshit, but as my life ticks on I’m rarely surprised by how bloody weird many humans are, it’s a shame you can’t call them out on it somehow publicly. I’m gonna hazard a guess to the only explanation I can think of, that is that alcohol is involved in most of these cases, people on holiday, pissed doing things that are so funny when drunk! If they are sober then god help us all, I don’t miss working with the public, the amount of crazy I came across in the supermarket aisles in work was like something from a Peter Kay or Victoria wood sketch, but without the comedy, just the odd bits!

Hosts should add an extra 'tidy up'fee if they have to rearrange heavy furniture that guests have moved.

Bedding - they were managing small children and packing up and were distracted. Meant to put bedding on bath but put duvets instead.

TV - if you have TV at home in bedroom you might want it when away. Maybe a teenager being kept quiet while parents stayed downstairs.

We once stayed in an air bnb and were their first visitors. It required a lot of (very minor) improvements to make it easy to stay in.

It was as if 2 people living separately had decided to live together, and furnished the "spare" house with anything they didn't need. I'm pretty sure there wasnt a bottle opener or corkscrew, and other kitchen essentials were misding, one of the rooms had 2 beds in it and that was it. No bedside tables, no storage of any sort. The dining table was a quality wood one, but there were no mats or coasters to put down I was constantly worried we were going to mark it. I even messaged them to ask. I think we used tea towels in the end!

I left a (polite) note of minor improvements (that wouldn't have cost much) for future guests, as it was clear they were new to self catering/letting.

My pet hate at 90% of holiday lets is no full length mirror. I've had the same complaint for about 30 years as I remember grumbling about it as a teen! Just because no one knows me in the holiday area doesn't mean I don't care what I look like! 🤣

Yup - and all the desk has above it now is the biggest bloody telly they can fit, all while I'm stuck standing in front of the poorly lit, full length mirror that's bloody miles away from the nearest plug socket, attempting to dry my hair and put my makeup on without strangling someone or dropping the makeup on the floor.

I now mention it on every TripAdvisor review I do as it's really bloody annoying!

I do give cottage owners honest feedback too, but I'm less outwardly critical than I am with hotels! Thankfully AirBnB has the option to give a public review then some more specific feedback to the host only.

We've usually picked well, but we did stay in one place that was beautiful, but their recycling instructions didn't match the bins they'd left and their living room only had two massive ceiling lights with 6 bulbs each and no dimmer or table or floor lamps. At one point we used the torch and milk bottle trick to just have some ambient lighting rather than the room being as bright as the Blackpool illuminations!

I've just remembered I moved the two end dining chairs from the table to the side of the room and didn't put them back on my last visit as I forgot. There was a good reason though there were four of us and the table seated six, they had strangely put the table width ways so you had to struggle to get to the other chairs (it would have been fine length ways) and after the first day or two I got fed up of squeezing past. I wouldn't have turned the table though even if it made more sense to have it the other way.

@ElaborateCushion please, what is the torch and milk bottle trick?

OP, it sounds like your guests moved a large, heavy chest of drawers from somewhere it could be tipped over
to somewhere it couldn't be tipped over
Did they have a toddler with them by any chance?

😂😂😂

On second thoughts he can stay here, paint pots at the ready so no need to go into town.

I also have a holiday rental and I totally agree that owners really do need to spend the odd weekend there in order to know how the property works from a guests point of view
Additionally I block out a week each September to do any repairs/carpet cleaning etc

This is a constant thing in our air b n b, furniture moved, kitchen cupboards rearranged, drives me crazy

😂😂😂 now that's funny 😁

I move stuff to make it safer for kids. I do move it back though! I run a holiday home and guests moved a heavy wooden king size bed so it was angled at the tv. The headboard ripped chunks out of the plaster in 4 places. They moved it back. But failed to mention destroying the wall in the meantime. So if you are moving furniture around do it carefully! And no it wasn’t in a better position for the bedside wall lights anyway…one persons better position doesn’t suit everyone!

Oh, and I dream of guests who will do odd jobs around the place for me! 😂 I’m even leaving a shaving light on the side as I have electricians staying for a few weeks and I’m hoping they are bored one evening 😳😂