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!

A lot of them on Sykes cottages have quite a high deposit now, I dont use them anymore if I can help it

Aren’t 2 empty double cupboards and 4 pantry shelves enough?

We leave a couple of eye level double cupboards empty, there is a fridge, a freezer and a walk in pantry with shelves. Plenty of clear storage for a family of 5 for a week.

My cleaners are always having to remove random mugs, plates, glasses etc from them to empty them for the next guests. It is very irritating

That’s hilarious!! Can you send him to my house please, lots of work for him here 😂

I literally could not give less of a fuck. I'm the paying guest and it's not my problem. Plenty of places manage to cleaning with a later check out and an earlier check in, and it's a guest's market so if people are not happy with the times they will book elsewhere.

This doesn't necessarily apply just to holiday cottages but also to many hotels at any budget. I often find that any mirror in a bedroom is nowhere near a socket so if I want to dry/style my hair I've got to move something, usually the mirror (if it's not fixed to the wall and is just on a hook). I know it's trivial but I can't be the only one who finds this. I now take an extension lead when staying in places that might not have sockets in logical places which is handy for recharging phones, watches, camera batteries etc, as devices often outnumber the sockets available.

Of course I don't expect holiday cottages to have this covered and old houses often have sockets in odd places but I'd have thought hotels would have considered that some of their guests might want to use a hairdryer and a mirror at the same time.

In a holiday cottage I'd only move something if I had to and I'd always put it back. I try to leave a holiday cottage with no sign I've been there so that whoever is cleaning doesn't have much to do.

Well you crack on then. I book well so my guests are happy with my offering. I certainly won't be dropping my cleaning standards to offer an earlier check in.

Definitely but a couple of times we have found no space to put our dry food

It is certainly not a guests market where I holiday!

@GinnyPiggie I do agree re lighting and I see you've already mentioned the mirror/socket problem that seems beyond many hotels. Glad it's not just me.

I've remembered that my aunt used to take her own angle-poise lamp with her when staying in B&Bs. I used to think she was a bit odd but it makes total sense to me now as so often holiday cottages are lit by a gloomy overhead bulb and one lamp in a corner miles away from seating. In hotels I often think the mood lighting is in place so it's more difficult to see the grim reality of the state of the carpet etc.

Yes I agree with you. It’s disrespectful behaviour

We leave it just as we’ve found it, I even Hoover etc and put bedding in the machine 😂 which I’ve been told is overkill but I can’t help it!

If anyone I visit has one of those calendar blocks displays I change the date to the day before their birthday, Christmas Eve etc and see how long it took them to notice.

My late DGM had one and i changed it to her birthday and she just changed the date by +1. Visited her 19 days later and she still didn’t notice that she was changing the date for December not early June

My mum takes an extension lead when self catering as sometimes the plugs are miles away from mirrors. Even if the named person of contact is a lady - it makes no difference to this issue

Plus my parents take some grab handles which are applied with strong suction pads as places don’t seem to think about people who struggle to get in out of baths (shower over bath)

In the summer we rented an apartment and mum was moaning about one tea towel.

A look into the fitted wardrobe in parents room found a secret cupboard with extra towels in of all types!

Be glad furniture is the only thing that has been moved and nothing has been "taken" - because "we paid" or bodily fluid horrors await all over the bathroom and elsewhere

"Plus my parents take some grab handles which are applied with strong suction pads as places don’t seem to think about people who struggle to get in out of baths (shower over bath)"

Such is the current liability culture we have, it's a risk that we will be sued if a disability aid like that came away unexpectedly. We have plaster and lath walls and I cannot be 100% sure that they would be safe. It's hard enough to keep the towel rails on the wall.

Oh, I love finding the secret cupboard 😁

It was in the old part of the building. Where my room? bathroom and kitchen were was in an extension done 40 years ago

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.

This! So many places are missing things like mirrors and you only notice when you sleep in the room. The twin room is particularly bad for this.

Not having full length mirrors may be a safety issue with young children.

Have never moved anything, but if we're griping on holiday cottages, will someone please tell me why, if you advertised your cottage as sleeps 6, you have 5 comfortable chairs in the lounge? Gives me the rage.

I’m staying in a holiday cottage at the moment and this thread has given me mental permission to move the one lamp from the sitting room to my bedside table. (I will move it back). For some reason the wall lamps on dimmer switches aren’t working and I had taken to leaving a passageway light on, as I don’t want to find my way in the dark to the main switch. Moving a lamp from another room never occurred to me.

How rude!

I think it’s ok to move things if they are not safe or they are in the way (we’ve moved small coffee tables out of the way before as toddlers and low tables are not a good mix!) but you should put them back how you found them - it’s pretty rude and lazy not to.