Cottage holiday - Cleanliness

[Spanieljoker]

We have a cottage in the Cotswolds and we had guests staying there. The property is managed by a thirdparty and we had cleaners there staying (4 hours!) and they state they cleaned the property from top to bottom.

The couple left 3 days early because the property was not up to standards…
she claims :

there is lichen on the furniture in the garden

the aga had some dust and one cupboard was dirty (i know this cupboard has chipped paint inside but it was dusted and cleaned) It is an old cottage kitchen and we didn’t renovate

pans with worn nonstick surfaces

floor with paint stains from past decoration

They claim this was too much and they could not have a restful stay and therefore left early?!
I really don’t understand. It is a lovely rural cottage with character. Is this that bad ? It is scaring me and wondering if this business is worth it. If every guest will complain for anything and make our life impossible.

They're taking the piss op and hoping for a refund.

I'd expect to pay double £650 for a 4 bed cottage in the Cotswolds.

A chipped cupboard and worn pans?! I mean fgs if they want 5 star they need to pay for it.

Having been in self-catering accommodation overseas with PIL and having witnessed FIL scrape scrambled egg off a non-stick pot there with a fork, I would never put non-stick pots in a holiday let. People don't care about other people's belongings.
In PIL's case, even their own belongings don't matter. FIL is no longer with us but I am currently in the holiday accommodation that they bought over 20 years ago (before anyone makes accusations, it's not a house and it can't be lived in all year so we are not preventing anyone from having a home). For many years I have had my own non-stick baking trays and pots hidden away here rather than using their damaged Teflon. If I was letting out accommodation, I would buy stainless steel and make sure that there was adequate sizes of pots. Tonight DH went to cook pasta and none of the pots was big enough for the amount of pasta he was cooking; I think that my big extra pot might find its way here when I am back in a few weeks time.

I wouldn't be happy with the standard either. It doesn't sound like a cleanliness issue, but the place is just run down and a bit shabby. Ait all comes down to whether you are honest on the listing about the condition of the place? If you say 'lovely rural cottage with character' that's very different from ' please note this property needs some upgrading and is priced accordingly.'

The nonstick pans would mean we couldn't cook - health hazard! I wouldn't want to sit on that garden furniture it needs a power wash and a coat of paint.

Dust on the cooker - gross. Chipped paint on the cupboard sounds shabby, same with paint on the floor. No attention to detail. I wouldn't want to stay either and couldn't relax if the place was like that.

If you wanted the cleaners to revisit you'd have to pay them for their time but out of that list the only thing they'd be able to fix is the dusty cooker, the rest is poor maintenance.

Interesting though there’s a quite a split. Some are saying no way would they stay and some saying it’s fine.

I think OP as long as you’re honest and the photos show the cottage as it is - it’s fine. You’ll always get picky people.

for that price it’s sounds great!

To be honest I wouldn’t want to sit on that garden bench if Im in nice clothes

650 quid, for a week in a 4 bedder. Seriously, it's cheap as chips. Surely you'd expect the odd chip and stain for that.

I never had a stain on my clothes sitting on it.
I let my children messing around and never noticed anything on them

That's outrageously cheap!

I don't think anything you describe is a major problem. Certainly not for rustic, non-luxury, inexpensive accommodation. Worn cookware isn't great, but I've certainly experienced it plenty of times and still left good reviews!

Some people just have unrealistic expectations that don't match the reality of what you are offering. As long as your description and photos don't suggest that everything is brand shiny new then there shouldn't be a problem.

Those aren’t things I’d moan about. Some people are fussy though.

Aga's attract dust a minute after you've clearned them. I used to have one and I know!

Completely agree. I don't expect to spend my holiday contacting the holiday home cleaners. I wouldn't even expect to have to contact the owner regarding cleanliness in the first place. But for the owner to then put the onus on the guest to contact the cleaner is crazy.

Don't be silly. There will always be some dust. You can reduce it, but you're never going to get rid of it altogether,

I ran Airbnb accommodation within my home. 5 star reviews - Superhost status. Then one guest left early and complained as a) I hadn’t provided breakfast and b) I hadn’t spoken to him on his arrival. I pointed out it clearly stated that I only provided breakfast if requested when booking. That I had arrived home late on the day he arrived and didn’t want to disturb him. There are some people who will complain about everything and anything! Unless your property came under some sort of premium
listing and high rental cost none of the things you stated would bother me.

Good god it's a bench outside, maybe it could do with a jet wash and a lick of paint but certainly not a reason to leave early!
Yes, the pans might bother me a little bit only so far as for me to leave feedback suggesting a few new ones. Absolutely nothing you have mentioned would warrant leaving. Your price seems very reasonable and I am sure that if you are new to this than actually your standards are quite high eg you only recently bought new things for your place.

OP, ignore some of the annoying posts on here, for some reason people feel a great sense of pride in saying they couldn't possibly stay somewhere with a few specks of paint as if to imply they only ever stay in 5* amazing accomodation.
Thankfully there are plenty of people that are more reasonable and can appreciate good value and overlook a few little things here and there.
I think your guests were just looking for reasons to leave and maybe get a refund. Did they end up paying for the nights they stayed?

I hope you get some nice guests soon that give you great reviews.

I think the weary non-stick is poor and that garden furniture in the picture does look grubby. Paint stains on the floor depends on how much - a couple of tiny drops in a corner is ok, a more visible, larger stain is unacceptable. If you can smarten up the cupboard I would. Dust on the aga sounds fussy.

We are planning to let an old, character cottage out as a holiday let, and would keep the garden furniture maintained (painted or oiled) and keep replacing crockery and utensils as needed, along with linens and anything else that doesn’t look clean and inviting.

It’s looks dingy.

Saying that I wouldn’t have emailed over if and complained

God absolutely none of that would bother me whatsoever, especially for that bargain price! I'm sorry OP some people are just serial moaners

Sounds great to me. I'd book with you if I had your contact details 😊

Agreed. If asthma is that bad then you wouldn’t go to a rural cottage!! FFS.

some people are bonkers.

It's the behaviour of paying guests at a holiday let that causes the damage!

Good friends of mine let their second home (they refurbished it throughout before letting), and in the space of just four years they had to:
Replace a brand new oven
Ditto dishwasher
Ditto fridge
(The oven, twice, BTW)
Cutlery twice
Wine glasses three times
Frying pans every year
Quality cook's knives, stolen
Expensive hob to oven ss casserole pans stolen
Furniture damaged
Lampshades trashed/ripped
They would also have a "painting party" with many wines every year

OP, I'm sure you're a saint when it comes to other people's property, but some holiday makers really are not. It's so demoralising for the owners.

Holiday cottages were very different when I was a child. Quaint, slightly unpleasant, and damp even in summer. Parents had actually paid money to put us through an endurance test that was marginally better than camping. We have travelled many hours to Brittany, the Lake District, Norfolk, even as far as Ireland 😂 We will now swim, shiver on beaches, stomp on forced marches in wellies, cook with inadequate pots and pans and only one wooden spoon, eat from mismatched plates with various random items of cutlery, play cards and board games. Then we all clean the bloody cottage to a slightly better standard than we found it, which isn't hard, although it is annoying. We are delighted to get home, to our house which is suddenly so much nicer than Hell Cottage. And we look forward to going back to school, where our beds are made up and our clean little chests of drawers are ready, and there will be plenty of white bread and jam.

I definitely wouldn’t be happy with that garden furniture either and would expect decent pots and pans that are not loosing their coating. The rest would t really bother me

I’ve run a holiday let for 11 years. Most people come and go, some return, some leave great reviews, some leave balanced reviews.

Once a year or so you will have the guest from hell who detests everything and presents you with a list of everything they hate about your cottage. After they have left they will demand compensation for the trauma of staying somewhere that someone describes as paradise who left the day they arrived.

Direct everyone to the agency, don’t leave your own number. Let the agency go between you both. It takes the emotion out of it as these people can be completely unreasonable.

Mine is in a very rural location and the likelihood of someone hating the place can depend on the weather forecast. I can’t do anything about crap weather.

Have faith that your cottage is nice and believe the nice reviews. I price mine cheaply and find it helps people be more satisfied tha they’ve had a bargain.

How was it a violent reaction? She sounds like she was polite and civil.

What do you mean by ‘prime Cotswolds location’? It doesn’t really mean anything.

Surely you understand you pay more depending on location?

For example, you'd pay upwards of 2k for a week in Cornwall, but less than 500 quid for a week in Skegness. Nothing wrong with Skegness just some areas are in more demand therefore prices are higher. The Cotswolds is one of them.