Dear holiday cottage owners

[SylHellais]

We’re in one, and I felt the need to post a note to all holiday cottage owners as the following issues appear to be inherent.

• for the love of god, just buy a whole set of matching cutlery, plates and glasses. They are not expensive and it’s massively annoying to see a cupboard full of random glasses and bits of crockery you don’t want in your own house.

• sharpen your fucking knives.

• buy a set of three non stick saucepans and two non stock frying pans, one small and one large. They don’t have to be expensive.

• when women wash their hair, they need an additional bath towel.

• a plug socket, near a mirror. Thank you please.

• bin bags. And tell guests which bin is for what.

• can you please fix all the small things like the seal around the wood burner which fills the cottage with smoke, or the pedal bin which doesn’t pedal, or the radiator which is stuck on full chat because the valve is broken, or the oven which is impossible to work out how to operate.

Your guests will thank you.

Absolutely agree about needing one towel for the body and one for the hair. No fun shivering dripping wet.

I use 3 towels after a shower : one each for body, hair and face.

i always take a spare towel now because theres never enough

understanadble though not everything in the kitchen will match im sure things break all the time they cant replace a whole set

And why only one or no tea towels ?!! And a snivelling amount of kitchen roll / loo roll ? And never enough dishwasher tabs if there is a dishwasher ?!

Don't most people eat out / get take aways / put something quick and simple in the oven when on holiday

We do a mixture but book a holiday cottage - as opposed to a hotel - so there's a kitchen to cook in.

As the owner of a holiday let, I have a few things to say to holiday makers. My property is in a ski resort, so affects a few things I need to get off my chest.

Dear holidaymaker,

• let us know when you’ve broken a glass or plate. Especially when you break a cereal bowl. I don’t know why, but cereal bowls seem to be thrown with abandon by holiday makers as though they are ten pin bowling.

• if you come back from the pub with a bunch of the pub’s own glasses with their name on them, take them back. Don’t leave them in our cupboards, we don’t want them and it’s embarrassing at the end of the season having to take a dozen of them back to various establishments round town. Plus it leads to some holiday makers complaining our glasses don’t match.

• please don’t use our kitchen knives to repair your snowboard with. Either bring your own tools, or go to the repair shop in town.

• also please don’t store your skis in the bath. There is a locker downstairs for that, and the skis scratch the bath and it’s a fucker trying to get a new bath fitted!

• wtf are you doing with the towels? Why have you left them with brown stains on or giant holes in? Have you been using them to rub down your skis? It’s no wonder we only have 3 towels left!

• back on the theme of ‘don’t steal shit from our friends,’ the monograms on the towels gives the game away - yes you went to the spa. No, we don’t want their stripy towels with the hotel spa name on them. Take them back.

• please leave the batteries in the tv remote and especially in the smoke detectors. We are required to have those by law, and trust me they are better in the smoke detector than in your walkie talkies.

• also, wtf are you doing with the light bulbs? Have you taken them home with you? Do you have any idea how hard it is to buy replacement bulbs for the stupid fittings in the living room?

• please do not turn the heating right up, then open all the windows when you’ve turned the place into a sauna. Have you got any idea how much it costs to heat the whole of the outside of a ski resort? Plus it makes the snow melt.

• for the love of god, do not, I repeat DO NOT fudge the latch on the door because you and all your mates want to go out at different times but only have 2 sets of keys between you then ring me at 2am to ask me if I can pop over to let you in because you locked all the keys in the flat or your mate has the keys and they went back to some girl’s flat and you can’t get in. I’m a thousand fucking miles away, and my caretaker is asleep! I have no idea how so many of you manage this, but stop it please! It is incredibly hard to get replacement keys cut in the country the flat is in.

• do not leave random reviews for idiotic stuff like ‘I rented an apartment for 4 people and I wanted to have a dinner party for 12 but they only had pans big enough to cook spaghetti for 4!’

• don’t leave your toenail clippings down the side of the sofa.

• if you come back at me with all this inane tiny things that irritate you about my flat the only way it’s going to get fixed is if I charge more rent. You get what you pay for! The flat is most definitely at the Ryanair end of the spectrum. And you don’t get a pedal bin for free on Ryanair!

We have a long term tenant now. Doesn’t pay as much as weekly holiday rentals do, but I haven’t had anyone whine at me in over 4 years now and it’s much better that way! We concluded that you could never keep everyone happy when they are on holiday. For some people, it’s not a proper holiday if they don’t have a good moan. Our caretaker was in the pub one night and overheard our renters who had just arrived and hadn’t even got the keys to the flat chatting about what they were going to complain about to try and get a bit of a refund. It’s a mug’s game is renting out to holiday makers.

Another member of the tribe bringing half the contents of their own kitchen with them
In general I menu plan for at least half the time away and I'd any recipe needs something that's at all likely to be problematic then I just pack one of my own. My particular bugbear is kitchen scales. Thankfully in recent years these have become much more portable so I bring mine.
I don't mind mismatched crockery etc too much but I do want a full set for the number of guests plus a few spares. And decent mid-sized glasses please. Not pint glasses or thimbles. Something that Will hold a standard size soft drink.
Yes to the towels. I always take one of my own which is usually a bath sheet because the towels supplied are usually .... not big enough.
Yes to full recycling and equipment instructions. I don't really want to spend half the first day reading the manuals.
Can I request a plug socket and lamp on both sides of double bed?

My suggestions would be;

*Sharp knife, corkscrew, bottle opener, tin opener. Check they're all OK/still working every now and then

*Check batteries in remote control too

Other than that - don't care so long as it's communicated, I need to know if you provide or whether I should bring;
tea towels
dish cloth
washing up liquid
basic condiments
cooking oil
loo roll

The option to buy a welcome pack of basics (bread, butter, milk, coffee etc) would be good.

And why only one or no tea towels ?!! And a snivelling amount of kitchen roll / loo roll ? And never enough dishwasher tabs if there is a dishwasher ?!

Tea towels - we used to have lots of tea towels, but guests would use them to do idiotic stuff like cleaning their ski boots or wiping up a whole pan of tomato soup off the floor. If you leave a couple out, they all get trashed. If you leave a dozen out, they still all get trashed.

The disposable items - it’s considered good guest etiquette to replace what you use. It is a self catering apartment - you buy these things in the supermarket! We rapidly realised that if you leave a little amount out of those things to start with, people would demand a week’s worth for free, and rarely replace what they had used. When you are renting out a basic ski bunk hole for £240 a week for 4 people, it’s not enough money to pay a caretaker to go and buy a weekly shop of dishwasher tablets.

I think most of us are not using the tea towels to clean our skis.

My own gripes would be dining tables that arent big enough for all the guests, two slot toasters in properties for 8 people and no cafetière or coffee making facilities. Twice I’ve had to buy a cafetière while away. One place in the Lake District had no lamps in the sitting room so you had to sit with the overhead light on.

*it’s massively annoying to see a cupboard full of random glasses and bits of crockery8

"Massively annoying"? Seriously? How does it actually harm anyone?

If I hire a cottage I always cook. And three pans is not making an elaborate meal. Very easy to use three pans on simple meals with veg.

When we go on self-catering holidays it's very firmly on the basis that it's my holiday too, so there will be a minimum of cooking happening. It's a mixture of takeaways, easy to heat up things like pasties, tins, salads, and just stuff like bread and cheese. Quite often things like saucepans never get touched.

[quote Quincejam]@Dogmum40 I used to do cricket teas and the teaspoons always disappeared and had to be replaced several times during the season! [/quote]
There have been scientific studies done about teaspoon disappearances
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1322240/

😂

@Divebar2021 I'm just trying to comprehend your outrage at having to use the overhead light. Christ alive, that's what it's for.

I want lots of towels. Or rather at least 2 each. I don't want to be roughing it on holiday.

Knives being blunt, non stick pans being scratched, and mismatched crockery etc I'm sure is largely down to guests treating knives badly, using metal implements in non stick stuff, randomly replacing broken stuff.

Contrary to pp, I've only about once or twice found knives to be sharp. I've self catered many, many times

@Zzelda

When we go on self-catering holidays it's very firmly on the basis that it's my holiday too, so there will be a minimum of cooking happening. It's a mixture of takeaways, easy to heat up things like pasties, tins, salads, and just stuff like bread and cheese. Quite often things like saucepans never get touched.

Yes but some like to cook. Or it's more convenient to do so for whatever reason. It's necessary to have the option to cater for the different selves doing the self catering!

I agree that there needs to be a table with chairs for the number of people staying there. It is such a basic requirement.

Also, some people book self-catering because they have allergies or diets that are very difficult to cater for if eating out. Eating in is the easy option.

[quote TheTeenageYears]@Divebar2021 I'm just trying to comprehend your outrage at having to use the overhead light. Christ alive, that's what it's for.[/quote]

I would imagine that's because you don't always want bright lights but would rather have directional and/or ambient lighting?

Dogmum, Ive worked in the catering industry, patrons of our restaurant used to steal the teaspoons. I kid you not as Ive caught them. They also steal napkins, cruet sets, jugs and sugar bowls. It seems to be a national pastime and people aren't even embarrassed about it. If I was caught stealing, I'd be mortified, fortunately I don't steal and am able to at least buy my own cutlery.

I have long thick hair that holds large amounts of water. I need two towels. So does my dd. If I only have one, most of the time I end up just using it for my hair and freezing while my body air dries. No point in trying to dry the body without the hair wrapped because the hair just keeps dripping.

Are there really people with long hair who don’t have this problem?

What is it about teaspoons? They used to go missing all the time at work as well!

We went to a holiday caravan in france and they provided no toilet roll and no cleaning products. Luckily were used to camping and regardless of the accomodation I usually take toilet roll, kitchen roll, anti bac spray , washing up liquid, cleaning cloths and tea towels. when we were leaving (at 6am ) to get the ferry, the rep said (the night before) could we be sure to give a really good clean. I was a bit miffed as they had provided no cleaning materials at all, and it wasnt pristine when we arrived!

Things that regularly go missing from holiday lets:

• Tea towels
• Oven gloves
• consumables (kitchen roll, loo roll, cling film, dishwasher tabs etc - you can leave four loo rolls for two people on a weekend break and they all disappear)
• Nice ornaments
• Tea spoons
• Any really nice bits of kitchen equipment like good knives or non stick pans
• Towels get taken to the beach where they get ruined. Only supplying enough for use when getting clean minimises this

So now perhaps you understand why these things are the way they are? It’s not that owners don’t want to provide them but because the people staying there steal them and misuse things. They unfortunately spoil things for the genuine lovely people who care about things. Sorry - just can’t afford to keep replacing things.

Don’t even get me started on the people who put the electric kettle ON THE GAS HOB and managed to melt the kettle onto the hob. The deposit didn’t even cover it.

The pans! I don’t think I’ve ever stayed in a let where they have been satisfactory. Especially as dh loves making scrambled egg. It’s so annoying.