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.

If the cottage is for 4 people, this doesn't mean you only need to provide 4 knives, 4 spoons, 4 forks, 4 plates, 4 bowls and 4 glasses.

I always pack a sharp knife, chopping board (don't want to use some manky meat juice wooden one), cafetiere, scissors, veg peeler, oven gloves, decent sized mug.

Two years ago we stayed somewhere - groups of 6 - that only had small, teeny saucepans. Granted, it had about 10 of them, so I could cook enough pasta for us all in 3 saucepans but couldn't fit enough sauce in a pan on the remaining hob. There were 4 frying pans too, which didn't fit on said hob at the same time. And a single baking tray. Cake and muffin tins galore though. And obviously all the cupboards were filled with all of this and we had to keep the actual food for the week on the floor in the living room because there was no room on the kitchen surface because it had a teeny toaster and a large pod coffee machine (no mention on website and no pods provided), a massive knife rack, massive microwave, pot of dusty utensils - I can't remember what else but there was just no room to make a sandwich.

@fiheka re one of your latter points. For those of us with accommodation on parks, no we were not allowed access to ours. The whole park was closed and the barriers locked.

Dear Holiday Cottage Users,
Here’s a summary of damages and costs we incurred last season.

• Guest didn’t close fridge door overnight. They claimed faulty fridge.

I paid for replacement emergency fridge and for electrician to conclude that fridge wasn’t faulty....guest just hadn’t shut the door. Cost to me £200.

• Guest child got bored and chewed a Venetian blind in the lounge leaving teeth marks. Looked rubbish ...cost to me of a new blind £100

• Guest failed to close upstairs shower door and flooded downstairs kitchen. Guest claimed plumbing leak. Plumber came, no leak. Major redecoration of property and closed for 3 weeks. Cost to me £1500.

• Guest child has urinated a single bed mattress ...next season replace a John Lewis singe mattress cost to me £350.

• total cost of removing unwanted items from my garage including a used dirty bbq, various punctured sea floaties, crab lines complete with smelly bait. Probably about £50 in trips to landfill and my time.

• numerous times had to pick up dog crap from our garden

We lost £5k in bookings due to Covid. Haven’t been able to easily visit my business due to restrictions and not being able to stop overnight.

My business just about breaks even....no more than that. Perhaps OP ought to stop next time at a Premier Inn (although I believe even they’ve had to close hotels) and take a nice set of sharp knives.
Thanks

@Crocidura

One place in the Lake District had no lamps in the sitting room so you had to sit with the overhead light on.

😱😱 Not... not the OVERHEAD LIGHT?? Might be worth logging that with 101.

Sounds just like every room in my house, and my parents' and my sister's. I had no idea that was such a hardship

You pay a lot to stay in a holiday cottage
Low season we are £650
High season £1500
We sleep 6. So per night per person low season is £15.47
High season per person per night is £35.71
Is that really what you call a lot?

@Lotusmonster

You pay a lot to stay in a holiday cottage Low season we are £650 High season £1500 We sleep 6. So per night per person low season is £15.47 High season per person per night is £35.71 Is that really what you call a lot?

So agree here! At max we could sleep 8, and low season was £80/night! £10 per person. Going up to about £20 per person in high season max.

This includes the use of the 3 bed lodge, TV with Netflix, an Xbox and selection of games, puzzles, books, board games, attraction guides, Tassimo machine with pods for coffee and hot chocolate, all cleaning materials, scented candles, toilet roll, bedding, condiments, tea bags, coffee, sugar, cooking oil & a kitchen full of equipment.

Gosh if it's such a hardship torent out your second home and not even financially beneficial, why would anyone do it?

Why do women need an additional bath towel for their hair? Surely a hand towel will do??

I honestly couldn't give a damn if cutlery and crockery don't match.

Err to pay the bills, not to make profit 😂

Dear guest
Please don’t poo on the floor and leave it for me (not even kidding!)
Really good point about the knife sharpener, thanks, I’ll get those ordered for my cottages (and yes we do have glass chopping boards coz the others only last one guest and it’s a massive waste!)

@Snally82

Err to pay the bills, not to make profit 😂

Well quite, so it is financially beneficial

@MusicMenui I never said it wasn’t, just clarifying why we do it. (Even though it isn’t a second home)

I know, but it's a bit much when the owners play the martyr, like they're doing poor holidaymakers a favour and it brings them terrible hardship to have us play for their investment

@MusicMenu

I know, but it's a bit much when the owners play the martyr, like they're doing poor holidaymakers a favour and it brings them terrible hardship to have us play for their investment

Well, for someone like me, they certainly ARE doing me a favour making fabulous locations available for the way we like to holiday.

Are businesses not meant to make money?

@MusicMenui just think it works both ways, of course I’m a guest at other places and understand some points. But I’m also a host & as such see the side that guests just don’t. It’s not a complaint, not another side to the story :)

That said covid did put us in hardship as we had no income but continuing fees to pay for ground rent, maintenance etc. All whilst not being allowed to access the properly, we desperately wanted to offer it (for free) to people who were isolating due to travel from abroad, or those on the front line who couldn’t stay at home with family etc. We weren’t allowed, such a shame.

@Bigsighall
May I recommend this one?

AnySharp World's Best Knife Sharpener with PowerGrip, Silver https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0029X0RTU/ref=cmswwrcppapiglttfabc5VVHM87AD7HD4Z834VB4?psc=1

On a self catering holiday I always take:

Copperstone frying pan
Night light
A few bin bags
Corkscrew
Decent tin opener
One giant towel
Couple of tea towels
Roll of kitchen roll
1 sharp knife
2 mugs (why always tiny cups in cottages?)
A pillow each

However there are only two of us to fit in the car with all that 🤣

@crapbuttrue

Why do women need an additional bath towel for their hair? Surely a hand towel will do??

Yes, I've never needed more than a bath towel (I find bath sheets too big and awkward to dry myself with) and hand towel. I only use one towel at home so I have fewer to wash, just dry my hair first. Also don't see what it has to do with my sex, my teen DS has much longer hair than me (and uses one towel).

I don't care about matching crockery, and I always take my own towel (and towel hair turban) anyway but yy to sharp knives, please.

Also- if your cottage/villa advertises itself as being suitable for, say, 8 guests, please ensure there are enough seats a) at the table and b) in the sitting room. Doesn't have to be matching in there either- beanbags or comfortable folding chairs are fine, in addition to the usual sofas/armchairs.

And please, check the mattresses occasionally. No-one likes a lumpy mattress, or one where you can feel springs coming through, or one that is so thin that you can feel the slats underneath. And preferably not rock hard, either, although I recognise that some people like that. A place with a decent bed (or some way to make it more comfortable, eg an extra duvet, or foam layer) will always score highly with me. (And make me overlook some other failings)

Also I don't care in the slightest about matching crockery or cutlery!

@Crocidura perfect, Thank you!

I agree with you OP. And holiday cottage owner - surely you factor insurance and some levels of replacement, etc in to your pricing? Do you take a damage deposit?

You can buy perfectly good cutlery, crockery, glassware and cookware pretty inexpensively from IKEA. When you buy it, get extras so you can replace breakages with matching stuff.

I would add: don't advertise there is a dishwasher and leave me one detergent tab for a four night stay. There may only be two of us, but we need more than one or two mugs and plates each for our stay and I don't go on holiday to wash up by hand when I don't do that at home.

[quote Enko]@tcjotm

There have been scientific studies done about teaspoon disappearances
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1322240/

And the world suddenly seems like a better place [/quote]
Haha @enko I’ve been rereading it since it was published 15 odd years ago, never fails to cheer me up. Can still never find a bloody teaspoon at work (at a University 😂😂)

This year, I've found myself trawling photographs of holiday cottages trying to work out if the sofas and armchairs are high enough for us to sit on. I can tell you it's not fun trying to get up from a low-level chair when you're disabled by age or illness. Last year my husband had to use a kitchen chair all week after we panicked that we might have to call an ambulance to help him up from the sofa, the only comfortable seating in the cottage. Unfortunately cheaper furniture is often much lower. The cottage we were in was one of several marketed to older people.