bizarre instructions in holiday cottages

[TheNaughtySausage]

I am going on holiday on Friday and I am very excited. Not least because one of my favourite things is looking forward to finding out if the holiday cottage owner is anal/bonkers enough to leave little notes everywhere. I mean, I expect a certain level of "this is how the wood burning stove works" and "bins get emptied on a Wednesday", but some of them are mad... like the one which was laminated and hand-written in 1973 by the looks of the paper, balanced on the back of the ancient fusty sofa, instructing us that ALL the cushions MUST be plumped DAILY.

What odd things have you come across in holiday cottages?

The one where EVERY piece of jigsaw or construction toy had a sticker with the owner's name and address on it.

We went to one rented out by a completely mad couple, who'd built it themselves, and who (it transpired) were camping in the field nearby so they could 'keep an eye'.

It had a mezzanine level that was totally open, no railings or anything, and one of the beds was there! They had a wooden draining board with a note saying 'please do not leave anything wet on the draining board at all as the wood will mark'.

Bonkers.

We had a wood draining board in our rented house... They're fucking shit. Its designed to get wet, don't make it from a porous material.

From the other side of the fence, I always look forward to bonkers things that our guests do (our cottage is next door to our house).

While we were away for a week in the summer, the family staying in the cottage spent happy hours shifting barrow-loads of gravel from our drive to the potholes in the farm track (not ours) ... why??

There was a tiny wee sticker above the mirror in the hallway saying that the on button for the shower was behind the mirror. It took us two hours to notice.

Simone - WHY?

Exactly, gin. We've got wooden worktops in our current (rented) house and they are a stupid choice. But at least we don't have a daft note telling us never to get them wet!

I'm sure they're fine when installed and if you regularly wax them because they're your pride and joy.
Rented house when you never meet the owner and only deal with stupid letting agencies... Not so good.

The cottage we stayed in while our own cottage guests were busy with our gravel had the following:

'Do not hang clothes over the heaters or bad things will happen!'

which made me laugh because it at least acknowledges slightly anal tendencies, which as a fellow cottage owner I recognise

We stayed in an apartment last week and there were no instructions anywhere. It made me a bit nervous.

I did feel like leaving a warning notice on the bed though. It had sticky out feet and DH and I both stubbed our toes about 6 times.

But then too many laminate notices makes me feel very uncomfortable.

I love not meeting the owner. Key safes are brilliant!

Oh I feel cheated we've never had any weird notes or instructions.

We just stayed in one where we were asked to put all our rubbish in the public bins- don't think your even allowed to do that!

We stayed in the smallest holiday cottage in the world ever and the place was full of instructions about not leaving the tap running and other quite anal stuff, but the weirdest thing was all the stuff everywhere.

For a maximum of 2 people there were 34 mugs. And 6 teapotsl. And a whole grey canteen tray of cutlery.

Bonkers.

I love all the random stuff in the kitchen drawers/cupboards. 6 eggcups for a 4 person apartment, and the drawers always have takeaway menus in, and random carrier bags.

I stayed in a place once where there was a huge list of instructions, including the immortal 'Do not use the dining room for meals other than dinner. A breakfast room is provided for breakfast, not the dining room'.

Dh made the mistake of making a little joke about it to the owner. Who gave him a frosty glare.

SixPack - where do you eat lunch?

my parents went on a canal boat where the instruction manual said "please use the bread knife to remove debris from the engine" .

IShall, I take it they bought white sliced from the shop then?

Oh, please can have MORE! I have never had any notes in any holiday / short rental and some of these have me ROFL

Not holidays cottage but my DH rented a room from a guy for a while, the list of instructions he got was and double sided page of A4 things like "if a door is left open at a certain angle, it must be left at that angle" and "Not to wash jeans in the washing machine as the rivets make a noise".

do not urinate in the pool. (A villa we stayed in)
another one came with very specific instructions about how to drive up to the villa, up a very very steep driveway which resembled a bloody cliff face. It said : only one person in the car, remove all luggage.
Needless to say, we left the car at the bottom and walked up.
A French gite had 2 pages of A4 full of information on recycling, there were about 15 recycle bins. I think we used two.

"bins get emptied on a Wednesday" - now that would be helpful - last place we stayed had nothing obvious to say what the collection day was. I'll just get up really early each day on my holiday on the off-chance the bin collection is coming and I need to wheel out the correct bin, shall I?

But of course, there was the instruction manual for the toaster in a ring-binder, in case I'd forgotten how to operate a toaster...

I'm goping to have a RECORDED VOICE in mine, saying 'Do not put sanitary products down the loo OR ELSE!' It will automatically come on when the light switch is pulled.

I've just remembered another one.
In our holiday cottage this summer, there was a notice in the bathroom telling us not to put any mercury or arsenic down the toilet. Because I often shove a packet of arsenic in with my toiletries.

On the canal boat we hired the note in the loo said 'Don't flush anything down the toilet you haven't eaten'.