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 notice about clothing and heaters should read 'don't hang clothes over the heaters because it is a fire risk, bozo!'

the notice about clothing and heaters should read 'don't hang clothes over the heaters because it is a fire risk, bozo!'

These are brilliant!

I love the one about not encouraging the chickens. It gave me a mental picture of all these chickens moping about with no self confidence

'do not encourage the chickens' :o:o:o

The toilet thing I can relate to from the owners. When we rented out our old property for a year we 3 times had the renters claim the toilet was blocked. A friend of ours runs a company that does all sorts of home improvements and he was who we had to go deal with such things. the first time it was a disposable nappy that had been chucked down the toilet. We paid and thought ok small child innocent enough mistake obviously they will not do it again.
2 months later toilet is blocked .. nappy again.. this time our friend had a word with them on the suitability of throwing disposable nappies down the toilet. Again we paid.

a month later toilet is blocked. We said to the estate agent to let the renters know if it once again was a disposable nappy we would charge the fee to them. Disposable nappy once again. they got the bill this time. After much grumbling paid. For the rest of the time they were with us we never had that problem again.

I still to this day do NOT understand how they managed to get 3 disposable nappies down a toilet..

We had 'Please do not close the curtains'. We happily ignored this instruction as we did not want to be exposed to the street when getting ready for bed. However, the curtains failed to meet in the middle by a good 10 inches!

Bit off topic but does anyone do the leaving the holiday cottage thing of going back 5 times to check you haven't left anything, opening all the drawers and grovelling about under the beds? I annoy myself.

"Do not encourage the chickens"

I have visions of a flock of under achieving chickens and holidaying families with pom poms cheering them on to lay more.

You know that bit where you actually post the key back through the letterbox and can stop looking for stuff? It makes me anxious.

I nearly left a pair of my pants and a sock of DS's in the washing machine last week.

Last holiday cottage we stayed in was divine, a lovely place in the Yorkshire Dales, really well Looked after.

The owner was obviously quite proud of it and we had a folder with details of the significance of the pictures on the wall. This one was painted by Mrs SoandSo who stayed here on this date in 1973 and loved it here and so on for loads of pictures. Completely fascinating and slightly bonkers in equal measures.

The house had wallpapered doors and a false door which we think must have gone through to next door at some point but not anymore, there was a padlock on it The temptation to get the bolt cutters out was overwhelming! Such a shame they didn't write the story behind that in their folder

I love reassuring sets of instructions and always read the folders full of info. I particularly like it when the visitor's book complains about the price of local amenities.

At one holiday cottage we were told not to use the tiny, ancient second staircase as the previous week someone had fallen down it and broken their leg. At another place we were told not to leave windows and doors open as a squirrel had got in shredded furniture and destroyed electrics. They'd not had an income there for weeks while it was sorted.

But at the last place we stayed at, I went round to the caretakers house to let them know that the slate roof was leaking onto the kitchen table and he said it always does that so we had to leave an enormous saucepan under it all week.

We stayed in a lovely cottage a couple of weeks ago. Nice owners, well equipped etc. But one of the terms and conditions left me a bit puzzled. 'The owners take no responsibility for disruption of the holiday caused by flora and fauna'.

Ok so it was on a farm. Cows mooing at stupid o' clock etc. But flora ? I was half expecting triffids.

Last year there were no less than 6 notices around the upstairs loo telling us in various degrees of sterness that it was only for wee-wees, and only then with very minimal loo paper useage. And it was in the instruction manual a few times, and the owners told us three times too. I was terrified of that loo.

I once stayed in a haunted cottage (I'm not woo). Me and my brother hated it from the moment we walked in and were scared the whole time we were in it, to the point that we decided to share a room (we were 13 and 9 at the time). Then one night, as we were reading in our beds, the wallpaper rippled as though someone's hand was running across it from underneath. We were too scared to move so we screamed the place down. Mum came up all ready to be cross with us but we must have looked genuinely terrified.

She checked the wallpaper and it had no air bubbles or anything. It was pasted tight to the wall. She slept in our room with us after that.

Psammead, I expect someone got stung by a stinging nettle and complained.

fishandlilacs - was your DH renting a house/apartment with Sheldon Cooper??? (Big Bang Theory)

That sounds like something he would have in his 'Room-mate Agreement'

Sparkling, my dad once managed to leave with the only front door key to the cottage we'd been in. How he did it ice no idea as it was a massive, medieval looking thing and was in his front trouser pocket!

Psammead, what if a surprise poo happens? Do you have to fish it out?!

I've no idea. Crap typing!

We stayed in one once that had instructions for returning the key that were impossible to follow - you were meant to leave it with the caretaker at an obscure and difficult address and when you got there there was no-one in and no postbox, and failing that you were meant to go into Padstow 10 miles away in the wrong direction (nowhere to park except the park and ride) and take it to the letting agency which didn't open till the afternoon, etc. So we thought 'bugger that' because we weren't going into Padstow again and left it on the kitchen table with a note.
The owners failed to find it and phoned us up to ask what we'd done with it.

We stayed in a villa in Italy which had a list of info about the villa and garden. One of the points was "Massimo will come twice a week and do gardening. He is very backward. "

Not really a rule, but we once arrived at a low cost caravan to find EVERYTHING covered in thick plastic (think laminated settee, table, bed etc)
The car wasn't allowed on the site and had to be parked 1.5 miles away (we had A LOT) of luggage
You weren't given a key, but had to call into reception to be let in
The reception was staffed by one man, who may or may not be available for said "letting in"
We didn't stay long...

Oooweer just realised my post was neither an instruction, nor about a holiday cottage

Btw sparkling brook
I never double check
Hence leaving a fridge full of food
A DVD player (with DVDs )
And a bag of multi pack crisps

I did phone to apologise