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?

[FungalSharkey]

A holiday cottage in France with a notice in the bedroom forbidding "bungling".

To this day I'm not entirely sure what that meant

[AhCmonSeriouslyNow]

We went to a cottage in France owned by an English couple once.
She had lots of instructions about what to do and what not to do to the HOB (always in capitals on every note).

It didn't seem like a particularly special HOB to me but it must have been her pride and joy as there were no such special instructions for the rest of the house and appliances.

[TheNaughtySausage]

Fungal I have just woken the baby snorting at "bungling"

[exexpat]

Has anyone read Care of Wooden Floors? It's a whole novel based on someone who leaves incredibly detailed notes for someone who is flat-sitting for him. Made me laugh and cringe at the same time.

Most impossible instructions I had were at a French cottage where we were meant to do very complicated things every day to check the swimming pool filter and chemicals. Instructions in French, obviously, and even with A-level French I really couldn't follow them. Have to admit that by half-way through the week I had stopped even trying.

The note I wish we had been left at the same cottage was a warning that if we had more than one appliance (cooker, dishwasher, kettle, washing machine) on at the same time, the main fuse would trip... Spent a lot of time running out to the fusebox in the garage before we worked it out.

[Selks]

I stayed in a caravan once that had an alarming note saying "Do Not Step on the Floor" stuck on the wall, visible as soon as you opened the caravan door.

I spoke to the owner who confessed that they'd had a burst pipe and the underfloor - made of chipboard - had turned to weetabix in places and the whole floor was held together by the lino. This meant that if you stepped in the wrong place your foot sank through the floor. She thought it was totally fine to let it like that! .

We survived the week by memorising the spots where it WAS ok to step and doing a kind of hop, step and jump to get from one end of the caravan to the other. It was inevitable that it would all go wrong however. On coming back from the pub one night I totally forgot about the blasted floor and sprained my ankle . Luckily it was on the last day and DP was able to pretty much carry me to the car and drive me home.

[EmilyAlice]

We used to go to the same villa in the south of France every year for about 15 years. The patio doors had a wooden baton as a security device to stop them opening from the outside. The notice said, Wait! There is a stick behind the door! The whole family used to say it in chorus as we went in.

[Doyouthinktheysaurus]

We had a notice this year requesting that if anyone wished to dye their hair would they kindly use the special old towel so as not to ruin their normal, (very lovely) towels.

I mean, who the fuck goes to the arse end of the Yorkshire Dales and thinks "hmm, what shall I do today, nice walk.....no I'll just dye my hair"

[EmilyAlice]

We had a holiday cottage for a bit and on the forum for owners there were a lot of stories of towels ruined by hair dye and sun cream. There were some amazing stories. I remember one about some guests who went off for the day and came back three days later having forgotten where they were staying. Owner had contacted the gendarmes.

[idococktailshedoesbeer]

We stayed in a beautiful cottage in a well known town in the Lakes. Was reading through the normal welcome material when I saw a warning about being careful not to upset the woman next door, who was "slightly eccentric but harmless".

DP later went out to get something from our car and he got told to f* off and called the c word! We spent the week being abused for doing absolutely nothing at all every time we walked outside.

[britaxmaxwayuser]

This summer I stayed at a cottage which came with a key fob with 2 buttons on it. In the visitor book it said "Please use button 1 on the key fob to open the gates. For reasons we cannot disclose, please do not press button 2 under any circumstances."

So obviously, on the last day, we drove up the drive pressing button 2 repeatedly.

[britaxmaxwayuser]

Oh and all this weirdness about the rubbish - we had a similarly weird cottage owner who got REALLY funny about the rubbish so I did a bit of reading up on it.

Holiday cottage owners by law must make arrangements and PAY for a commercial waste disposal company to take holiday cottage waste away - it must not be put into the council's normal domestic refuse collection.

After being subjected to a whole load of passive aggressive nonsense all holiday about the rubbish by our holiday cottage owner (including him starting to dump my own rubbish back onto the doorstep of my cottage), I grassed him up to the Council for trying to sneak commercial waste into a domestic waste collection. twat

[insanityscratching]

We had one that asked us not to feed the cats as they were used on the farm to keep vermin at bay. Trouble was though they'd sit and yowl pathetically at the back door for hours until they were given titbs.
At the last one it said that they hoped we enjoyed sitting in the beautiful gardens but do feel free to use the gardening equipment provided to help maintain them funnily enough gardening isn't on my list of activities I enjoy when on holiday.

[BringMeTea]

Selks you win. Crying here.

[valiumredhead]

I've never experienced anything like described on this thread take your rubbish home with you? Wtaf?

[Sparklingbrook]

I am loving these. I hate properties where they adjoin the owner's property in case the owner is a right sticky beak.

And 'use of the owners pool by arrangement'.


My DB and DSIL went to one where the owners moved into a shed as the SC property was their actual houseWicked it wasn't Devon was it?

[valiumredhead]

I nearly booked what I thought was a barn with it's own hot tub but just as I was about to enter credit card details I double checked and it was SHARED with 4 other barns. Mmmm nice

[valiumredhead]

Its

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

Britmax, thank you for that info re rubbish.

I've never been to one that told you to take all your rubbish away but I went to one where our two families sharing a cottage for a week were limited to half a bag and told to take away the rest
Yeah right. Quite apart from the car being full with our 3 kids and luggage, nothing I'd like better than a 6 hour drive with stinky rubbish bags in the back of the car.
To add insult to injury, there were no recycling boxes or compost heap. We generally produce less than a bag of rubbish a week at home, but only because so much goes in the compost.

[GoofyIsACow]

Hilarious thread, britax what happened with button 2???

[Sparklingbrook]

Has anyone ever not got their deposit back?

[GoofyIsACow]

this is a hilarious book of notes left by people sharing flats, made me laugh a lot!

[Tinlegs]

We rent out two holiday properties and have key safes so don't often meet our guests. However, our cleaner in Edinburgh had a strange encounter with 3 American teachers. I had given them a huge discount (as I am a teacher too and they were young and a bit bewildered by the travelling) so expected lots of happy customers.

However, they complained to our cleaner that they had been bitten by,"A poisonous giant Edinburgh biting spider". We eventually worked out they had been on a day trip to Skye (bonkers journey in itself) and it was probably a midge!

(Surely more poisonous creatures in Arizona than Scotland?)

[valiumredhead]

Sparkling-I broke the washing machine and ds lamp and still got ours back. I think the deposit is to cover insurance excess and everything else is wear and tear.