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?

[valiumredhead]

Mrs Rambo-ds and I spend all week sniggering over the visitor's books. This year there were FOUR books in the drawer, chock full of silly comments like 'shaker it rained for 2 of the days we stayed'

[WhirlyByrd]

Our cottage this year (dog-friendly) had reams of baffling instructions. My favourite was:

'If your pet has to relieve itself on the lawn, please use the shovel provided to DISCREETLY remove it.'

I was so tempted to borrow a dog just so I could trill, 'DP is it your turn to shovel the dog turds or mine' to see what would happen if I was Indiscreet.

[NoComet]

TheNaughtySausage the flora can be very dangerous.

We were watching the TV late one night in a holiday let in Cornwall, when totally without warning an enormously tall pot plant toppled over on top of us.

It must have grown just one two many leaves.

It was a lovely bungalow, it had been next doors late mothers and I guess the plants had always been there. There was an amazing hoya-wax flower trailing round the kitchen shelves.

[Doyouthinktheysaurus]

We always go for holiday properties with parking because I hate having to trek with our stuff. So we stayed in a lovely holiday property on Anglesey where the space to park was about 2 inches wider than our car and it took me a 101 point manoeuvre each time we returned to get the sodding car in

And this year in the Yorkshire Dales, there was a track outside the front of the cottage for parking. The instructions asked very politely that we didn't stray off the track because the postage sided patch of grass beyond the track was "The Village Green"

After our week in Anglesey we stayed beside the Llangollen canal and although the parking space was huge, the track wasn't very wide and the other side of the track was the canal Reversing in was a time consuming affair!

[Tinlegs]

We too have had people totally rearranging the furniture, removing lightbulbs from lamps (working ones - why not just not use the lamp?) and there is always the nightmare when they have plugged their games console into the TV and reprogrammed everything to suit them. People leave half eated food in the fridge and leave a note generously giving it to you (they are too lazy to remove it or throw it out). People who pitch tents on the lawn having booked a cottage for 7 - they then feed, shower etc up to 20. Some dog owners = fantastic. Others bring pets that moult everywhere.

Bonkers things written in visitors' book include entire week's activities written from the point of view of the dog (in "Dog" language). "I went walkies, woof woof, love walkies, with my mummy and daddy and we saw the baa baas which, because I am a good doggie I don't chase".

People who complained (after being warned) when they used our Scottish coastal cottage as a "base" for exploring Edinburgh. It is about a 4.5 hour drive! We told them it was a long way. We warned them that roads were often wet and snowy in winter. They still complained about the weather and the lenght of the journey.

I could go on.....

NB 98% of our guests are lovely, kind and wonderful!

[Doyouthinktheysaurus]

I always write an essay in the visitor book

I get carried away in that post holiday reverie and feel the need to share the details of all of our favourite trips, favourite walks, best tea shops....and so on!

I do love reading the visitor book though, it's fascinating.

What gets me is when people write to say this is their 50th year of coming or something.....I mean, yes I know it's a nice place but there are other nice places to visit!

[Crowler]

This is, I think, the funniest thread I've ever read on MN.

I burst out laughing at the one "only eat dinner in the dining room. Eat breakfast in the breakfast room"

Bonkers people everywhere, I suppose!

[TimeAgainForWellies]

I think the bonkers dog-language review people had been drinking when they wrote that one!

[ABaconAndOnionTart]

I think most of the bonkers instructions are based on stupid things other people have done, but written with the assumption that you too are likely to do that same stupid thing. Guilty until you prove otherwise.

The last cottage we stayed in had the instruction NOT to put washing up liquid in the hot tub.

The owners also wrote in their own visitors book when they stayed in the cottage, they were always very complimentary about it.

[Chelvis]

'Bins are to be emptied daily and bags to be put in the bin in number 10's front garden'. Arrived at bin at 10, only to see a notice 'People staying at number 12: DO NOT put your rubbish in our bin! The owner has been told REPEATEDLY that he cannot use our bin. DO NOT USE!'

Also, the beautiful apartment in North Wales which stated baby/child friendly and had -literally- glowing white carpets everywhere, including the hall and dining room. I spent the week cringing and feeding DD plain spaghetti and other white foods.

[EmilyAlice]

The other thing about the Wait! There is a stick behind the door! villa, was that every key and lock had a different combination of squares, dots, lines and chevrons in different colours so you "knew" which was which. Also the shower was a trickle and eventually OH unscrewed the shower head and found it had lots of tiny pebbles inside to save water.

[CaulkheadUpNorth]

"If you INSIST on dying your hair whilst here, please use the downstairs sink".

"Please do not use the downstairs plug sockets which are empty".

"Please do not take home plants from the garden"

These were from a bunk barn in Wales. Always wondered what the previous occupants had done.

[Sparklingbrook]

Oh showers emily. i can never work strange showers. Scalded, frozen, drowned-that's me.

I was fiddling with one last week, I found out it had one of those rainfall ones in the ceiling and the normal shower head. How much water do you need?

And flooding the bathroom with said shower is a usual event.

[valiumredhead]

All this refuse angst! we've always just had a bin and caretakers have taken it away. I feel robbed

[Chibbs]

We had to put a sign on our canal boat saying not to put anything down loo that had not been eaten first!

canal boat toilets are VERY delicate!

[Sparklingbrook]

I didn't use it Chibbs-I went at the pub, we only hired it for a day. How does toilet paper work then-I haven't eaten that.

[CelticPromise]

I expect it's loo paper in the bin. We've stayed at a few places with that rule, country places in Southern Europe that aren't on mains sewage.

Sparkling I hate rain showers, am always happy to see an extra shower head! It's not my cottage though...

[unlucky83]

This is probably me taking them too literally ...
Our caravan rental (site with lots of rentals) had no instructions
...except 'leave caravan as you would expect to find it and vacate by 10am'
I never know how well you are expected to clean up after yourselves anyway - surely don't need to polish the shower screen etc ???? normally I would make sure it was tidy and clean ish ...
But I would expect it find it spotless clean ...cue me manically cleaning everywhere on leaving morning - except the basic cotton on a stick type mop had been put away damp by previous renters and was smelling musty so we put it outside the door and it had disappeared - no time to go in search for one etc - cleaned floors with a cloth on my hands and knees.
...as we were just about to lock up a caretaker was driving past and shouted to us not to worry about looking for the mop - he had moved it in case it got stolen -who'd nick a musty mop?
I mentioned I'd cleaned the floor with a cloth and he said 'why did you do that - 'cleaners name' will be in do it anyway' ....

[tolittletoolate]

we are going away for the weekend today and staying in a log cabin, I hope there's lots of funny notes everywhere for me to tell you about, I'm feeling rather left out!!

[unlucky83]

Should say on this site we just put everything in a black bin outside the door and it was emptied every day - no recycling - tbh that freaked me out a bit - was very tempted to take milk bottles etc out with us to find a recycling bank...

[Wallison]

Not a holiday let, but could you imagine having this guy as your landlord?:

www.inspiredbydemand.com/HowToGuide.html

[valiumredhead]

We only every strip the beds and put them all in the bath and make sure the dishwasher is on!

[LRDMaguliYaPomochTebeSRaboti]

wall, I once had a landlady (not even a live-in LL) who instructed us that it was forbidden to leave any shampoo etc. in the bathroom, and put out little ornaments on the edges of the bath to discourage this.

Sounds like she'd get on like a house on fire witht hat bloke.

[Wallison]

So, no to shampoo (which you do actually use in the bathroom) but yes to little ornaments?

Yeah, they two of them should get together. They could share tips on how to open doors.

[SelectAUserName]

"Please do not clamp babies to the mahogany table".

There was no mahogany table.