In what state would you leave a self-catering cottage?

[Miaou]

I ask out of interest because I have spent this summer cleaning two.

The state they are left in varies, from pretty clean to just walked out of the house and left everything (including breakfast dishes on the table).

My main gripe is that people break things then hide the evidence, so I have to play detective.I wonder if they think I'm going to tell them off!!! It's embarrassing if I don't spot the breakages and the next visitors find the evidence.

How do you leave them? And do you own up to breakages?

Exactly! As I found it more or less.

immaculate, and both times, the owners have had neighbours on hand to check the cottage before anyone else checks in and to launder etc...

I forgot to say..... when we rented a lovely cottage for 2 weeks in North Yorkshire a couple of years ago I put a hot frying pan on the kitchen worktop and burnt a hole in it (I though they were all heat resistant...don't see the point otherwise!). Anyway, as there is not exactly much that can be done to repair it short of installing a completely new worktop, all we did was leave an apologetic note and £20 towards buying something nice for kitchen/cottage.

We've just got back from a Keycamp holiday and as always, I do leave the caravan as I found it. I do clean the bathroom, mop the floor, fold up the blankets and leave on beds with pillows.

However, I gather from this years holiday that not everyone does the same!! Last week, lying on the sunlounger, reading my book and I hear a shout of "Oh my God!!, that's disgusting". The rep was then calling for one of his colleagues to come and have a look. I could then hear (windows open), exclamations of "how could they leave it in this state, that's foul" etc etc.

So, anyone staying with Eurocamp, at L'Etang de la Breche in Saumur, left on Monday 16 August - WAS IT YOU?????

Always used to do what I hope was a reasonable clean,plus would always admit to breakages as I break things constantly at home so am used to it.

But this year went to a mobile home in France (it was v good) and was motivated by 2 factors; 1. apparently it was the first time the Belgian owners had rented to Brits and 2. my MIL went on about the state her caravan had been left in by renters. So I did the most incredible clean ever, washed down entire mobile home including ceilings, scrubbed everything to within an inch of its life. Felt i was cleaning for my country . Whole thing took about 5 hours.

So next year I plan on a hotel

The villa we stayed in last year was cleaned so well the owner was gob-smacked. I washed her sofa covers, cleaned inside the fridge, the lot.
Lottie had got some cereal on the sofa and we'd cooked fish on bbq etc so I was aware of these things and did something about it before we left. The owner was beside herself and hugged me, she was so happy!

Do as you would be done by is my motto.

When we've stayed in self-catering cottages we've usually been asked not to arrive before 3pm on the first day and to leave by 10am on the last. So I've always assumed the time between 10am and 3pm is for cleaning! We leave the place decent - always wash up and put away stuff, quick wipe of kitchen surfaces and sluicing around the bathroom, rubbish taken out, floor swept or hoovered if it was messy, furniture in place, any breakages owned up to. But I would still expect a cleaner to come in between lets.

Exactly, gingernut. A cleaner certainly should come in in-between lets. So why would you spend part of your holiday scrubbing floors, etc? I just don't get it.

when we stayed in a holiday caravan in Cornwall 2 years ago the place was not very clean, (pubes in the shower) shower floor dirty and a razor behind the sofa..

when we left we hoovered, cleaned the sink, toilet (bleach every other day or so), work surfaces and all the crockery pans were nice and clean....whilst I would make it look spotless when you have arrived somewhere and it isn't to begin with and the windows are dirty, you wonder why you are paying top notch to stay there...if it had been spotless at first, then we would have left it spotless (but bare minimum as a holiday afterall to forget housework)

"when we left we hoovered, cleaned the sink, toilet (bleach every other day or so), work surfaces and all the crockery pans were nice and clean...."

Lavender, that's bare minimum? In that case, how often do you bleach the toilet at home? Every hour?

same as Thomcat, we only hoovered about 3 times as brought loads of sand in from beach, it sounds a lot but it was washing up, hoovering and clean toilet when we left (not every day just wouldn't leave washing up and food on surfaces for someone else)

I'm with Gingernut - a quick tidy round etc, but not a deep clean........mind you I suppose that I've got hotel mentality.....have only self-catered a couple of times

Stayed in 2 this year, both cases hoovered and cleaned bathrooms, cleaned kitchen and left dishwasher on. Second one was v.grateful to owner at renting at very short notice with no deposit etc and saving us from yucky hotel so washed and dried all sheets/towels/bathmats etc and remade beds (left note explaining we had done this)
Interesting experience the first week as our cheap beach towels that we had bought to use and chuck away, shed dye so badly that we had blue spots on white bath mat and towel and then having washed them a million times to get rid of it, the inside of the drum was stained blue and had to wash that too-felt bit like thing 1 and 2 from cat in the hat!
My mother lets people use her holiday house in spain and gives them the choice of cleaning it or paying £25 for a cleaner to do so, but then she only charges £50 a week so I supppose thats a bit different

Cor blimey miggy! Does your mother only rent to people she knows? or certain MN'ers??

The reason why I have a "quick cleanaround" when leaving Keycamp-type holidays is because I like to think I'm "helping" out the young Reps who come into clean - they can get on with the cleaning rather than having to waste time "tidying up" first. The site we've just come back from had 3 Reps - all of whom were 19/20 and in the middle of University - they were on the go from 7.30am right through to midnight. I just like to make their lives a little bit easier

As it happens, when I used to have a cleaner, I also used to "tidy up" first DH could never understand but my argument was that we were paying on an hourly basis - and I wanted proper cleaning done in those hours, not picking up papers/washing cups up/picking up toys etc etc.

And having heard those Eurocamp Reps slagging off the Brits who left the caravan in a s* hole, I would hate for anyone to talk about me like that !

Put everything back in its place and all crockery away, wipe down surfaces and empty bins. Think thats about it. Wouldn't strip beds and never stayed anywhere with a dishwasher. Also wouldn't hoover because would expect cleaner to do that. But would certainly leave it ready to clean.

When we borrowed a flat in Cornwall once (ie from DH's colleague) I did a thorough top to bottom clean. But thats obviously different.

I'm amazed at how many of you clean before you leave - please come and stay on my island, I would love to come in and clean after you!!! I could just sit and have a cuppa and read a magazine for an hour or so!!!

The houses I clean are just on the beach, so they do get a lot of sand in, which is what takes the getting out. I really wouldn't expect anyone to do a "deep clean" - after all, you are on holiday - just leave the place tidy enough to clean.

In the information packs I prepared for the holiday cottages, I asked people to leave the beds they had used with the bedding turned back, so that I didn't have to wash the bedding on all the beds (one cottage sleeps nine, but quite often there'll be just a family of four in it); however almost without exception visitors have stripped th beds they have used, which is very nice of them.

On average, if the houses are left tidy (ie kitchen surfaces wiped down, no washing up to do, furniture back in the right places), it takes me 2 hours to do the small cottage (sleeps 2-5) and between 3 and 6 hours to do the house (sleeps nine to infinity). And about three days to do the washing!!!

Whenever we've rented holiday cottages, we always ensure washing up is done (or at least the dishwasher is left running), beds stripped or made up, general tidy up, quick sweep and hoover, kitchen worksurfaces clean, and the bath and shower rinsed down. It's not a through clean but it is not left in a disgraceful state either. I always assume that the proper cleaning is done in the times between us leaving and the next family starting.

However when we stay in hotel rooms I do admit to not making up beds or cleaning the bathroom when we leave

OOh no, I'd never clean in a hotel (unless there was sick or somehting gross that I wouldn't expect anyone else to have to clean up) but has anyone else heard of this one: my dp insists that if you want your towels changed in a hotel, you throw them all in the bath? I hate it, don't really see that they need changing within a week or so, and it looks really decadent and arrogant to me! But he always does it, never tidies or anything, while I'm scurrying about like Ruby from Upstairs Downstairs!

Why would you make up the bed in a hotel before you left (unless to ensure, like SueW, that you hadn't left anything behind)? Does anyone really think that the sheets won't be changed between guests?

Most hotels now, I think, don't automatically change all the towels every day, to save on laundry, which is why they ask you to leave the ones you have used and want replacing in the bath or on the bathroom floor.

god no I wouldn't make the bed! Just had never heard of the towels in the bath thing before . Better get back Downstairs!

But metrobaby was because she doesn't make the beds up, like she thinks it would be expected.