Holiday let owners

[origamiwarrior]

Setting up a thread for holiday let owners (UK and abroad) to share hints/tips, advice etc. Also if anyone is thinking of going into this business, you're welcome to ask questions of those who have done it.

I have a Grade 2 listed two-up, two down cottage in Sussex, owned outright and let out on an AST for a couple of years but launched this spring as a holiday cottage. Visit England 4-star, quirky/period/vintage style. Letting it though a local agency, and I do the changeovers myself. Had a great start, pretty much fully booked until October.

Advice needed - how to speed up changeovers!! I'm taking the full 5 hours, and it's only a tiny 2-bedroom place! I find the kitchen so time-consuming to clean/check. I think it's going to get harder in winter when I can't chuck things outside as I go. I seem to be constantly moving things around as it is. If you have cleaners, how long does it take them to changeover?

Look forward to hearing from other owners about your properties/experiences!

At some point this afternoon two blokes brought a dead cow belonging to one of my neighbours back through the village and plonked it by the road with a tarp over it, ready for collection by the fallen stock lorry when it's next up. It's clearly visible from all windows of my holiday let and there's a leg sticking out. Where do you think this week's guests are going to be on a scale of 'authentic local colour' to 'full refund'???!

Fortunately it's two adults, no children booked in until the week after next!

Kevin - even if it were with children surely that's just part of being in a rural area? Children should understand (i) meat doesn't just appear on shrink-wrapped polystyrene trays in the supermarket and (ii) animals die - that's natural (and a sad economic loss for the farmer).

Can't see it being an issue - but we haven't yet opened our lets to be public - so I may have a lot to learn! I'm more worried about a visitor having their dog shot by our crack-shot sheep farming neighbour who has form (he shot the previous owner's son's dog for worrying his sheep).

Interesting thread in AIBU regarding mid-stay cleans, especially as I have my first 3-weeker coming up. My plans are to tell them we will perform two linen collection/drops at a time to suit them, and offer two cleans (at a specified time that suits me). My agency doesn't offer a reduction for multi-weeks so I feel it's only fair to offer the cleans (and hope they don't take me up on it) but I was surprised the mumsnet consensus was that you should not expect any cleaning.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3307293-To-expect-holiday-cottage-to-be-cleaned-during-our-stay

I really appreciate this thread. We’ve just bought a house on the Algarve and have been debating letting it out in July and August. I must say, the other thread put me off quite a lot despite me being the keener if the two of us.
Advice I’ve had from a friend who is an old hand, is not to let to friends or family, have them as guests when you are there or not at all. That was her biggest eye-opener and I was surprised as her family and friends are a nice bunch afaik.

No dead cow complaints, thankfully Just an apology for accidentally dying one of the bath towels pink by putting it in the washing machine with a tea towel. I couldn't be cross; I did exactly the same thing two weeks earlier (In my defence, if you get a tea towel which is white apart from one dark pink stripe and it says wash dark colours separately, you don't expect the dratted thing to run!)

Aaaaah! Someone has stolen a duvet, with a duvet cover which is part of a matching pair.

We have a changeover on Monday, I am 300 miles away and our regular cleaner is on holiday so I have cover.

My plan is to get one sent to the house. But it may not arrive on time.

I am SO pissed off.

Are you sure it is stolen and not just put in a strange place? Check the top of wardrobes, under the sofas, etc.

My guess is that if it's missing it is because they got a stain on it they are embarrassed by.

Yes, searched everywhere.

What I think people don't understand is the huge problem this causes. I would have preferred them to tell me so I could replace it quicker.

I know they were probably scared I would charge them.

Also have had stain on my brand new carpet which now will not shift. Had they told me at once I could have got rid of the stain. I even leave carpet stain remover in the house!

Oh no! I had changeover today and thought that a throw had been stolen, so I continued cleaning (thinking black thoughts about the guests), and then the man comes back with the throw very apologetic - they had accidentally packed it.

But you can't accidentally pack a duvet. I hope you can sort the replacement. Out of interest, how will you proceed in terms of charging them etc?

I totally understand your point about wanting to know at the time. My fear is turning up on a changeover day and finding something like that happening, or a TV broken etc. With notice I can sort most things, but not if I only find out 4 hours before new guests arrive.

I won't charge them. I don' t have my usual cleaner and she can't say for sure which day it went on. That bed wasn't used by the last guests so she is confused.

I wouldn't charge any way as we don't take a damage deposit.

We had someone post us back a bath towel ( a big bath sheet ) that they accidentally packed
And they’d washed it !

So I'm three months into an Airbnb venture with a large barn next door to the house.

Takes two hours to fully clean and change over but that is because I have theee sets of identical bedding I do in the evenings.

Dunelm so packs of wipes for stainless steel, wooden worktops, loos, glass /Windows and antibacterial.

A flat microfibre mop also super speeds things up.

I don't take a deposit either, but I think if I was 100% sure it was these guests who had stolen the duvet (and I appreciate you can't be sure in your situation), then I would definitely invoice them, in the hope it might guilt them into paying (or just make them think before doing something like that again).

Got my changeover time down under 3 hours today, so I am getting much faster - upstairs (2 bedrooms and a bathroom) took 1 hour 15 including bedding changes, and downstairs (kitchen and sitting room) 1 hour 30 mins.

I'll look into those wipes stayathome, I currently only have wipes for leather sofa cleaning.

Can anyone explain in simple terms air b and b star ratings. I don't get it at all.

We have had 3 reviews. One all 5 stars for each section. Two have one section- both location- that is 4 star with the other sections all 5 star.

Our average shows as 4.3 though.

We have worked so hard on it, and the star rating is way below others in the same location. And yet it is location we are marked down on!

I had a suprisingly good changeover today - had 2 adults and 3 teenagers in for a week and you wouldn't know they'd been there, it was nearly spotless (just a lot of sand in the shower because they'd been swimming in the sea a fair bit). Even better, DH managed to get the enormous picnic table which arrived on Thursday constructed :)

Anyone else use the Out of Eden laundry hampers? I bought four in with my last bed sheets order and they're remarkably useful, much easier to carry than lugging laundry baskets of linen and towels in and out, because I can get both end loops into one hand. www.outofeden.co.uk/products/5275/laundry-hamper

Gah! Currently sitting in local library having turned up for changeover at 10.20 (checkout is 10 am) to find guest family still there eating a leisurely breakfast. I asked how much longer they would be and he said "at least an hour". When I mentioned check out was meant to be 10 am he said there must have been a miscommunication somewhere down the line. As if! Read the cottage's listing! Read the booking conditions! Read the pre-arrival information! Read the guest information folder! Am now dreading to see how they've left the place as presumably will feel justified in leaving it in a state due to being rushed to leave...