Highly annoying French ski apartment check out - is this normal or are my family just dirty cochons ?

[rookiemere]

I posted in AIBU over the weekend but didn't get much response so think this might be quite specific to skiing rentals.

I booked a nice apartment through Booking.com and paid 60 euros extra for cleaning as we were leaving early and because I don't want to be cleaning on holiday. The changeover/cleaning lady was lovely when we arrived - sold me a jar of her DDs overinflated costly honey - I asked her what we needed to do on departure, strip the beds was all she said.

So Fast forward to leaving day. Floor is a bit dusty because outside is muddy and I've not cleaned the bathrooms, but nor have we left any skid marks on the toiled, and we've washed and dried dishes and cleaned the kitchen area.

It's a two bed apartment and pretty compact so not a huge job - with my low standards I reckon about an hour to get it presentable, maybe another 30-60 minutes for it to be sparkling, but 60 euros should pay for a couple of hours cleaning I would have thought.

Well I think you can guess what happens next. Cleaning lady arrives and starts muttering about how dirty it is. I said yes that's why we paid the cleaning fee ( bear in mind it's really not that bad). Oh she said, couldn't you have done a little cleaning at least.
With great reluctance she refunded the 500 euros breakage deposit and I hotfooted it out.

I'm still annoyed about it 3 days later. Similar thing happened in a ski rental a few years ago in same resort - again we'd paid the not inconsiderable cleaning fee. I'd like to point out we've never had issues like this in any other country, and I genuinely don't think we're that bad.

My take on it is she hoped to pocket the cleaning fee but hadn't budgeted in any time with changeovers to actually clean. I'm tempted to message the owner, but of course she'll say that we left the place in a disgusting mess so it's her word against ours.

Anyone else had similar experiences? I'm tempted to never rent from French owners again as it seems like a mismatch of expectations.

I really wouldn’t ask on here, I’ve seen many threads where posters clean their holiday places before leaving including getting up at 7am on the Sunday of a weekend break mopping the floor and dusting the blinds

Seems absolutely fair enough that you paid the fee and she would clean

I’m not seeing the bigger issue though - she had a small grumble and refunded your deposit. Why would you take this further?

@Pyri bigger issue is that she implied we'd left the place filthy and I felt very upset as a result. I would not rent that apartment again, whereas up to that point we probably would.

I'm tempted to message the owner, but of course she'll say that we left the place in a disgusting mess so it's her word against ours.

I always take photos as we leave. Although never run into an issue yet.

Honestly I think you need to let it go. OK so she thought you'd not bothered wiping anything for your entire stay and she has indeed told everyone at bookclub that you're dirty cochons, so what? It was a 2 minute chat and you left.

I clean but not excessively as that's why I pay the deposit. I've had one sniffy owner in Avoriaz but that was it - everyone else seemed to find it perfectly reasonable. The sniffy person, I think, stayed somewhere else (sofa surfed) when their flat was rented but otherwise lived there full time so it wasn't in the same business vein. There were lots of locked cupboards.

The wider issue is that it has happened twice now. So I wondered if it was something peculiar to us or am I missing something about French rentals and how clean they should be left.

I've not had this issue in france but then I've never stayed anywhere with a cleaning fee - I give it a once over before leaving eg 15 mins clean

I'd be really upset if someone had implied I'd left a place dirty, so I understand why you're bothered OP! We do the same (it sounds) -wash up, put stuff away, strip beds. Leave bathroom clean - no skid marks etc but I wouldn't do a deep clean. I would only hoover if the floor was gritty, and certainly wouldn't mop. Is stuff like that even left? I wouldn't expect chemicals to be available under COSHH anyway so how could you do a proper clean?
I always take photos on entering and leaving in case of any issues. Personally I'd email the owners and explain the issue. If the attitude was enough to put you off revisiting, as the owner I'd want to know my cleaning lady was doing that! Alternatively they might come back with. Alist of things they felt was dirty and you can review it and decide if you are prepared to alter that in future stays. Personally I don't mind stripping beds at all and wiping surfaces down, but I'm not paying a fortune to go on holiday to mop and hoover general detritus (obviously would any spills etc). If they want more they need to write that into your holiday paperwork.

Well that's the annoying bit @gogohm . I could have got the vacuum out and made the place look a lot better in about 15 minutes, but I figured that's what I paid 60 euros for. It was to buy me peace of mind and no last minute frenzied cleaning. Instead I feel aggrieved about the whole thing.

Thank you @Keladrythesaviour that's exactly how I feel about it. Also the lady was so nasty about it, just felt so unfair.

We had this issue in France a few years ago in a Eurocamp type place with what I'd call chalets. We went to get our returnable deposit after cleaning everything and the woman came back and bluntly said "it's filthy". She had a really horrible attitude. We asked her what the problem was and apparently we were expected to clean the inside of the oven etc. We'd used it once and left it in the same state it was when we turned up. So not pristine but not particularly dirty. The entire exchange was very uncomfortable with her muttering with her colleague and acting as though we were dirty. We had taken photos so they couldn't dispute it, but she acted as though she was doing us a favour. We were never told we would be expected to deep clean after a week!

Hmm I’d have put the dishes away and wiped all surfaces and made sure no mud on floor. So it appeared basically clean but needed a deep clean IYSWIM.

Oh yes the cleaner opened the oven as well.
Thankfully we'd only used it once to roast a chicken so it was absolutely fine - which she seemed a bit disappointed about.

Yes happened to us on a ski holiday, we paid for cleaning and we cleaned sinks and hoovered up so it was left tidy and clean. The owners turned up as we were leaving and they expected us to have cleaned the windows inside, mopped all floors and clean the oven (which we never used), we told them to do one, can you imagine having to do all that and vacate by 9.00 am, I think this happens a lot in France.

I've had this many times in France, Yelloh especially. They even checked the glass sliding doors for fingerprints!

Equally I rarely even see a person checking into UK rentals, it's all key boxes now.

It's not you personally, OP, think it's a cultural thing. Don't give her another thought

@AmberLynn1536 it's crazy when you'd paid for cleaning as well.

With hindsight I should perhaps have done a quick hoover, but there seemed little point as we were going in and out with our bags and DH and DS aren't exactly careful with their shoes on.

Also a doubly annoying thing is I did ask her right at the start what her expectations were. If she'd said strip the beds, hoover and clean the bathrooms well we could have had a discussion at that point about what the 60 euros was for. Instead she said to just ensure the beds were stripped, that's all.

If there is a cleaning fee I don't clean myself, even in France.

If there is no cleaning fee I don't book at all.

Holidays are too short to spend them cleaning.

France is a bit known for mad cleaning expectations (in my experience and from others too). It's weird.

We stayed in a mobile home in France once (but booked via a UK holiday company) it was incredibly basic but was not the budget range of accommodation- I dread to think what was/wasn't included in that! They left no consumables whatsoever in the mobile home, not even a loo roll.
We are used to s/c and camping so I had taken loo roll, kitchen roll, couple of cloths, antibacterial spray and some cleaning wipes.
The rep told us there were lots of new people arriving on changeover day so could we give it a thorough clean before we left. I felt aggrieved that they had left no cleaning materials at all (and it wasnt spotless when we arrived) and we were expected to clean thoroughly . I think they were being stingy and expected the holiday rep to clean all the mobile homes as well as be on call for customers and arrange other stuff. We were leaving at 6am to catch a ferry so we left as best we could with the materials we had.

OP I literally manage holiday rental cleaners in France as my job - this is normal! You didn't do anything wrong. I very rarely come across a French cleaner who doesn't complain about how dirty the place is and even if I say "of course it's dirty, it's your job to clean it" they still huff. I have had groups leave the place sparkling and then the cleaners either find something else to complain about, or complain about the fact that they left it clean and they now have nothing to do.

I've always found it quite funny, they just like complaining. As long as you haven't left the place an actual tip and have done the dishes and taken the bins out, you're all good.

You're overthinking it surely? She just had a bit of a moan, and you replied "but I've paid the cleaning fee". I thought you were going to say you were later fined/charged extra or something. I'd take it as a slightly grumpy lady had a bit of a moan - so what?

Thanks @DragonSnapCrimson I'm glad it's not just me.
Has strengthened my resolve in future to only book through English owners/companies or stay in hotels when in France.

@TillyTopper I'm a people pleaser and I found the ladies sudden change in attitude quite upsetting on top of a very long journey to the airport. I also don't like someone implying that we're basically filthy pigs when all we've done is stay in a holiday apartment for a week.

I've never had a cleaner arrive before we checked out so I dont know if they thought we were filthy pigs but we did do the cleaning ourselves one year which turned out to be a good choice because one of the DC in the group had a massive nose bleed over half of the chalet so we couldn't have left it in that state.

We just wiped the surfaces, cleaned the bathrooms and mopped the floors. It didn't take long as we were a big group. The check out lady from the agency was ecstatic and said she had never seen such a clean place, we had done a better job than their cleaners She was raving about the lovely, fresh fragrance - lemon cleaning fluid. It did make we wonder how much cleaning their cleaners did normally...

Maybe the cleaner was annoyed because she actually had to clean, it wasn't good enough to just leave?

Yes @chesirecat99 I think the real issue was that the lady had a number of changeovers and hadn't budgeted cleaning time into her schedule, even though we had paid amply for it.

I've decided there's no point in going back to
The owner. We didn't take photos and as others have said I've not lost any actual money. It is a shame for him as I would have left a 10/10 score for the property, but I don't feel I can do that now without mentioning the cleaning issue and I'd rather just not bother.