Lay My Hat

It's so annoying how tax offices interpret the wording in different ways. I've always declared in box 5NG, but this year - despite producing my certificate from the Mairie declaring me as a meuble de tourisme - my tax office was adamant that this box is now only for meubles de tourisme which are cla...

It's very bizarre - we have our 3 cottages on all the main listings, although we always hope that guests will find us through our website and avoid extra booking fees. Last week, exhausted from cleaning gites and in a moment of madness, I added a €50 cleaning fee to our booking.com listing (thinking...

There was a discussion about this on LMH over a year ago: http://www.laymyhat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25603 I leave the forms in the gites (there's a printable model online) and ask guests to complete them, nobody has ever complained and it's really just the same as having your passport details co...

It sounds like you have loir - often called edible dormice - in your loft. Loir are protected in France, but apparently mothballs often drive them away harmlessly (putting the mothballs in the loft, not lobbing them at the dormice).

[quote]a cup full of coffee and sugar and a small handful of tea bags. 1/8 full handwash dispensers, 1 1/2" ish of washing up liquid. I'm sorry, but I'd just hate it if I rented somewhere and it had dregs - I'd rather have nothing. I have coffee, tea and sugar in nice storage jars and I always ...

Two new rolls and a box of tissues in each bathroom, handwash on all bathroom and kitchen sinks. Never thought of any usage as theft (although now I'm thinking that there must be a thief in my own house - we go through far more than the national average so I may need to start rationing) http://encyc...

Please will you use the whole words and not initial letters so that I can understand. CSG ? CFE? Crikey, if you're living in France and renting gites, it really helps to know what these mean! CSG (Contribution Sociale Généralisée) is a contribution taken as a specific percentage of all forms of tax...

Hi Gill B - thanks! Will pm you. yes, you can decline a booking, HFD send you an e-mail to say that somebody has booked and they give the guest's details. You accept or decline the booking in the owners' area, but you can contact the guest before this to clarify anything if necessary.

Hi HelenB - just seen above that Rosie offered to recommend aussiefrog, who was already with them - so she should have first dibs!

Hi Gill - sorry, everyone else is up before me this morning! Same as Bassman and Annedab, I had no problem with multiple listings. I called HFD for advice, and they said that the 3 gites had to be listed separately but that I could make it clear in each advert that they were in a gite complex. Admin...

Hi HelenB - I'd be very happy to recommend you - I've been with them for a year on the Quickbook option and they've brought me 5 bookings this summer. I think that they're sometimes only seen as appealing for travellers by their arrival points (Brittany/Normandy) but from talking to guests, it's as ...

Not the ones with pictures of ladies in crinolines - I use biodegradable nappy bags on rolls, used as liners for a small bin next to the loo and I leave extra in case guests want to "individually wrap".

We have signs - hate them but felt it better to install them after a couple of early disasters. They're quite detailed, but we hang them in a pretty frame and use a nice font, centred with a surround. We point them out to guests when we show them round the gite on arrival and press the point then as...

You're right of course, Nemo - I didn't read the key word: key. I really did read it that (non) communication was a main factor in who got the booking, not that the booking with the second guests had gone so far done the road. Sorry. But it still might be useful for others to know that there appears...

Really pleased for you Sam, that everything has worked out okay. Maybe I've got it the wrong way round, but I still read it that the first guests who booked got bumped, and the second guests got the holiday, mostly because the first guests were uncommunicative (and you didn't read the OD e-mail) and...