Rubbish collections have probably been our biggest headache. When we started they used to collect on Fridays which coincided with our changeover day and I think most guests put the rubbish out when they were packing up on Thurs evening. Last year it changed to Mondays and it looks like lots of guests miss it.
We have a note in a frame on the wall above the bins, a kitchen calendar with 'Black/blue bin bags collected' hand written in each week on the right days and a whole page on it in the house book. I think adding something to the info I send out before they come is a good idea.
We have bought an extra bin so there is enough room if collections are missed.
At the moment we have to visit once a month simply to check the bins and take the rubbish to the dump.
However, we often have to re-sort the rubbish because the dump categorises things differently to the door to door collections. To be honest we sometimes don't have time and just put recycling and all into black bags and it all goes into landfill.
The worst is when a bag hasn't been tied up or guests have just chucked dirty nappies in the bin without bagging them up. Then we come along two weeks later to a bin crawling with maggots...
There has to be a better way!
BTW friends of ours stayed in Cornwall recently and were asked to take their rubbish out with them daily and leave it in public litter bins!
Do you ask your guests to take out the rubbish/recycling?
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ruthiebabe
- Posts: 8
- Joined: Tue Feb 01, 2011 9:45 am
- Location: Eden Valley Cumbria
Crikey that's extreme...and if I were the guest I wouldn't be too happy about that. But it is potentially a terrible nightmare for property owners if not on site.BTW friends of ours stayed in Cornwall recently and were asked to take their rubbish out with them daily and leave it in public litter bins!
Here we are on a path we never intended to tread...which way was it heading?
We have been stroppy on recycling since the outset. It is one of the strange things about holiday letting that guests do seem to learn - I have never worked that one out. Anyway, we have at least half a dozen recycling boxes in the cellar of each house and a brown dutsbin for food waste and a black one for anything which can't go in a recycling box (outside). We also advise guests that they can dispose of one small plastic bag per week in the black bin. Things do get put in the wrong place and the occasional mixed back of recycling gets dumped in the black bin and has to be retrieved and sorted by OH - yuk indeed but we have always had fortnightly collections so the bins overflow in no time if not separated for recycling (OH takes sacks of stuff to the skips at the recycling centre). I would say, don't give up. Especially if UK councils are getting stroppy in most places. People will get used to it. It becomes second nature and I hate having to chuck so much in the dustbin when we are in the UK now. I would limit the notices though - they do annoy guests and may encourage them to do the opposite.
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waterwitch
- Posts: 271
- Joined: Mon Jul 12, 2010 7:09 pm
- Location: Conwy, North Wales
- Contact:
Agreed. We are a family of 6 and get by without filling a wheelie bin in a fortnight so when a small group can fill one in a few days that gets my blood boiling! The majority of guests are simply ignoring our recycling requirements (which are now shown in our T&Cs). The amount of waste being produced v council collection facilities is not sustainable and this is a problem that we all need to be taking seriously.
Sad but true.waterwitch wrote:The majority of guests are simply ignoring our recycling requirements (which are now shown in our T&Cs).
Some French new guests today expressed admiration for our system, while some Brit guests that left yesterday managed to put LOOSE pasta and spaghetti, chocopops, rice and general leftovers (watermelon rinds among others) in the communal bin
(guess who cleaned...)And the weather is getting hot & hotter here...
I will now write new, BIG signs to be put on communal bins
One question, please! How do you call a plastic bag that has been "closed" so that things do not spill? Tied? Sealed? Sorry but I do not know... Thank you for your help!
I would be very interested to read any words of wisdom to my post here on the issue of waste collection in the case of those on business rates:
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viewtopic.php?t=16903