2 Repeat Guests Banned

From the moment they step through the door your bookings become guests, and their experiences determine whether they ever come back.
FelicityA
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Post by FelicityA »

I had the urine-soaked chair scenario. The problem was that they washed both the outer and inner covers (I had inspected both on getting a smell in the sitting room) of the seat cushion which threw me off the scent (literally). I wished I had had my late departed trusty cocker spaniel who locate anything by smell! It took me two changeovers to locate the smell exactly (I had my nose running along the carpet trying to find it!). It was a real bore getting a replacement seat. I resolved then not take the under fives again (other things had happened, previously, with careless parents of small children). Why can't people just admit they have had an accident????
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apexblue
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Post by apexblue »

The urine smell has raised its head again.

We changed the sofa so we thought problem solved.

Guest on day 5 of stay has said still urine smell. Offer for cleaners to go in but said no she had inconvenienced us enough.

C word not mentioned. Repeat guests.

Any thoughts?
It is better to remain quiet and have one think you are stupid, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt....

The biggest mistake we make in life is thinking we have time.
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Casscat
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Post by Casscat »

I'd send round a bottle of wine and say that the problem will be fully resolved in time for their next visit.

If the sofa itself is no longer in the room where is the smell coming from?
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Ditto Casscat with a gesture of goodwill - flowers, chocolates and/or wine. You never know if they like wine though!

I don't think the guest is inconveniencing you (an appropriate pun!) at all and to be honest I would desperately want my cleaner to go in whilst the guests are there if possible, to try and locate the cause of the smell. If the sofa has gone, then it's coming from somewhere else, and a same day changeover may not be enough time to solve it?
Bunny
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Post by Bunny »

apexblue wrote: Offer for cleaners to go in but said no she had inconvenienced us enough.
I would take that as a big hint that it is not bad enough for them to want to be inconvenienced by the cleaners coming in.

I would send them a gesture with an apology, but say that you would be very grateful if they could help you with any suggestions as to the source, in order to help you resolve it at changeover ready for the next guests. This will at least alert them as to what you are up against and will either get them sniffing it out for you or perhaps will allow the cleaners in.
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PW in Polemi
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Post by PW in Polemi »

Does your place have rugs or carpet? Sometimes the chemicals in urine react with the chemicals in either rugs, carpet or carpet underlay.

(We moved into a house where the previous owner's cat kept missing the litter tray. No amount of carpet shampoo would remove the smell permanently, it kept coming back. We eventually realised it was the underlay....)
Dogs have masters. Cats have slaves!
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apexblue
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Post by apexblue »

Well after 2 bottles of wine and a box of fudge said guests have booked for Oct.

Thanks all.
It is better to remain quiet and have one think you are stupid, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt....

The biggest mistake we make in life is thinking we have time.
Bunny
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Post by Bunny »

Great news. They obviously realised you had done your best to manage the situation and showed you cared. It's great when you have such understanding guests.
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Normandie
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Post by Normandie »

apexblue wrote:Well after 2 bottles of wine and a box of fudge said guests have booked for Oct.
Now that's a result! 8)
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AngloDutch
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Post by AngloDutch »

It's comforting to read stories of other guest-stay nightmares. The amount of damage we have had here over the years is quite amazing, and yes, as Casscat says, we too are appalled at how some guests treat your home.

We tend to think that it is as case of 'we've paid for this place for a week, therefore it is ours to do with as we please'.

When we had just started out, we had a family stay a weekend. In two days they managed to cause over EUR 1,500 of damage. We were just coming back from a trip into town on the Saturday morning when we noticed that the large window next to the front door was smashed with shards of glass sticking outwards.

Outwards, we thought, something came from the inside through the window. That 'something' we found out was a person, who had smashed through the window after a game of 'tag' on the stairs had gone wrong. Falling down the stairs, they ended up being embedded in the window. Luckily they were not seriously hurt. It was an accident but one that could have been avoided, especially as they were teenagers. The same group also managed to destroy an entire carpet in the sitting room just before they left. The grandfather tripped over with an uncorked bottle of red wine in his hand. Although we tried to clean the carpet, a huge grey stain remained. Luckily they had booked via an agency and the insurance covered it completely.

Actually, this March, we painted the entire kitchen and already one of the walls needs to be repainted after someone splashed oily pasta sauce down it.

Since the beginning of 2014, we have had a leg broken off a bed and have had to replace a visitor bed which collapsed on a guest in the middle of the night. These kind of beds are meant for children but obviously adults must have been sleeping on them as well, with the maximum stress being exceeded over time. A new toaster was melted after some guests re-positioned it right up against the oven. Numerous plastic measuring jugs & mixing bowls destroyed by using the electric mixer too rigorously. Oven gloves partially incinerated, cheese knife bent double, place mats used as chopping boards, numerous new Teflon-coated pans ruined within a few weeks, plastic shelving from the fridge smashed (again), long scratch to one of the LCD screens, hole cut into one of the leather sofas, lamp shade melted (no idea how that happened), another standing lamp broken, plastic table clothes (used to protect wooden table surfaces) having to be replaced constantly, one of the tiles smashed in the bathroom, dents to our car when a child slammed a log into our side door..and the list goes on!
Not to mention the numerous times we have had to clean up several bed wettings through the protector into the mattresses, as well as vomit and dog doodoo on rugs (all our carpeting is thankfully long gone).

The only same-sex groups we have to stay are mostly ladies in their 40s-60s who come here to cycle. We have a policy of only allowing a booking if one person is over the age of 21, but even that doesn't prevent some groups from half wrecking your place. And, we are located in a rural location with no nightlife at all, so not exactly a property that attracts stag/hen groups. We do have mostly large groups of up to 12, and believe that having so many people in your property at one time does cause a lot of this damage.
irishgal
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Post by irishgal »

My goodness AngloDutch that is an awful list of damage. Hopefully you'll have a luckier summer season to come. I really don't understand how people treat someone else's property with such a lack of respect.
I have been lucky enough, just a few little things like broken door knobs, paintwork needing redoing etc.
Have one set of repeat guests that I won't exactly be welcoming back. I allow one small pet and in this one certain instance I allowed a second as long as they were not in the bedrooms and not up on the couches etc. When I arrived to check all ok on check in the two dogs were two of the biggest dogs I'd ever seen, my little cottage isn't really big enough. The place was wrecked after them (two kids too!) In my innocence had them stay a second time and they left the kitchen flooded and never thought to tell me. No damage thankfully - just a lot of work mopping up!
Also - I don't understand how people can't do rubbish! I'm fed up picking egg shells, tea bags, dirty tissues (and worse!) from the bottom of the recycle bin!
Sorry for long rant. :)
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AngloDutch
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Post by AngloDutch »

Yes, irishgal, it too always amazes us how much damage and mess people can leave behind after even a weekend.

How did your guests manage to flood your kitchen?

Yes, dogs always make us nervous, especially large dogs that the owners allow straight back in the house when they've been outside in the wet. Puppies too, as you never know if your furniture legs are going to survive. We did not allow pets for our first 7 seasons in business, but we've decided to permit them now, as we are situated next to a large forest, so believed we were turning people away who were looking for a holiday with their dog.

We've also had cats, hamsters, rabbits and some fish to stay. We have had to turn several people down who wanted to bring their horse as well.

As I've said on a different thread, recycling is now taking up too much of our time. Yesterday, when our last guests left, I was sorting through their 'green' waste to remove bottle tops, cigarette cartons, used tissue and plastic. This after explaining to several of the group when they arrived that the pedal-bin was for food waste only. It's just laziness. They know that once they're gone, it's no longer their problem.

We have thought about withholding some of the security deposit for antisocial behaviour, but we'd have to do it too often. We have only ever withheld some or all of the deposit when we've had people partying and have caused us up to a day's extra cleaning work.

Once, with a group of students in their 20's who played 'hide and seek' until 3 a.m. They made so much noise that it is the only time in 11 years that we have had to enter the property and warn them to be quieter. They also disabled the smoke alarms and thought that we wouldn't notice that they were all smoking, when they had all the windows wide open in winter. They broke the doors and wooden shelving in the cupboards, and left an absolute mess behind.

We also used to get agency bookings for groups of severely mentally-handicapped adults, with no prior notification. We once returned to the accommodation and found excrement all over the sofa, dining-room chairs, fittings and even a bucket which had been used as a potty (and not emptied) left in a bedroom. Even a super-glued large wooden sign had been ripped off a door with such force that it had removed part of the door.
Can you imagine entering your holiday home and finding it in this state? In total we spent two days disinfecting everything. The organizers - 2 mentors among 8 patients - lost their EUR 200 deposit. We told them that we don't discriminate against anyone, but that our accommodation was not suitable for their groups.

When we retire we are going to write a book - 'The life of a holiday home owner - hell in paradise'.....
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