Miserable Guests

From the moment they step through the door your bookings become guests, and their experiences determine whether they ever come back.
Duchess
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Miserable Guests

Post by Duchess »

Last week we had our first miserable guests. It all started when their luggage got lost, I gave them little bits, toiletries, clothes for the young child. Allowed them into our place at 1300 instead of 1600.

Well they moaned that there were no matches, even though there is one of those click things, they moaned that I did not supply bin liners, I always leave one. They moaned that it was too hot and too many flies. The best bit was they moaned when we used the pool one time they were in it, even though we clearly state it is shared with owner - a day when it was 35+. They moaned they felt they had to go out because we were there, we being myself and two children. We have 9 hectares for goodness sake and enough space to hold a rave! They got knarked when I drew their attention to the welcome guide having given them tons of information. They did not want to recycle their bottles! Oh the joys. Typical that a door handle fell off and I could not fix it, they could still open and close the door though. A plug socket blew which was fixed the next day, it did not make a differnence as an extn lead solved their tv problem. In all my time of renting, I have never come across such a miserable bunch, their outlook was totallly negative. And they nicked about 10 cd's. My fault as I should have checked.
So I hope they had a miserable holiday as they sure went about being miserable. Anyone else had guests likes these. In contrast, all our guests have been warm, friendly, enjoyed the place, commented on the wonderful space and the building, not to mention our hospitality. It just goes to show you cannot please everyone.
Deby
alexia s.
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Post by alexia s. »

Deby,
Poor you.
BUT, these people exist & it is useful to know that they are out there before they visit any of our properties. I knew the local (côte d'azur) manager of a huge Swiss holiday homes company which is super efficient & smart. Despite this, they still had people like yours: professional complainers, who are inherently dishonest (no surprise that yours nicked the cd's) - complaining about a lovely holiday home is dishonest. A lot of them accumulate their complaints so that they can more easily intimidate the owner into refunding their money. As the local manager said, they resent paying for their holiday. She always advised her property owners: "If people complain unreasonably it is because they have, or are going to, cheat you. Be careful."
Now for the good news: this company has thousands of properties on its books, so it is not surprising that they meet these people among their clients.We all only own one or a couple of homes and the chances of getting them is very, very low. You proabbly won't have anyone like this again!
We did have a professional complainer one year: he rang at the end of the holiday to say that his wife had a serious phobia about lizards. I knew that he was going to tell me that the holiday had been ruined by the 2 provencal lizards in our garden & that he would ask for a full refund. I pointed out that lizards are indigenous in Provence & that we couldn't reasonably be expected to eradicate them for his visit.
My advice to anyone with these people: take a deep breath, patiently explain why their complaint is ill founded - don't get upset - & count the cd's.
Best,
Alexia.
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Normandy Cow
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Post by Normandy Cow »

Are you going to charge them for the CDs? I would, if I could be sure that they had taken them.
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Sue Dyer
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Post by Sue Dyer »

I suppose you can comfort yourself with knowing they are the type of people who will gain enjoyment from nothing.

It is like that proverb about the man who once looked down and found a coin. From that day on he wandered around with his head down scanning the pavements looking for money. He found the odd coin but missed out on the sky, the sunshine, the trees and the birds and the world around him.... that's your guests and people like them!! They may gain a small reduction but at what cost to their enjoyment of holidays and life in general??!! Miserable g**'s and I don't mean "guests"!!
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

Deby, just had a gander at your website and all I can say is I don't know what they had to complain about. 35 degrees? and a big pool to cool down in? Did they really think they'd have the pool to themselves in such a big place? Starting off with lost luggage though, doesn't really put people in the mood to enjoy themselves despite all efforts to make them feel at home.

We had a bad experience renting a place in Andalucia a couple of years ago. We have since avoided the description rustic whenever we see it as an attribute. :wink:

I regret not complaining more vigorously than I did as the place wasn't really acceptable for the price we paid and since we spent 2 weeks there over Christmas and New Year it was doubly unacceptable.

But hey, we survived to tell the tale and weren't vindictive enough to trash anything, steal anything etc, simply because it was trashed anyway and I have plenty of my own CDs!

Edit: to give you an example of how rustic it was, they didn't have CDs, they had cassettes instead.
Clexane
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Post by Clexane »

Deby,

People like that only win if they succeed in getting you down. Don't let that happen - just move on and take it as a lesson learn't.

Take some comfort that your experience has helped other battler owners on this forum to be warned of guests like this and allowed us to be wary if we get them.

Smile and move on - I would say forget about the CDs it won't be worth the agro.

I have always wondered if we should start a blacklist of bad guests on this forum?????
So you wanted a holiday home in france ...

www.villaemmanuelle.com
Fraise
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Post by Fraise »

I had the opposite of this on Saturday.My guests left,said they had enjoyed it etc but not the "we'll be back,best thing since sliced bread "types,I thought....They rang me 6 hours later to say they had arrived at their new place in the Vendee and it was just awful!They said it was filthy and they couldn't stay there.Could they please drive back down to Le Petit Manoir and spend their week back where they'd just left? I had to say I was sorry but it was already booked.They said in that case they would have to find a hotel,it was not possible to stay where they were,but on paper it had looked good and on a par with ours!What a shame, I felt soooo sorry for them ,they had a young baby too :cry:

www.thepetitmanoir.com
Duchess
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Post by Duchess »

Thanks for this. I tried to put my 'the customer is always right hat on' but they just were not in the mood. The grandmother was lovely and I think she could see that the others were just not in the mood to enjoy themselves. I think she felt awkward. As regards to the cd's I will just put that down to experience and I will not try to judge our other guests as a result of these ignoranuses!

I do not think they got the idea of France either, I think they were probably used to being used to being close to a resort, Brits abroad type of place. They were quite condescending too.

They have gone and we have some lovely french guests who are picking the plums and running around without a care in the world - that is more like it.

Thanks for your reassuring words.
Duchess (Deby)
la vache!
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Post by la vache! »

Deby,
it takes all sorts, and no matter how wonderful your place is (and yours does look wonderful) there will always be some people you can't please unfortunately. I'm sure they will be inthe minority and like you say, they probably aren't used to an experience in rural France where they have to amuse themselves. We had some Belgians stay the week before last, and for the first time ever, had a complaint about the accomodation, the cottage was too dark (its a traditional Breton longere, they are not famed for their huge windows), damp (she woke up with a bad chest one morning, nothing to do with the fact that she smoked quite heavily I suppose), too small, and her daughter bumped her head on the swimming pool cover. She told me all this at a soirée held by some Americans in another cottage to celebrate 4th July, neither the time or the place in my opinion. I did for a few hours think the worst of Belgians, dreading the arrival of the next family in the same cottage, also from Belgium. However, they were the opposite, one of the nicest families who have ever stayed, and they loved everything.
You can't please everybody all of the time.
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Hanorah
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Post by Hanorah »

We had our first unhappy guests in resort that returned last Thursday after 2 weeks. They were unhappy at the beginning but are now talking about returning in September.

They arrived and the cleaning wasn't finished so walked into the house asking my mother in law who cleans for us if she lived there, and by their own admission were quite rude. The lead booker had forgotten that she requested to go for a meal half way during the transfer but changed her mind on the way so mum in law thought she had an extra hour. Being Turkey rudeness is unacceptable so my inlaws were not enamoured and mum in law unbeknown to us did not turn up a week later to do the cleaning as she was really offended.

I made a few calls to try and smooth things over and explained why the cleaning at the start of the trip was not finished etc. The guests then went on the free trip to my inlaws mountain village and the hospitality they received was wonderful. They even bought them to the adjoining village where a skilled weaver makes high quality Turkish carpets and they bought one.

We refunded the cleaning costs even though mum in law turned up 3 days late when all was forgiven and it all sorted it self out in the end. However it was a wake up call as we had been very lucky up until then and all guests had thought my inlaws were wonderful. It was hard explaining to them that in England the customer is always right and it demonstrated that sometimes family are not always the best ones to manage the rental but they have been 99% of the time.

The woman who has travelled to Turkey frequently is actually really nice but had been a bit grumpy after the long journey and was expecting everything to be spic and span which it was apart from some washing hanging on the line. Mum in law normally takes things home to wash but had calculated with the stop for a meal at she could do it and dry it at the Villa in time. The transfer is two and half hours each way and with the extra hour that made six so I can see her point. The lady in question who speaks fluent Turkish has now offered to give me Turkish lessons as she wants to have a guinea pig to teach so and we have got on really well by phone. So I guess that in the end I might make a good friend despite such poor beginnings. My inlaws now speak very highly of her and say she is a wonderful woman. Life is really funny sometimes isn't it.
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A-two
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Post by A-two »

We had one of those last year, a person who started off by complaining about the view, continued by complaining about the furniture and ended complaining about the size of the beach. Actually, the end came after 3 days, when they phoned and said they were moving on and wanted a refund. Some people would be miserable wherever they go in the world. Had I not had glowing reports week after week, I might have been unnerved, but luckily it has not been repeated.

Anyway, Deby, I did just want to make one point about possible confusion on your website that might have contributed to the misunderstanding about the pool.

Please don't shoot me, but after a brief browse around, I might think I was going to get the pool to myself also. For example, you say:
<quote>
"Weekly Rental. When you rent the château for a week (or a weekend, for that matter), the place essentially becomes yours for that period."
</quote>

I then went to look at photos of the outside and pool, thinking perhaps the details about the pool being shared could be found there. The pool does look very inviting I agree, and also has a caption next to it, but again, nothing said about having to share that part.

Hmmm...maybe I missed it? Or perhaps "essentially yours" means only the chateau and not the pool, or maybe parts of the chateau as well?

Sorry, maybe it's just me, but if there are shared parts, I think I'd like to have that made very clear to me from the start, which would include being noted on the website caption to the pool at least.
Waves from America
Duchess
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Post by Duchess »

yes, point is taken and this needs to be made clearer. We do state that owners are on site and also put in the booking form - before we receive deposit that the pool is shared with the owner and their children. We also re-iterate this in the welcome guide.

What astounded me the most was that they said they felt as if they had to go out for the day, to give us some 'space' which is in fact ludicrous. We have huge gardens. All our previous guests usually comment at how quiet we are, how much space there is. I was gobsmacked when she said this. I think she just did not like the fact that we were present at all, even though we provided helpful information, extra stuff. I just think she was a cynic. When I informed her about the lovely lake nearby she must have interpreted that as - please go away we want some peace! I feel I cannot be held responsible for other people's interpretations. She probably never even looked at the website properly or read the booking form, they struggled to read the welcome guide - must have been distracted by all those copies of The Sun newspaper :lol: which they were reading!!!

You live and learn.

Deby
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