English guests

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

Post by oasiscouple »

Have I just been unlucky or is it a trend?

Over the past 2 or 3 years we have been experiencing a marked lack of care and cleanliness by English guests, a marked contrast with other nationalities we host such as Norwegian, Danish, German, Swiss, Belgian and French. Our T&Cs ask guests to leave our two properties as they find them. However, we always expect a couple of hours work to bring the properties up to our standards and consider this normal.

The non English guests usually leave the places as we expect, sometimes more so. One Belgian family with 4 children not only washed the bed linen but ironed the linen as well as leaving the house impecable. We were astonished.

Our English guests who left yesterday were typical of what we find more and more. Waste bins not emptied (one with a used sanitary towel), empty sweet papers and drink cartons on the floor, particularly under the beds, toothpaste blobs on the wall of the bathroom, washbasins with tidemarks, fingermarks on mirrors, broken chair, and so on and so on.
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

I spy the start of a stereotypical debate. :cry:
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Hells Bells
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Post by Hells Bells »

Not my own (or my cleaners) experience. We have bad and good ones of all nationalities.
Dusty
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Post by Dusty »

I think more and more people look upon a holiday rental in the same way they look on renting a hotel. I think that this goes across all nationalities but I do agree that some nationalities are keener to leave things clean than others.....
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Post by JanB »

My own experience is that certain people are more used to an hotel experience and do not seem to realise self cateringnis quite different in the expectation of leaving the property in a reasonable state. Likewise, they are the ones who push arrival and departure times.

It is probably wrong to generalise but it does seem easy to see a pattern of behaviour I would say Northerners and the Welsh seem more domesticated than Southerners.

Cleanest nationality, in my experience, would be Dutch, closely followed by German. Did not get many French guests, so difficult to gain a comparison with them. Canadians in cleanliness and as guests were either the best or the very worst.

I would add that some people seem to organise their own space and keep it clean, regardless of having children but my dread was always a family with children as generally it was like a bomb site when they left......the sinking of the heart when discovering the chaos left behind and knowing there was a finite amount of time before the next arrival will resonate with many, I am sure.......

Perhaps a poll would give some valuable insight? 😀
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PW in Polemi
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Post by PW in Polemi »

JanB is correct, those guests who are more used to hotel stays rather than self catering are probably the worst offenders.

As for accusing one nationality of being generally bad, well, most of our guests are British. Some have been tidy and left the cottage so clean that the changeover was a doddle, others have left it mucky - toothpaste splattered mirrors, bins not emptied, crumbs and spilt drinks on the floors, lotion and makeup on towels, grease splatters on hob and surrounding area, cooker spills not wiped up, etc etc etc. Nothing bad enough to withhold from their damages deposit, but somewhat disappointing.

You get all sorts, in every nationality. Some treat the place like home from home, others only appear to sleep there.

It is up to you to make it clear in your house book and your departure instructions what they are expected to do - and if you will impose financial penalties if they don't comply (€50 if BBQ not cleaned, for example). I understand that some localities (in France and UK, I think) have stringent regulations regarding what rubbish goes in which bin, with penalties for non-compliance, so you could pass these charges on.

So long as you make it obvious (strip the beds and leave the bed linen piled on the bed), you shouldn't have too many problems - other than dealing with those delightful stains! :lol: :lol:
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French Cricket
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Post by French Cricket »

I don't think you can categorise people by nationality in that way - although I would say that French guests are usually a delight ... but that's because it's so much a part of the renting culture here to have to do your own high standard end of stay cleaning (and have it inspected before you leave).

All I'd say, oasiscouple, is that if you can really single out things like finger marks and toothpaste blobs as being problematic, then you must really have been extraordinarily lucky up to now! And ditto if it usually only takes you 2 hours to do a changeover.

We allow 5 hours for two of us to turn round our barn - sleeps 2, but huge. It usually takes that - sometimes less (fingers of one hand though), and occasionally more. We ask for things to be put away, washing up to be done and surfaces to be basically wiped down ... but nothing more.

I reckon the key, as PW says, is to be very clear in your house book exactly what you do and don't want your guests to do on departure. 'Leaving as you find' is open to a multitude of interpretations, I think.
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Post by Casscat »

Messy guests are messy guests and I don't have any national lines to draw on that one. The two worst I had were via OD and were firstly a British Romanian family who left the place looking like a complete pigsty - a whole 10 days worth of rubbish piled up in bags on the kitchen floor, snot and squashed flies on the walls and curtains, kiddie wee on the bed (they took the waterproof protectors off), filthy bathrooms, juice cartons on bookshelves and wedged behind sofas, broken crockery etc. Secondly two mature British couples in their 60s who appeared to spend their entire holiday drinking vast lakes of alcohol and getting booze stains onto all available surfaces, including an indelibly deep indigo red wine stain on my coffee table that they cunningly disguised with a random coaster - the kind of coaster that had they bothered to employ it on their boozy nights would have saved my table from damage. Also piss and vomit on bathroom floors reported by cleaner. The stains on my dining table came out with a light sand and wax, but the coffee table required serious belt sanding and a complete top to toe colour change. To tie it in I then had to sand and restain the side tables that go with it! Gah! So no, Brits are not exclusively responsible for dismal and disrespectful behaviour. If you're a slob you're a slob.
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Post by Essar »

Up your damage deposit. I set mine the same as the excess on my guest damage insurance.
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Jenster
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Post by Jenster »

I have not found a difference in nationalities but I continue to be amazed at the difference in how guests leave the place. Some leave it pristine, some in a right old mess. I am learning to predict which will be which - the single father with three kids and the couple with three kids including a young baby, for example, were in the latter category. This week I gave a very friendly couple who I reckon will leave it lovely. None so far (touch wood) have left it what I would call 'unreasonably' dirty, it's just that different people have different standards and different life circumstances. I remember what it was like having babies and cleaning at the end of the week is not a priority!
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bornintheuk
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Post by bornintheuk »

Experience over nearly 20 yrs is that there are huge variations in what state people are prepared to live in, and does not normally depend on country of origin.
The most amazing to me is the amount of effort some people will go to to disguise or flatly deny damage caused during their stay. In one recent case resorting to threatening behaviour if we dared to withhold any of the damage deposit ! ( Boy did that cost extra !)
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Post by AndrewH »

When I read some of the posts above I realize how lucky we have been so far. Our experience with guests is more on the lines of Jenster's and OMG, Casscat, your two experiences are too horrible to contemplate.

Now on the other hand, we had a Dutch middle-aged couple staying, several years ago. The place was left very clean and tidy, but we were struck speechless on first entering to see how they had reorganised everything, and the unspoken message was that this is the way you should be doing it.

The furniture was changed around. In the kitchen the glassware was now in the food cupboard, and all the crockery had been better placed in another cupboard to make way for food. Going into the bedroom we expected to find a folded pile of used linen. Not a bit of it. The bed had been re-made in the way it should be done and not the way they had found it on arrival. With the pillows specially placed and detailed folding back of the sheets it looked very impressive.

We have taken on board all but one of their changes and that is the way we present the villa to this day.
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Post by Bree »

I did see once in the t&c's of property a note on keeping the place clean that said something like this:
"We ask you leave the apartment in the same condition you found it our cleaners allow 4 hours to clean but if more time is needed we will charge €50 per hour from your security deposit" It did give specific details on putting out rubbish etc
Some guests might take offense but I think if I was not sure about a group I might use it.
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oasiscouple
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Post by oasiscouple »

French Cricket wrote:I don't think you can categorise people by nationality in that way - although I would say that French guests are usually a delight ... but that's because it's so much a part of the renting culture here to have to do your own high standard end of stay cleaning (and have it inspected before you leave).

All I'd say, oasiscouple, is that if you can really single out things like finger marks and toothpaste blobs as being problematic, then you must really have been extraordinarily lucky up to now! And ditto if it usually only takes you 2 hours to do a changeover.

We allow 5 hours for two of us to turn round our barn - sleeps 2, but huge. It usually takes that - sometimes less (fingers of one hand though), and occasionally more. We ask for things to be put away, washing up to be done and surfaces to be basically wiped down ... but nothing more.

I reckon the key, as PW says, is to be very clear in your house book exactly what you do and don't want your guests to do on departure. 'Leaving as you find' is open to a multitude of interpretations, I think.
I didn't want to categorise, just giving our experience over the past 2 or 3 years. The 2 hours is just the top up cleaning we expect to do but we actually allow 6 hours for 2 of us including laundry, maintenance and inevitable repair jobs, pool and garden maintenance, replacing contents where they should be etc.

Four weeks ago, faced with so much mess, I phoned the guests who were on their way to ask if they wouldn't mind taking their time and to arrive an hour later. We hate still being in the middle of cleaning when the new guests arrive.

Also we are very clear in our house book about departure and give a check list for guests to go through - but our experience with many English guests is that they think that the contents of this list are just suggestions if they have time to bother (or perhaps they don't bother to read the list).

As it happens, this will soon be history as far as the house is concerned as it is our last year of letting it out and although it helps pay the running costs and taxes we are tired of packing away our personal possessions and moving to a camp site. Our last guests who arrived on Saturday are a delightful Irish couple coming for the third time, one a priest and one a Deacon and they always leave the house impeccable.

Next year we will just continue with our naturist beach apartment at Port Leucate where we mostly have non English guests and the changeovers are so easy, we usually have time to spend a couple of hours on the beach.
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French Cricket
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Post by French Cricket »

oasiscouple wrote: Next year we will just continue with our naturist beach apartment at Port Leucate where we mostly have non English guests and the changeovers are so easy, we usually have time to spend a couple of hours on the beach.
Now that's my idea of a nice changeover :lol: Hoping for a few of those myself next year when I start 'commuting' to our cottage near the Med to do the changeovers!
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