Items going missing

[RoseRed]

We have been pretty lucky over the two years we have been holiday letting. Majority of guests leave it lovely and clean and give us excellent reviews. A few make us laugh when they stain their mugs with strong tea and push them to the back of the cupboard behind all the clean ones. We always find them and bleach them out! Likewise turning over stained pillows and turning over sofa cushions where they have spilt stuff.

We have never had anything go missing before but last week a woman took two very nice, new fleece throws and two pairs of kitchen scissors. That’s what we’ve noticed so far - there could be more! We know it’s her because she was the first visitor this year so we went over the cottage with a fine toothcomb getting it all ready for her. She also brought a large dog which she hadn’t booked or paid for.

She texted me nearly every day while she was here asking questions about the area, requesting a larger saucepan than the 3 we provided, questions about the heating. We had left full instructions and guide books for the area. Now I am politely texting her to ask whether she packed the throws by mistake and she is not answering! I assume I just have to write this off?

[newtimber]

Yes you probably have to write it off. It won't be worth the time and hassle. I suspect the dog damaged the throws, but the scissors is odd.

[volcano]

Scissors, batteries, adapters, matches, etc. - everything disappears from time to time. Unfortunately, this is our everyday life!

[Dotty]

Yes, we always find things have gone missing. I've probably posted before about someone who gleefully contacted me after their stay to let me know that they had my scissors in their hand luggage and the airport scanners spotted them so they had to throw them away. They appeared to think this was very amusing. I did not.

[oasiscouple]

Do you not take a security deposit? We do with a clause in the booking conditions that it will be returned within one week of departure after the property has been checked. In such a case we would have made a deduction, not only for the missing items but also extra cleaning due to the dog as she didn't give prior notice.

[Martha]

Yeah I would deduct from deposit for both dog and throws.
If you don't have a deposit unfortunately I think you have to let it go

[LaVilleauTady]

We have many items disappear - including duvets, electric converter plugs, cutlery, special trivets, CD's, DVDs etc.
We don't charge a deposit as it would cost us more for our caretaker to check everything than the value of the items taken.
We just replace when items are taken.

[Helen25263]

We haven't lost much at all, we've had some breakages though. We make it clear we do a full itinnery check including towel count ( we have lovely towels!) and they wont get their security deposit back if anything is found to be missing or if there is excess cleaning.
To be honest our unclaimed lost property sort of compensates.. (badminton racquets, casserole dish, earpods, nobody has said they are theirs even though we've tried) It's annoying when people say how lovely the place is then steal things or break things and don't tell you so it's not as lovely for the next person, I have found these people to be about 1 in 10 guests, so generally I just suck it up. I have had a hot tub cover written off by a group of men who pulled it out from under the lifter and stood/layed on it. I claimed via Booking.com and got £150 back and the person was banned. A new one is £500!