First year coming up

Agencies and other headaches, keys and cleaners, running costs and contracts...in short, all the things we spend so much of our time doing behind the scenes.<br>
SnowWhite
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2022 4:16 pm

First year coming up

Post by SnowWhite »

We are almost round to our first year letting our small property for holidays. We go through an agency and we have reviews of 9.4 and lovely comments in the visitors book. We get mainly retired couples which suits us fine as they nearly all leave it as they found it. We clean from top to bottom every changeover anyway and people always report it as spotless.

We have been allowing dogs (1 small/medium) and most of them leave it clean too but we had one who clearly had the dog in bed with them as the linen was full of dog hairs which even got inside the pillow cases! There were also trails of hair along the bottom of the sofa where it had rubbed and dog biscuit bits on the floor. The agency and our info pack both say that dogs must NOT be allowed on furniture or beds and must not be left unattended. We have also had a couple of people who have clearly brought a dog but not mentioned it on the booking form. I have now asked the agency to charge £20 for dogs but they said my bookings would drop off! They also said there was nothing they could do about the people who left the bed and house filthy.

Over all the year has gone well, pretty much full from April to end of November and then Dec and Jan were empty. We have been full Feb and March. We now have to do our sums and see how profitable the year has been (deducting electric, water, TV licence, Wifi) etc. Talking of which, are people putting up their prices due to the huge increases in electricity etc?
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paolo
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Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:18 pm
Location: Provence, France
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Re: First year coming up

Post by paolo »

Unfortunately telling guests that dogs are not allowed on furniture is going to have little effect - if the dog is used to sleeping on the bed at home, then that is what will happen at yours. If you take a security deposit you could increase this when a dog is coming, against the possibility of extra cleaning at changeover.
Paolo
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SnowWhite
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2022 4:16 pm

Re: First year coming up

Post by SnowWhite »

Thanks for replying Paolo.

I have been a dog owner all my adult life and we have stayed in many cottages, caravans and lodges. We always took the dog (s) but never allowed them on furniture or beds and always took their own beds or blankets. We always hoovered the carpets before we left too.

I guess some people are different.
Martha
Posts: 2289
Joined: Sun Apr 16, 2006 7:01 pm
Location: Chamonix

Re: First year coming up

Post by Martha »

People do this all kinds of different ways , and different things work for different people. I decided against a dog charge as I have very strict rules about dogs, and it boils down to 'I had better not be able to tell a dog was even there' in which case there's not really a reason to charge. I decided people would feel that if they'd paid for mess they might as well make some and leave it!
I must say I never mind if there's a charge for dogs myself (I have two).
I don't mind about size, is there a reason you don't want a bigger dog staying?

"They also said there was nothing they could do about the people who left the bed and house filthy. " - this agency are useless then! Do you not have a security deposit? I'd absolutely charge out of the deposit for this.
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