Hey peeps, good news: I got a job. They're paying me. And it doesn't suck!! Anyway, I'll touch on that next week I guess. Now on to the main feature...
i've rented a lot of condos/vacation homes in the last 5 years. nothing extremely luxurious or high-end, but most of the places have been at ski resorts so they're all fairly nice. almost all of them i found through vrbo.com, although i did get one on eBay (which, while still relatively expensive, was by far the nicest and best bargain of them all). anyway, the owner will usually email a rental agreement as well as another document containing helpful info about the home or neighborhood, stuff like where to park, how to get into the unit, how to work the hot tub, and what to do before you leave. We rented a suite inside a home in Breckenridge over Labor day weekend. This particular ower/manager sent me all of the info, and it was immediately apparent that i was dealing with a crazy person. Get a load of this:
If you plan on using the hot tub, please bring your own towels for that.
Come on. Really? I can tell you right now if we hadn't been local, we would not have brought our own towels.
another:
Please caution all guests not to use our towels and washcloths to remove lipstick and facial makeup. You will be charged for all permanently soiled linens & towels, or for excessive cleaning time used in trying to remove spots.
'Scuse me? I totally get that you don't want to have to keep buying new towels all the time, but I'm pretty sure that having your stuff stained, broken, &/or stolen is part of having a vacation rental property. Oh, and there's this amazing product...It's sold at the...uh...the store, and it's like, a chemical that removes stains. I think it's called...bleach? Yeah, that sounds right. And let me remind you I paid a $50 cleaning fee. For two nights.
and another:
Please be sure that all kitchen items and dishes are cleaned and returned to the cabinets. Failure to properly pick up after yourself may result in excessive cleaning required after your departure.
Whaaaat?! But wait, there's more:
Upon check out we request that all trash be placed in the outside wooden enclosure to the right of the front door.
Noooo!! What is this craziness?! Fortunately I did not get charged for leaving the trash in the room. Then there was about a half a page worth of instructions about parking, which could have been reduced to three sentences. Inside the suite there was another page of instructions about how to work the thermostat and base heaters that, again, could have been condensed down to three bullet points. I bet this person thinks he/she is the best property manager out there, with all the rules and stupid instructions. Bah. I'm a little mad that I gave this person my business, but I only had about 4 days to book something so I was a little desperate. Our stay was ok for the price, but I would have rather coughed up an extra $20/night and stayed at another place where the bathroom a) had an exhaust fan, and b)wasn't in the kitchen. that was interesting.
4 comments:
the part about the bleach helped me start my tuesday morning off with a laugh.
I bet he's a lot of fun at parties.
Well...okay, bleach is rough on fabric and will wear out the towels faster, so I can see not wanting to use that. On the other hand, yeah, I'd probably categorize that under "cost of doing business." And no towels for the hot tub? Seriously WTF.
I can kind of see the deal with dishes and trash. I mean, those seem like common courtesy. Unfortunately, he probably has enough people *not* follow common courtesy that he feels the need to request it. Perhaps associating an extra incurred fee is a bit much...he could at least request it.
Then again, I remember talking to the manager at a B&B that Kristen and I stayed at in St. Augustine a while back, and he said that some of the items on the agreement were specifically aimed at college kids who rent rooms to party in. I get the impression that these clauses were added in to prevent certain situations from happening again.
You forgot the part that it was a mulit-tennant unit and she gave the codes to each unit's door to everyone. I'm glad nobody jacked our stuff while we were gone. Oh, also there was dog hair everywhere, and there wasn't a dresser or luggage rack to put your stuff on.. and the closet was jammed full of stuff so you couldn't even hang up shirts.....and then of course, there were the elephants dancing around in ski boots upstairs (that wasn't the manager's fault).
I just pressed 'next blog' from my blog, and stumbled along here.
Congratulations on the job. The rules and regulations just properly made me laugh out loud. Thank you for brightening my evening :-)
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