Saturday, May 02, 2015

THE STEAMIE

I feel like I have been doing laundry all week, that's probably because I have, bar a couple of days. We were away for a few days and the house we stayed in is meant to have things like cleaning, laundry and bed-making done before guests arrive. Notwithstanding, we took the precaution of packing our own towels, but, in our wisdom and complacency about the arrangements, we did not cart any bedding. 

When we arrived, we found one bed was unmade,  the other bed had a head sized impression  in the pillow,  a wrinkly, disturbed sheet and a duvet that looked like it had been in a wrestling match. We found a sheet and pillow cases in a drawer and also, a slightly too small duvet cover. We set about stripping the bed and remaking it.

There was a mountainous pile of used laundry, which included lots of towels in a closed laundry basket. There were bath mats and bedding spilling over the sides an open laundry basket. I tried not to think how long all of it had been lying there. I got the laundry done over six full wash loads. It would have been more loads, if I hadn't stuffed a bit more than usual in  the washing machine.  Luckily the weather was fine the first two days and  all the washing  was dried outside on the washing line.  The laundry cupboard has now been refilled.

The two bathrooms, the stairs and the kitchen had not been cleaned either; bins were not emptied. I won't describe how it all looked, suffice to say it was not acceptably clean and tidy. The vacuum cleaner in the house is one of those over -hyped, over-complicated upright ones, with focus on design rather than practicality and functionality. Hubby researched on the internet how to disengage the vacuum hose so he could use it to suck up the pile of dust balls that had congregated under the bed. I have never seen such an inefficient bit of machine kit. A half full cylinder affects the efficacy of the vacuum suck....I ask you! The outlet filter blows out some of the dust you have just sucked in.  Because of its design, if  the outlet was completely sealed, the suction of that vacuum cleaner would be zilch. Many cleaners, not all, have this failing.
upright-vacuum-cleaner
The property owner was really upset. We know him and we also know his reaction was genuine.  He had just paid the cleaning agency for their work, said to have been done ten days before we arrived. I took the guy for a tour with my iPad camera so he could see the state of affairs; after all, he was going to have to take up this issue with the cleaning agency he contracts to. He is still waiting for a reply from them. 

The day after we arrived, we bought bed linen to use while at the house and took it home with us.  We have left the house in the manner it should have been presented to us, except, we have left the bed-making for the cleaning/servicing agency to deal with. 

The rest of our visit was good.

4 comments:

Snowbird said...

That is not on! At all!!! What an angel you are doing all the cleaning and washing, and what kind of holiday is that, you've probably had to do more work there than you would have done at home!!! And fancy having to buy your own bedding after washing all theirs! It doesn't seem to be the guy's fault, but I do hope he compensated you and didn't charge!!! xxx

Anonymous said...

That's appalling, and as Snowbird says I hope that were duly compensated. Flighty xx

ZACL said...

Hi Snowbird,

I haven't described everything that we found on arrival, suffice to say, hubby did the heavy vacuum cleaning work. It was not good.

The house owner was mortified. We've known him and his wife for years. They have been generous to us in the use of their house. In the past the cleaning arrangement was different and we always took our own bedding and towels with us. The trouble is, there has been a total refurb, and the replacement bed we used is a different size, therefore my sheets would not fit. I would rather have my own stuff and be responsible for it.

ZACL said...

Hi Mr F,

I sincerely hope we are not faced with another situation like that one. It was not at all satisfactory. The house owners are special friends and they have always been very generous to us with staying at the house.

We would have tidied up after ourselves anyway. If you've got to use domestic tools, I do wish there had been decent machinery, made for the task. xxx