We are often asked why accommodation costs what it does. There are the usual costs associated with being in business and owning a property. Add to this the fact that the tourist season does not go for 12 months of the year: actually it is about 7 months in Broken Hill. We need to make our income in those 7 months to carry us through the 5 months when we lose money. Thus, when a customer leaves the place unreasonably dirty or in a damaged state, we suffer a loss due to the added costs of repair, cleaning and in the worst cases, loss of income due to the cottage not being able to be let until the damage is repaired or replaced.
As a rule of thumb, most people take care of our property and leave it tidy. We expect to have to clean, dust and wash, that is the nature of the business. We can usually pick in advance who will be a problem, but you never know for sure. Then there are those who surprise us, pleasantly, such as a father-son-grandson family from a farm in South Australia who left the cottage very neat and clean, not at all what you would expect of 3 males with no female oversight.
2 days before June Long Weekend
The people concerned had a daughter who was roughly 8 to 9 years old. Whilst booking in she immediately started using the lounges as a jungle gym. Her mother told her to stop it. As you will see from the sequence of pictures below, she must have had quite a time once I left the premises.
The damage pictured below would have been both noticeable physically (I certainly noticed it the moment I walked in the next day) and by the sound of shattering timber. After coming to the realisation that I had both not the time to try and organise an upholsterer to repair the lounge and no choice but to start on it immediately it was only once I had the job underway that I thought to grab my camera, which is why the pictures start with the arm of the lounge separated from the chair.
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The main part of the lounge pictured above doesn't look like much, but to de-staple the arm to the point where it could then be removed took over an hour, a large pile of staples resulted.
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What you are looking at in the picture above is the arm removed from the chair, from what would normally be a top down view. The pile of several hundred upholsterers staples from the back and bottom of the lounge are not in the picture. Another 100 odd staples gave access to the interior of the arm to the point you see here with the material and wadding pulled back.
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You can now see the damage done. They certainly don't make furniture like they used to........ However, it still takes considerable force to shatter timber as in this picture. Note that piece B1 has rotated about 70° from its correct postion relative to B2 with both ends having torn away from their anchorages.
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Here is the arm repaired, with the covering back in place ready to be mated to the lounge.
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All fixed and ready for the next customer. Time elapsed was 4 hours on top of having to clean up the mess left by the family. The lounge and thus the cottage could not be used that night due to the time needed for the timber glue to dry.
The other surprise was in the kitchen, the people concerned seemed to have a problem with beetroot, we still cannot believe they could have made so much mess in so many spots in one night...............
August
Although I have seen youngish females wearing body glitter, I had never given the subject any attention until it came time to vacuum a loungeroom 2 days after some customers had been to a wedding.
In short, the stuff is insidious, it defies vacuuming no matter how hard you try. You would expect that it would work it's way into cut pile carpet, but it has a surprising grip on loop pile carpet too.
So, even after many vacuumings using a turbo head vacuum cleaner AND having the carpet professionally cleaned (steam cleaner); every so often I notice another piece of glitter asking for special attention.
January
Upon walking into the 2nd bedroom of one cottage I noticed that the linen, blanket, pillow and doona were all in a ball on one of the beds. Quite often customers strip the bed before departure, some even fold the sheets etc, but tumbling the whole lot into a ball was rather odd.
Whilst untangling it all I noticed that I was now the proud owner of pink sheets (formerly white ones)..... eeeek! Undoubtedly the result of what happens when you wash a red blanket and white sheets together.
However, much to my surprise, it is amazing just how effective bleach can be and the sheets are now back in service restored to their former colour.
July
A single bloke had rented one of our cottages for just one night. After he had departed I walked in to the main bedroom to discover that he had used every pillow in the cottage - all 8 of them! Which is just plain silly.
April
When it came time to strip the linen from the Queen size bed in Blue Gum Cottage I couldn't fail to notice that the lower sheet was now black in a 2' diameter area, right about where the occupant's backside would be.
Despite several washings it is still resisting my efforts to return it to it's natural colour.
It has had me stumped just what they did to it, just what would involve a bed, people and something black at that location? However my wife has come up with what seems the most plausible theory - a new pair of black pyjama pants that haven't been washed and the dye has leaked to the sheet.
Blue Bush Cottage
After departing, a customer who had stayed 3 days phoned and said "Oh, my child spilt a bottle of milk on the carpet. I have cleaned it up as best I can." This seemed fair enough: - as I was cleaning another cottage and needed to get that done I didn't get to the cottage concerned till that afternoon. On opening the back door, there was no doubt about there being a problem. The place stank of spoilt milk and it was pretty obvious that the event had not happened that morning.
The size of the stain on the carpet suggested quite a quantity of milk. All efforts to remove the stain and smell failed, so it was time to pay the carpet cleaners to come in, but......
There was still a back log of work from the recent storm and so we had to wait a week before the carpet cleaner could fit us in. All that time the cottage was unusable due to the overpowering smell.
Quite often we get the question "Why do you say in your confirmation letter that you reserve the right to allocate a different cottage if circumstances require"? The above is a good example of such an event!
May
Yellow Gum Cottage.
It would appear that something got bleached - including our towel - which is now not in a presentable condition and cannot be repaired. As it is one of a set of 4, each costing $26 and no longer available, we now have to buy another $100 worth of towels.....
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May
Blue Gum and Blue Bush Cottages.
Our best complaint ever -
"We have only one complaint, the cottages were too quiet, we have never known anywhere to be so quiet".
We were quite happy to hear this complaint!
July
Yellow Gum Cottage.
Something got bleached........ again. Different customer, different towel set.
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September - The Phantom Gardener.
Blue Gum/Blue Bush Cottages - I was putting some rubbish in the bin when I noticed that someone had planted approximately 20 succulents plus 2 cacti in our garden.
Whoever did it, did not leave any message behind, so the whole thing is a bit of a mystery. The only reason we can think of is that they may have bought the plants locally and then realised they may not be able to take them through the quarantine check point on the way home - so they planted them instead in our garden.
We don't object, it just came as a bit of a surprise!
February
Yellow Gum Cottage - The customer was either in a tearing hurry to leave or just plain lazy. They had removed all the coat hangars from the wardrobe and thrown them on the bed.
March
Blue Gum Cottage - Somebody de-programmed the TV. Only 2 channels could be received. Time to re-programme the other channels = 40 minutes!
Mid-April
Blue Bush Cottage - Customers vacated and left the back door wide open and the keys in full view on the kitchen table. Surely they didn't do this with their home when they left on holiday. So why do it to us?
April
Blue Gum Cottage - again - Different customer, same TV de-programmed.
Sigh!
October
Blue Gum Cottage - Looks like somebody enjoyed a drink, 35 beer bottle caps spread across the back lawn.
December
Blue Bush Cottage - every coat hangar thrown in the bottom of the wardrobe.
December
Phone call at 6.30am, customer had booking for the next night. Customer stated they had arrived in town and wanted to book into the cottage. Customer was informed that not only was the cottage still occupied from the night before, but quite likely the occupants were still asleep (hint). Customer got quite upset. Even more so when informed that the cottage had to be cleaned before they could occupy it.
March
Yellow Gum Cottage - Customer phoned at 11.30am and wanted to occupy the cottage. The previous customers had not left until 10.00am, so cleaning was still under way. Customer was told that cottage would not be available for at least another hour. Customer objected.
May
Yellow Gum Cottage - Potential customer phoned and asked to book cottage for that night and the next at 1pm. Customer was told that cleaning was still happening and that cottage would not be available till 2pm. Customer phoned back to say they had inspected the cottage and as it did not have any parking they were cancelling their booking. WHAT???
1) At the rear of Yellow Gum there is sufficient room to park:
- a) 1 x Car in the garage
- b) 1 x Car in the carport
- c) 1 x (with a bit of care) further car in the driveway.
2) There is enough room in the street out front of Yellow Gum to park over 70 to 100 cars: there is a bitumised vacant lot running the length of the block.
3) I was at Yellow Gum the entire time, the gates were shut and nobody entered the property.
Despite the fact that I own the property, customer refused to accept the fact that there was off street parking.
The only conclusion I can come to, is that what ever property they "inspected", it wasn't Yellow Gum and probably wasn't even in the same street!
June
Blue Gum Cottage - This was waiting for us when we went in to clean. Very nice of the customer to leave us a present, we don't expect our customers to provide gadgets for the cottage!
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July
Blue Bush Cottage - Customer had used the dirt road that leads from the east to Menindee as a short cut to Broken Hill. As it had been wet, his 4 wheel drive had collected copious quantities of the local red earth, but also the notorious grey river clay. He had then washed down his vehicle in the driveway and departed without making any attempt to clean up after himself.
The grey clay is so sticky that it mostly cannot be washed away, it has to be scrubbed till it dissolves.
Time taken to clean driveway = 2 hours plus lots of water.
There are 3 car washes in Broken Hill. 2 of which have special bays for muddy vehicles.
November
Yellow Gum Cottage - Another note waiting for us when we went in to clean. It is nice to know when something needs replacing, the customer paying for the breakage is a bonus.
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April
Blue Bush Cottage - Another note waiting for us. However, this time the customer has pulled all the clips off the water proof fluro light in the carport, taken out the tube, written on it and then replaced everything correctly (not at all an easy job - those clips are difficult).
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July
Yellow Gum Cottage - Apparently the customer appreciated the free mandarines, so much so, that they had eaten them right through the cottage spiting out the seeds as they went.....
May
Blue Gum Cottage - Call from customer, 9pm on a Tuesday night.
"We watched a DVD and when we finished we re-programmed the TV and now it wants a password".
Doug - "Why did you re-programme the TV?"
Customer - "We don't know."
Instructions then given to customer about location of TV manual and what password to enter. Customer stated they would find manual, fix TV and then were going to bed. On cleaning the cottage on the Saturday morning a note was discovered stating the TV would not work as it still wanted a password. No TV manual could be located!
What they had actually done was have a good old fiddle with the settings, rather than the programming (channel allocation): TV would take password, but this had to be input for each time the channel was changed including channels previously entered. Tried contacting shop where TV was bought, they were of no help. Had to wait until Monday morning to phone manufacturer, who had to provide master password and detailed instructions on how to unlock TV. Replacement TV manual had to be purchased. Time wasted = 2 hours.
We had thought that with the purchase of digital TVs the channel tuning/fiddling problem was behind us: apparently not.
September
We have received several call this year where people have found us listed on an oveseas website - all have been weird as the callers appear to think Australia and Sydney are one and the same.
Latest caller from New Zealand (all have been) rang very early in the morning and it took a while to dawn on her that she had just woken us from a sound sleep - then didn't endear herself when she said "oh that's right, Australia has a 2 hour time difference from new Zealand (actually it is 2 1/2 for us and 4 hours for Western Australia)". She wanted to book for a week. Everything going okay until caller said:
"How far are you from Sydney airport?".
Answer "1000km."
"Oh, well what is nearest international airport?."
Answer "Adelaide."
Caller then said "but you are in NSW!" and then stated she would have to have a look and see where we were.
On checking, our listing on the overseas website clearly has us in the "NSW Outback" section and there is a specific "Sydney and Surrounds" section which we are NOT listed under.
It does make us wonder if geography is still taught in New Zealand schools.
November
A typical Broken Hill downpour was happening outside when we received a phone call from one of the cottages to say that the rear gutter was overflowing so much that water may enter the cottage.
On arriving at the cottage, the very considerate male customer had just succeeded in removing a cigarette packet from the gutter where it had been blocking the downpipe.
Nice of someone to throw that up into the gutter......
Bleached towels mystery solved.
We have finally figured out why customers are ruining our towels with bleach. Apparently it is a "Face cleanser - scrub" used mostly by females. Considering what it does to towels with just one use, one can only guess what it does to skin!
Often
All of us know those little white plastic ties that come out of a dispenser gun and are used to hold tags onto new clothes etc in shops. We hate the things. They blend into the carpet quite well, so they go unnoticed till the turbo head on the vacuum cleaner emits a strange noise and jams.
A Broken Hill Legend.
Many years ago a local businessman let a furnished flat to some trainee doctors, they were here for 3 to 4 months. He had done some bragging at the local pub about how good a deal he had pulled off.
When they left he discovered a pyramid of beer cans in one bedroom, the beer can that was the point of the pyramid had been forced into place against the ceiling. This was in the days of steel beer cans and before people commonly owned trailers. So he had to hire a truck to cart them all away once he had spent many hours dismantling the pyramid.
It was also before the days of recycling deposits, so he couldn't even cash them in. It still gives those who saw it the chuckles even now - we wish we had seen it.
When we go on holidays.
When on holidays the thing that annoys us is that the more we pay, the worse the shower. It seems like the cheaper the accommodation, the older the shower rose and thus the bigger the holes in it resulting in a nicer shower.
The pricey places all seem to have "water miser" (not water saver) roses that let out a fine mist and nothing else. They are all but immpossible to wash your hair under.
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A customer has suggested I should call this webpage our "Hall of Infamy", that is tempting.....
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