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Tarn1

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Everything posted by Tarn1

  1. I think you'll find that trip advisor is no longer free for holiday rental accommodation. They've linked up with some web based agent. I don't relish the thought of paying even MORE cash out in advertising than I already do!
  2. Just because they speak your language and come from your country of birth doesn't mean that they won't rip you off. I speak from experience. Ask yourself why they are here in the first place. Are they registered? Can you check it out? If not, why not? What or who are they running/hiding from? If they give you the 'I could earn a lot more in the UK' story, dont walk away, run! French registered artisans are not always more expensive and if you do have cause for complaint you do have a chance for recompence. If you employ a dodgy british builder working on the black you could end up getting your fingers severely burned....
  3. [quote user="Just Katie"]Tom, As I said, the gite was spotless, the beds stripped and linen piled, no bleach marks, needles or  residues from bun fights etc.  Only the kitchen needed a little mop through which, I (personally) consider to be light cleaning between guests.  Should you have decided to ask for a cleaning charge for that, after me paying a rental fee of 1000 euro per week, I would have gladly given it to you and wished you  the very best of luck. [:)]   [/quote] Apologies Katie,  you caught me after a bad day! Point taken, mopping the kitchen floor isn't exactly deep-cleaning. If you're paying 1000 euro a week you can come here whenever you like :-) Tom
  4. I'm with 'Salty Sam' on this one. Where  Osi states that, "In England, all companies have a first aid kit and a first aider... I imagine this is also necessary...  and therefore, does it also mean that one person needs to have been on a first aid course." No. Under EU law, only companies with five (plus) employees are required to  have a first-aid kit (and to pay heed to the rest of the 'six-pack' of EU H&S (at work) regs) including the requirement to have adequate numbers of first-aiders available for the number of employees (and not necesarily in the same building...). Gite guests/customers/clients/etc are not employees, therefore are not covered by EU regs. relating to employment. End of story. You do have a duty of care towards your guests though, so you must take all reasonably practicable steps to ensure their safety. If any injuries they sustain are as a result of your negligence then they do have the right to sue you for damages. In which case the provision of a first-aid box isn't going to be of much benefit to you... Having spent 15 years in H&S (manager, first-aider, policy maker) my advice would be that if you want to put a first-aid kit into your gite then fine, go ahead and do it. However, don't put any drugs into it of any description. You are not going to 'have your collar felt' for leaving a few plasters and bandages available in a box but leaving drugs, even aspirin, 'laying around' could be asking for trouble if little Johnny scoffs 'em.. If anyone asks you for a paracetamol because they have a headache, give them one (or two if they ask for two). You are not 'prescribing' anything, you are merely acting reasonably to a reasonable request. No judge in their right mind is going to lock you up for that...(yes, I do realise what I just said :-) If, on the other hand, some one asks you to 'shoot them up' whilst they hold a tea-spoon out in front of them in one hand with liquid bubbling away in it, waving a lighter underneath it with the other... Whilst you are not 'prescribing' anything, in this scenario I would strongly advise you not to help out, no matter how much they beg. Common-sense is what I'm prescribing (which sadly, as we have all found out, is all too often not common). If you tell people to bring such medical supplies as they might reasonably foresee requiring, as has already been suggested, then the onus is on people to pack little Johnny's inhaler and not expect you to magic one up for him. I personally wouldn't advertise 'first-aid box in gite' even if you do supply one. It implies a fully stocked (at all times with up-to-date contents, instructions etc.etc.) Probably the less said the better. Yes I do have a huge first-aid box, which luckily has stayed closed, but I don't have them in the gites. Ho Hum... Tom
  5. "plus when the new Mini Livebox is available you can upgrade to it" It is a new mini livebox :-( I'll try that admim admin stuff... Tom
  6. [quote user="greyman"]You probably need to press the button on the back of the livebox that pings for connectable devices. Until your laptop picks up this signal it won't be authorised. But then again just chuck it straight in the bin like most people seem to end up doing and get a proper wireless router ![/quote] Tried pressing the wi fi button on the back but no good. The lap-top thingy can see the livebox. In the 'connection management' box the 'Lixebox-6354' is listed and it tries again and again to connect to it, to no avail. Quite frustrating. I'm suspecting a problem with the livebox but I'm no expert. Tom
  7. An interesting one...We have installed a livebox and it's up and running. With our web-book and our neighbour's lap-top we can 'see' the live box, but when we try to connect to it, using the Clé de securité printed on the back of the livebox, it won't let either in. We have tried things like using upper-case and lower-case, Os and 0s, but try as we might it won't let us in. Any ideas? By the way, we're on LINUX, but we've had the same problem with windoze Tom
  8. Too late... already replied in the negative. I await further scam mail with interest! Tom
  9. Katie, if you come to us you will probably end up having the cleaning charge imposed. We state clearly that the gite should be left as found. It isn't an hotel, it's a gite. We don't charge hotel prices so don't expect it to be left in a mess. We expect to clean around, but not to carry out a deep clean between guests. One booking this year: bought and used bleach to try to get a pen mark out of the side of the settee that their child had made. The settee now has a bleached white (on red) skid mark on it. The child liked oranges. Getting fresh orange out of bed sheets is less easy than you'd think. As is getting hair dye out of bed sheets, pillow cases and towels. Cleaning the dried on orange juice out of the bedside cabinet drawer wasn't nice. Getting the felt-tip out of the table cloth wasn't too difficult though. The used needles left around after diabetes testing weren't very nice either. The bathroom looked like they had had a bun fight in it. All the pots, pans and cutlery needed washing again. In short, the place was a tip. And they broke plates and glasses. We didn't charge them a bean. More fool us! It took two of us six hours, in August heat, to get it ready for the next guests who; Spilt red wine on the bedclothes, stained the floor (wine again) walls (wine again) doors (tomato juice/pips?!) Gouged holes in the walls, moving furniture from room to room, etc.etc. (I'm boring myself now...). This time we imposed the full cleaning charge, which they accepted without question. It took us four hours to clean it. Then there are the others. Five lots left it as they found it, which (hopefully) goes to show that there are more clean people than those who choose to live like pigs. Rant over, Season over (nearly!) Tom
  10. We received the following enquiry via gites-directory.com, a couple of days ago. "Bonjour, Je suis Mr k****** j*** r******, pour nos vacances j'aimerais louer votre etablissement,Période du 01 Octobre 2008 jusqu' au 20 Decembre 2008. Nous sommes au nombres de 4 personnes. (Mon épouse, mes deux fillettes de 12 ans et 7ans et moi) Ceci dit je désire savoir si vous acceptez les règlements par carte de crédit à l'avance ou dans le cas contraire un virement bancaire. Veuillez nous répondre dès que possible s'il vous plait. Cordialement." The address and telephone number supplied are from the Ivory Coast. As it happens we can't accommodate them, however this looks dodgy to me so I wouldn't have accepted it anyway. Taking young kids out of school for three months? Someone fishing for bank details perhaps? I thought I'd pass it on just in case it has been sent out to numerous others. I could be wrong but... Tom
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