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My first day of work since 2004!


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Yes its true, whilst I may not take holidays and have worked most days including Saturday and Sundays for the last 10 years it hasnt really been work, every day I have had the choice and sometimes I would choose to do nothing at all, sometimes to go for a long bike ride or kayak all day, sometimes I would hear the tow plane over my house and trot off to the gliding club and then soar the thermals, these were the rare exceptions but every day I had the choice, no bosses, no customers, total freedom, in fact I would joke that I had been avoiding work for 10 years whilst in reality putting in far more hours than those in employment.

All that was due to come to an end today with the arrival of my first tourist customers in both apartments, I had time to mentally gear up to it but as I was working on the roof yesterday, a jour ferié, a pair of Australians arrived saying they had a booking [blink], you mean tomorrow? I said with a smile, no today they said, we booked it 5 minutes ago using the wi fi in the only café we could find open in town.

The flats were clean after the last long term rentals but I had not intended preparing them for tourists till today, these guys took them both so it meant that this morning I had to do a changeover of both apartments, something I have never done before and according to my program, but for the walk-ins (who I was really pleased to have had) it would have been another week before I had to do a changeover (there were gaps of days between the rentals) and only then for one apartment not two, so I hit the ground running [:-))]

Now I have one whole days experience what some of you do for a living and I have the utmost respect for you,  Plus many of you  have to cook breakfasts, evening meals and generally be on hand. Long term rentals are an awfull lot easier.

I trained with the athletics club tonight (managed to get an hour away between arrivals) told them it was my first day of work for a decade and explained how my life had been before, they congratulated me and I said that I was actually looking for their sympathy [:P]

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You need to get in the habit of cleaning the instance the guest leaves. There are some rules about this. I can't remember where I read them now, it was so long ago but basically when you are open the unoccupied rooms must be ready for guests all the time. The Booking phone app uses the phones GPS to find your location and show the nearest accommodation to you within a 10km radius. Quite clever really and we have had a few that have booked whilst near by. We actually had one that made the booking whilst sitting in their car outside our gate.

You will develop a system best suited to your rooms over time that works economically for you time wise. We have all the linen, towels and consumables on 'named' shelves ready to go at the next changeover so all you have to do is pick them up and take them to the room. n the summer I clean in my shorts and flipflops. Sounds stupid but it means you can clean the showers from the inside and it does not matter if you get wet. Cleaning from the inside is both quicker and easier I have found.

Get yourself a Karcher Window Vac (don't buy any other brand they are useless). Not only can you use it on the windows but the showers as well and really cuts down on time. Use Lidl cleaning products as they are very good but Ajax Shower Power for the showers and 'chrome work'. Don't buy these microfibre cloths buy the Sports Towel version. They are much thicker and you can cut them up in to small cloths which works out very cheap and wash well. I have had mine for something like 8 years now and they are as good as new. I am fundamentally lazy and tight so anything that saves time and money does for me.

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Due to leave our home in SE UK for Cumbria on Monday at about 09h.00, we found we had a blocked drain about 30 minutes beforehand. Panic search for somebody to sort it out, followed by trying to find a B&B for that night en route instead of our lovely room with super view we'd planned.

Having found one available that we liked on Trip Advisor, I tried phoning to save the owner the booking.com fee, no answer so booked online. We had the owner's last room, all ready and made up for a regular arriving next day. She spoke a bit at breakfast about booking.com, how she gets many bookings but that she doesn't like that all her rooms have to go via her or their fees.

Chancer, I imagine you'd already learned what Quillan said about doing rooms immediately - we were so pleased our room was ready on arrival. Glad to read that your first booking went OK, hope it all works well for you over the summer. I remember looking at your room link, looked lovely, hope your summer bookings go well.

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Yes I am Learning as I go along, all these things are obvious looking back but it better to be forewarned and be ready than learn on your feet.

I am so so glad that I bought a commercial washing machine and tumble drier quite recently, I sued the spare sets for the changeover but it meant I could wash, dry fold and iron (I have a couple of steampresses) the used ones and have them back in the apartments as the spare set during the changeover time.

I normally wear flip flops around the house and because of my tiny combles bathrooms I had to step in the bath to clean the shower, I will look into those karcher things, I have found that just taking one shower will cover the shower screen and the grey tiles with calcaire spots and scum which really show up in the direct daylight and they look like they have never ever been cleaned.

I dont really like gadgets and prefer good old elbow grease but the glass shower screens, the bathroom mirrors and the veluxes all take a disproportionate amount of time.

Must go as I have to wash my own floor yet again in case of any walk ins!!!

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Never been a motivator for me, a comfort factor maybe but not my raison d'être.

That said I want to work hard for a few years and get the maximum possible rental income but only so I can sell the place for a multiple of it.

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