 Home Loan
Olive Braman tells of the hazards of
letting people use your holiday home
If you own a holiday home it seems a bit mean not to
let other people stay there when you’re not using it. So we agreed that my
friends’ daughter, husband and four small children could stay in our cottage for a
few weeks. As they were quite hard up they suggested that they would do some decorating in
lieu of rent. We suspected from the start that this was likely to create problems but felt
a refusal might upset our friends.
Had I been a generous spirit I would have acquiesced with a smile on my lips
and a song in my heart, glad to be able to help my fellow man. Not me! Throughout their
stay, pangs of anxiety kept shooting through me as I wondered what was happening to the
little house on which we had worked so hard.
Following
the family’s departure we travelled there in trepidation. We were hugely relieved
to find that some painting had been done and there was no damage, just a large puddle on
the bathroom floor. However the plumbing is old so our guests were probably not to blame.
We were a bit mystified at being unable to locate the mop bucket.
Then we discovered that the adapter and the iron
were missing. The large white lamp had
disappeared. Most of the upstairs lights had dead bulbs.
I began to get cross. Over the next few days my
irritation turned to fury as I found that the bedroom curtains were stained. Someone had
obviously shaken a bottle of makeup and had splattered both curtains and the window sill.
I was incensed when I realised that the make-up was my own liquid foundation and that
there was hardly any left . And my husband’s one and only hairbrush, which he
cherished dearly, had vanished.
We
also found that the children had drawn pictures on the walls and garden furniture, the
washing line post had been pulled out of the wall, a good pair of vice grips were no
longer in existence, our dictionary had disappeared from the bookshelves, the yard brush
was lying in an inaccessible garden below, the spare box of wine glasses and the pressure
cooker had gone from the kitchen, the matching dessert spoons had vanished and surely
there had once been another duvet and matching duvet covers and a mirror just outside the
kitchen and a butterfly rug on the wall? And why had two wooden
curtain rails been replaced with metal ones?
I could think of little but my possessions. I was affronted. My good nature
had been abused. Did they think we wouldn’t notice?
 I stamped about in a fury. My husband, being more
phlegmatic and probably nicer, though quite upset at the loss of his hairbrush, told me to
calm down. But I was ready for a row, though inhibited by thoughts of my very nice
friends. I could not believe that their daughter would have removed all those items, but
where were they?
Of course some of them turned up. I found the
mirror, the rug and the duvet covers and our cleaner handed back the iron and adapter
which she had borrowed because hers was broken. I started to feel guilty about my
suspicions and my mean nature.
Then we enquired about the other things. Oh yes,
said our friends’ daughter, they had got the pressure cooker and would return it,
they had replaced the curtain rails which were rotten (though they were perfectly sound as
far as we were aware) and had broken the mop bucket and a lamp. They knew nothing about
anything else.
And there it remains. I have given up and calmed
down. We cleaned off the graffiti, re-cemented the washing line post, washed the curtains,
and bought more light bulbs, lamps, a bucket, vice grips, a dictionary and a hairbrush..
However, I found myself in a
dilemma when some time later I saw the family at the local swimming pool with a pink
and orange towel. “Oh,”
I thought, “I used to have a towel like that.” Could it be mine, or was I just
going crazy? Then I saw
the familiar, long
pulled thread running through it… Moral cowardice kept me silent.
I still look at my friends’ charming daughter
with jaundiced eyes. If
she had only written a note of thanks or replaced or repaired damaged items, or even
acknowledged that she had ‘borrowed’ certain items, things would have been so
different.
In
future I intend to follow the example of a friend who endured similar experiences. She
now leaves a detailed note for her guests telling them, amongst other things, that they
are not to shift the furniture into other rooms, take books away, use towels to mop the
floor, or leave stale food around the house.
We have just been asked by a neighbour if her
boyfriend’s daughter can stay in our house for ten days. Just in case we say yes, I
am getting my list ready.
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