A bad guest

Last weekend I was working in my orchard when I received a phone call from the agency who let our holiday cottage. Could I deal with an incident that day where the current guest had cut his hand on a broken door window. Apparently he'd broken the door window while attempting to close the door, unlike 100's of previous guests who had closed the door without damage. Now the gentleman was worried about leave the house unsecured. I put away my arborist tools, drove home to pick up some plywood and tools for shuttering.

On arrival, about 40 minutes later, I found the broken window of the front door, with glass facing out and shards scattered across the footpath and across the street outside the house. The pane was broken in it's centre and had clearly been struck with considerable force. I knocked on the door to check if the guest was in, and after some delay he appeared. I checked what injuries he received. There were some cuts to his hand but covered with small plasters and chose not to seek medical attention. We keep a first aid kit in the house.  I took the tools and plywood to the rear of the house and set to work. There was no blood to clear up and very little glass inside the house. After removing the remaining glass from the door, I cut and installed a temporary 11mm plywood shutter inside the door to make it secure. The guest was in the lounge playing a computer game on the TV, obviously not too distressed. I then cleaned up the broken glass from the footpath and the road.

As it was a Bank Holiday weekend I couldn't order the replacement glass until the following tuesday. It is a specialist pattern on the glass and it has to be tempered safety glass. Installing it will require quite a lot of work as the door wood is quite old. New beading will have to be milled. The door had been painted a couple of months ago with specialist marine gloss, undercoat and primer. That will have to be repeated. Yet more expense.

So, yesterday we attended the cottage to clean it after the guest's departure ready for the new booking. It had been left in a dirty state. The toilet had been left unflushed after use. Bathroom towels had been left on the floor in the lounge. They left a fat encrusted dirty saucepan on the cooker, the kitchen work surfaces had not been cleaned, recycling rubbish needing sorting. There was damp washing left in the washing machine. Food had been left in the fridge. The kitchen rubbish pedal bin had had the lid broken off and will need to be replaced (£25). The large bath towel left in the lounge was stained so badly that, even after washing, will need to be replaced (£30). They also managed to break the supporting arms on a bedside lampshade.

In short, they were guests we would not want to see again. The cost of fixing the place far exceed the rental paid to us by the agency.


Update (1st Sept 2019)

The replacement glass is a now rare pattern called Flemish and after some searching I found a glazier who can order that pattern in toughened glass. Each pane is specially individually heat treated for the toughening process and is cut to shape before toughening. Cost £25 + travel costs.

The wooden beading used to support the glass in place, against a bed of putty, is a moulding type which is no longer commercially available. It is called Quadrant Double Ovolo. None of the glaziers I contacted had supplies. The beading for the door is an old imperial size and has to be made to order. A local joinery company have agreed to mill the wood to size, if I pay for the router cutter bit. There are two UK companies providing these, the cheapest is £25. Cost of wood (Yellow Pine) and labour is extra. I tried a sample of the now standard beading wood, but it looks quite different from the rest of the door beading, not good in a Local Authority Conservation Area.

I'll have to chip out the old hard putty from the door before I can fit the new pane. It's slow work as I need to avoid damaging the pane frame. Fortunately I have some glazing putty available and don't have to buy any more to install the pane.

I've ordered some stainless steel 25mm brad nails for my air powered nail gun (£22 for 1000 pack). The previous steel nails in the old beading wood had rusted and stained the earlier paintwork. When I install the replacement pane, I don't want to be using a manual hammer, on copper pins, close to the new glass which can break easily! It does mean I have to haul an air compressor over to the cottage. The stainless is about 3 times the price of mild steel pins, but for the door repair a few pins is a minor cost provided the brads arrive before I commence work. There is a deadline as we are expecting new guests soon.

After the new pane is installed I'll need six clear days of good weather (and no guests) to complete the repainting process. I dread to think how much it would cost if I employed a painter to apply the five coats of paint for that tiny area. Fortunately I have the exterior paints to hand, but might have to find some colour matched acrylic paint for the interior paintwork

To protect the glass door from future idiots, I'm going to install a 6mm clear cast acrylic (perspex) sheet on the interior of the front door covering all of the glazing. It will be held in place by a White Oak frame constructed by the joinery company (cost awaited as some tailoring will be needed).  I've ordered the acrylic from Simply Plastics at a cost of £52 including carriage. The front door is currently protected by an inner door, but it seems the determined can find their way past that protection.

Edit 6th Sept 2019

When we performed the cottage turn round, after the last guest, we noticed a hand towel was missing. Today, I was double checking the cottage before the next guests arrived and I found the "missing" hand towel. Now, if you are the parents of a teenage boy you'll understand the next bit! The towel was under the bed head, heavily crumpled and the fabric was stiff. Ugh, I didn't bother checking for stains! It is now in the rubbish bin, no way would we let that be reused by other guests..

Hand towel found under the bed.

Do you have a reception Desk?

Our holiday cottage appeared on Google Maps, complete with reviews by guests.  Today I had a phone call from a Google Maps clerk: "Does your business have a 24 hour reception desk?" 

My response was: "No, we meet and greet the guests, but are then available on 24 hour call if there are any problems."  End of call.

Being naturally suspicious, about 30 minutes later I checked on Google Maps. Our holiday cottage business is no longer shown and the reviews have been wiped out. The national tax authority, HMRC, treat us as a business. The local council charge us business rates, and Google is happy to accept money from us for advertisements promoting the holiday home business.

Result? We've cancelled all advertising with Google with immediate effect for this cottage and our other businesses. The other major search engines do not have this problem. We'll also move our archival data storage from Google to Amazon AWS.

It's not rocket science

There was an amusing circumstance on the purchase of wood hardener resin for the kitchen window frame in the cottage.  Apparently I have agreed as part of the purchase to not use the product in rocket systems, nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. If I do, then I'm supposed to tell the retailer.

Here's the wording I found on the invoice document from the decorators supply store:

Not recycling

This year I've noticed that guests staying in the cottage have not been putting rubbish bags and recycling material bins out for collection by the Council. I've had to resort to visiting the cottage early in the morning of the day of collection to ensure the refuse is put out in the right place. In some cases I've had to empty the bin during the "turn-round" between guest stays.  I found this puzzling, because on previous years the guests have been diligent at putting out the rubbish at the right time.  We have a copy of the council schedule for collections added into the Cottage Manual and we renew it every year.

I finally twigged to the cause of this apparent lack of helpfulness during a discussion with one of our cottage neighbours this week. It turns out that one of the guests has lost this year's copy of the schedule for collections, leaving just last year's in place in the Cottage Manual. I'd left both there at the turn of the year, but not spotted one had gone missing. So there was no way people could have working through the collection schedule, which takes place on alternate weeks and different bins on different days.

It was easy to print another copy of the schedule, modified for Trade Waste collection, and place it back in the cottage manual. It solved the mystery.

Rotten window repair

The kitchen window at the rear of the cottage is a single pane below a top opening casement window. The glass pane is held in place by a nailed wooden bead rather than putty glazing compound. The problem with this installation is that it is not water resistant. Over the past few years, rain has penetrated behind the wooden bead and has caused wet rot at the foot of the window. It needs the window replacing or the rot removed and repaired.

  

I've tried to interest local window companies in quoting for replacement wood frame window, but none seem interested in this relatively small job.  I could build a new window in my workshop and install it. However, I've never done this type of work before and as a "new window" it would need certification under building regulations because I'm not a registered FENSA installer. As the cottage is located in a Conservation Area, we don't want to have to tangle local planners by trying to install modern windows.

So I've decided to undertake a repair. I'll dig out the rotten wood, treat the remainder with wood treatment, then use Toupret wood hardener resin to provide a firm base. I'll then apply filler material to restore the shape and strength of the frame. I'll mix my own filler compound from epoxy resin, glass microbead filler powder and various fibres to use to fill the hole. Epoxy resin based filler has some flexibility similar to the original wood. It is also low odour, so it will not inconvenience our guests as it cures. Stainless steel wood screws in the interior of the hole will act as a key to help retain the filler in the hole. Once the filler is smooth and hard, I'll sand it down, and replace the wooden bead around the glazing with proper linseed oil putty. Then it will be time to repaint the whole window frame,

I've just ordered some fresh Gurit SP106 epoxy resin, which is now in transit to me. It's not cheap, but it will give a long lasting repair. I've used this technique on boats before to good effect.

Edit: 16th July 2019

I've finally had the time and weather to work on this project. I've dug out the dead wood from the window frame.

The damage was less extensive than I'd feared. I sprayed the bare wood with copper sulfate solution to kill off rot fungi and once that had dried I treated the soft wood with the Toupret Wood Hardener. This particular hardener is water based and serves to strengthen the wood fibre and also lock in the copper sulfate.  If the copper solution is not bonded to the wood it fairly quickly leaches away if the wood get wet. It leaves a greenish tinge to the wood.

Mold Alert

We've run the Warmbrook Cottage as a holiday home for the past six years. It's open 365 days a year. Never before have we had people complain about damp and mold. We've not noticed it when we're cleaning the place between rentals, and my wife who had a career as a District Nurse has a nose like a bloodhound. She hadn't spotted any problem.  

So we were surprised when we received an evening call from the rental agency telling us our guests were complaining about severe damp and mold in the kitchen cabinet beneath the sink. They'd decided to leave before even staying the first night and wanted their money refunding. Not wishing to cause people to stay against their will in the cottage, we agreed the holiday company could release the booking. 

It must be that some people are hypersensitive to mold, when the majority of the public wouldn't notice it. I've seen one report that this might affect 5% of people.

Here's an extract from a research website: 

Mold allergy causes the same signs and symptoms that occur in other types of upper respiratory allergies. Signs and symptoms of allergic rhinitis caused by mold allergy can include:

• Sneezing
• Runny or stuffy nose
• Cough and postnasal drip
• Itchy eyes, nose and throat
• Watery eyes

... Generally, however, mold doesn't cause systemic infections except for people with impaired immune systems, such as those who have HIV/AIDS or who are taking immunosuppressant medication.

When we visited the cottage to check on the same evening, we found no damp in the cupboard, the wall was dry. There were some dark stains on the wall (inside the cupboard), which might have been historical mold occuring before we took on the cottage. We couldn't smell any mustiness, which had also been complained about. We even invited neighbours in to see if they could detect any out of place smells, but they spotted nothing anyway unusual.  Our cottage is "Non-smoking" and we know the husband at least was a smoker, perhaps the cottage kitchen smelt different from a smoker's house. We don't know if the wife actually suffered any allergic reaction, or was just concerned.

We are at a loss to establish what triggered the reaction by the wife. Unfortunately they didn't raise the issue with us directly so it is difficult to know. If they had perhaps there was something we could have done to mitigate the issue. Consequently, this couple have ruined their week's holiday and we're left short of a Bank Holiday week rental, with no redress.

We're going to have the kitchen wall tested for dampness, though it feels dry and warm to touch. We'll also undertake some precautionary antifungal treatment on the old marks on the wall even though there's no evidence of recent activity.

Edit 25/05/19:

We had a tech visit the cottage to test the area in the kitchen which had been reported as damp. He took a series of reading on the way under the kitchen sink. The wall had an average humidity reading of 5.5% with a peak of 6.7%. That is quite a dry wall, and active mold is unlikely. He reported some construction dust on the wall where the back of the cabinet had been removed for plumbing operations. He gave the surface of the area a precautionary wash down with antifungal solution, but did not think we had a problem.

Bright Orange door

It was good to be greeted by the newly painted front door at the cottage. A cheerful bright orange in the sunlight, not exactly fluorescent orange but quite bright. I'd intended something closer to post office red (RAL 3028), but I chose the colour of the paint at night guided by the display on my PC. A happy accident you might say.

We were there for a typical end of week/new guest 10:00 am turnround cleaning session. The usual problems:

• Rubbish bins had not been put out for collection and were full;
• Stains on the furniture covers, and not advised to us;
• Kitchen utensils grubby
• Broken kitchen glassware, not advised to us;
• Builder's rubble on our garden from the adjoining property;
• Gate latch broken by the builder.

All dealt with, and the usual smile on our faces, before the next guests arrive at 2:00 pm.