Essentials in a rental appartment/house
 

I have just set up a rental house in the Loire Valley and would like to know what essentials people would like to find if they come for three days (or more). So far, I have bed & table linen, bathrobes, soap, basic first aid kit, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, herbs, flour, sugar, cling film, alfoil, washing up liquid, soap, coffee (pods for the expresso machine and instant), tea (leaves and a selection of bags), milk, large bottle of water, thermos flask, binoculars, flashlight, umbrella, computer, CD/radio player, small CD/DVD library, English library, playing cards, hair dryer, washing powder, iron and ironing board, bikes and repair kit, garden furniture, deck chairs, barbecue with charcoal. What is missing?

We have rented several apartments throughout Europe and the nicest one was just recently in Budapest. We arrived in the early afternoon, exhausted after almost 20 hours of travel (3 connections). Instead of having to go out immediately and forage for lunch and supplies, the owner had left us delicious pastries, good salami, good cheese, decent fresh bread, a dozen egggs, butter, a wonderful Nespresso machine with 3 dozen packets, cream, in short everything we would need for at least 2 days.

There were many laminated instruction sheets throughout the apartment with instructions on how to USE washer/dryer, coffee machine, dishwasher, internet/computer, VoIP phone, HDTV and DVD machine. In the bathroom were very nice toiletries, almost hotel quality.

The management checked in with us 2-3 times during our week to ensure we were doing OK, find out if we needed anything, etc. In our negotiations prior to arrival, they had sent us several pages on nearby restaurants/cafes, sightseeing suggestions, etc. We found this to be superlative service and needless to say, left a wonderful impression on us.

Your list is very comprehensive and I would be thrilled to find some of the things you've listed.

Perhaps you've already planned to provide these, but they're not on the list:

--Paper towels & toilet paper
--User manuals/instructions for appliances
--Television channel line-up (if you provide TV)
--Local area maps
--Local restaurant information
--Local grocery shopping information

We love staying in rentals in France and really enjoyed a stay in the Loire Valley. Good luck with your venture.

A notebook with cards/information about all the local attractions, supermarkets, computer stores and wifi spots, hardware stores, police and fire and ambulance and medical services, pharmacies, restaurants and cafés and bakeries and other food stores, local fresh markets' dates and times, list of local festivals, brocantes, etc. (there's one put out every year in March available at tourist offices), good maps....etc., etc.

Good knives and every kitchen utensil imaginable (including an oyster shucker), good pots and pans and ovenware. A breadbag. A cookbook or two with local recipes.

And, as noted, clear instructions for every appliance. And if there is garbage/recycle pickup, info on what days/time, what containers to use, what goes in each, and if you don't have pickup, directions to the dump. Info on the fuse box and water heater pilot and how to get things going again if there's an outage.

I'm sure I'll think of more next week when I'm back in St-Cirq. It seemed we were forever stocking the place with this or that.

Sounds like a pretty complete list to me, but the one glaring omission would be a couple of electical plug adaptors for the local outlets -- both for UK and for US plugs.

I can't emphasize enough the need for those instruction manuals! I've given up using a few appliances in apartments when I simply couldn't figure out how to work them.

Oyster shucker, StCirq? Wow, that seems like expecting a lot, but hey why not go for it.

Yes, Neo, oyster shucker. Don't know if renters ever used it, but I sure did!
Forgot...French-English dictionary.

StCirq, can I travel with you? Sitting around my apartment in Europe eating oysters is one pleasure I've not only never had, but one I've never even thought about. But talk about divine decadence!

It may disappear, but a good map of the region.

If you have a tub with a shower, you should might want to include a GOOD tub mat. We stayed in a friend's place and she told us -- the tub mat was on the cheap side and not to feel badly if it split between showers, and rinsing out the tub. It did. We couldn't find a decent replacement, or we would have gotten them one.

Oh -- and several different types of corkscrews/wine openers.

and pot holders! (sorry for the multiple posts)

reasonable speed wifi would be considered as close to bread and water for most younger people

The address of the local "en vrac" wine supply and a couple of plastic bottles to put it in.

Corkscrew

I don't think you have to supply most of that stuff, there is a fine line between a rental property and being someone's babysitter (playing cards?).

The one glaring omission seems to be that it isn't clear if you have some kind of coffeemaker, which is pretty essential. Maybe you do and you just didn't name it because you aren't providing anything, but why provide instant coffee if you have a coffeemaker? And the pods make it sound like all you have is an espresso machine. But if you are providing all that stuff and do have a coffeemaker, why wouldn't you provide coffee filters? I am assuming the modern kind where hot water drips down over coffee in a filter in a basket.

I don't think you should provide things like binoculars, etc, I wonder how much of that stuff will get stolen. I really don't think you should be providing people milk, I wouldn't want to drink something like that I found in a frig in a place I rented anyway, who knows how old it was or how well refrigerated.

Extra light bulbs.

Neo, come along anytime. I find it hard to live without fresh oysters, no matter where I am (and in the Dordogne, we get plenty of wonderful ones - shipped in from Bordeaux for the most part).

There is plenty of milk in France that doesn't need refrigeration. Our Intermarché has an entire half an aisle of it.

aussie - are you registered with the local tourist board? in the UK they set standards which include what you need to provide, depending on your grading - but it looks as if you've got the inventory more or less covered. they are pretty keen IME in your having the right no of things for the max no of guests - eg if you advertise yourselves as accommodation for 6, you need 6 dinner knives, forks, spoons, coffee spoons plates, dishes, glasses - etc etc. no doubling up.

Christine - why would you think that milk provided by hosts was old/bady stored? we leave our guests FRESH milk, butter, and cornish clotted cream in the fridge [all bought for the purpose, not left-overs] and tea, coffee etc. so they can make themselves tea when they arrive. hopefully they don't think that it's been left in there by the previous guests! [the sell-by dates should help]. but I WAS caught out today - our guests wanted to use the dryer function on the washer/dryer, and could I remember how to use it? in the end I stuck their washing in our dryer. my excuse is that DH [who was out for the say] does all the washing in between lets, and if I ever knew how to use the machine, I've forgotten. [and yes we did find the instructions, but sadly they were not helpful]. so guess what I'll be doing this weekend!

Something that I always bring that has only been in a few apartments are pens/pensils/highlighter with a little paper and post its!

Make sure they know where to find a dust pan and brush, a broom, a mop and bucket, and cleaning products. If space permits, have a designated area/ rack set aside for wet or dirty shoes, rainwear and umbrellas. A collapsible clothes horse/ rack can also come in handy.

More than one set of house keys available.

A reliable mobile/cell phone contact number.

And a shopping basket/ bag or two.

Oh yes, bags and baskets for market/supermarket trips (especially for the supermarkets if they require you to bring your own bags), plus instructions (if applicable) on how to weigh produce at the supermarkets before arriving at the checkout stand.

More than one bath towel per person per week; I have rented lovely places with Nespresso machines,etc., but only 1 bath towel! (Yeah, I know, it's probably a USA thing to want more!).

Washcloths.

corkscrew and decent wine glasses
coffee mugs - not just cups - I need a big cup first thing in the morning
second the oyster shucker - nothing worse that sitting looking at a couple of dozen fresh oysters and no easy way to get to the contents
and second the instructions re weighing fruit and vegies - still you only make that mistake once - and apologies to all those people I held up because of it!

Egg-cups, particularly if there will be children staying. Whilst you can improvise most things, an egg wedged in toilet paper in a small wine glass is not AS easy to eat!
I just wish the owners of the villa we are taking in Tuscany on the 1st September were as thoughtful, I still don't know where it is leave alone the fine detail!

"nothing worse that sitting looking at a couple of dozen fresh oysters and no easy way to get to the contents"

Put them in the oven (heated at 200°C). As soon as they open - it takes approx 2 min - remove from oven, open and put back on ice.

Fantastic, I was reading a book in the library about what to do if the world ends and I can now solve the oyster shucking question that had leapt to my mind unaided at the time. One less thing to worry about. :-) still that means you need a good oven with reasonable temp control and a load of ice, so....

As well as an oyster fork,lemon, shallots, vinegar, rye bread and butter....... :-)

Yours must be a very high-end rental to offer table linens, bathrobes, etc. Either that, or you are very considerate, in which case please send me rental details! I would provide decent place mats and trivets to help protect the table but which are easy to launder.

On a serious note, I do think two bath towels and one wash cloth pp should be provided. Scrimping on that reallly annoys me. If you have a pool, have separate beach/pool towels so bath towels stay in the house, hopefully.

Rentals often have really poor kitchen knives, so I would ensure that things most people will use daily are of good quality, particulaly paring and bread knives, coffee maker, toaster. When driving to a rental, we often take a box of what we consider "our" essentals, but people flying in don't have that option.

Box/es of tissues (with plenty still in a box already opened).

At the end of the day, I assume you are in this for profit. Paper goods in France aren't cheap and are going up. Most rentals provide stater packs, two loo rolls per bathroom, a roll or two of kitchen towels, ideally a new box of good tissues.

Focus on quality, not quantity.

If a large place, provide large pots, pans, skillets, casseroles.

Oh, and if on a fosse septique, strategically placed reminders that only toilet paper can be flushed.

This may be included in table linens, but tea-towels. At the apartment we just stayed in in Norway, not only were there none, but they didn't even seem to understand the concept (once explained, obviously - I know the word may differ in different varieties of English).

Along the same lines, a dish rack for draining dishes. I would second spare towels, plus spare pillows. I would say almost everyone I know uses two pillows per person, so why do so many hotels etc. give you only one?

Adequate rubbish bins (so many are tiny or not enough of them) and basic cleaning stuff - presumably quite helpful for you as well as your guests. Perhaps some info on recycling or three separate bins for rubbish/paper and plastic/glass.

A filled ice tray in the freezer might be nice.

A lot of the suggestions (perhaps including some of mine) would be really nice touches, but I also think you don't HAVE to go OTT if you don't want. I certainly wouldn't think "screw that apartment owner" if I didn't weigh my own vegetables at the supermarket, but then I might well think "I'm glad they told me that" if you did. In some ways though, figuring some of these things out for yourself is part of the fun. Norway was great, but there were moments where I thought "everyone speaks such flawless English and I don't know a single word of Norwegian, I'd hardly know this isn't an English-speaking country". Of course, some of that is my fault, but there's something to be said for finding a foreign country a bit challenging and even frustrating that I don't think needs to be guarded against 100%.

Frances, you must be British? Here in the US, most people I know don't even know what an egg cup is. I knew, but hadn't seen one in years. But when a couple of Brits rented my Florida guesthouse, they knocked on my door the first morning and said, "we've looked everywhere and can't imagine where you've hid the egg cups." I had to buy some then -- but I'm sure they were never used again.

Is it that you use something else, or that you don't tend to eat soft-boiled eggs?

Well, thank you everybody. It's true that I didn't list everything because some of the things seems to obvious. I can see they are not. My rental is www.closeriefalaiseau.com if you'd like to see the pictures! I do have an expresso machine and a drip machine with filters but some people prefer instant coffee and tea bags! The milk is hermetically sealed good quality long-life and the date is on the bottle. I have instructions for all the appliances. Also paper towels and toilet paper, local area maps, local restaurant information (with print-outs of my blog reviews), local grocery shopping information, full set of tourist information, police, fire, doctors, pharmacies, bakeries, fresh markets, etc. (I shall add computer and hardward stores). My knives are super-sharp (I'm a fanatic) and of course there is an oyster shucker, good pots and pans & overware. (I'll add the breadbag). Info about garbage and fuse box. And yes, electric plug adaptors for Australia (I'm an Aussie!), UK and US. Don't have a tub but will remember that for the future. Light bulbs, yes. Corkscrew, definitely. High speed wifi and computer. The Loire wine is pretty cheap so you can buy good bag-in-box and bottles. The binoculars were sitting around doing nothing. They are too big for anyone to want to steal them! The rental is for two people and we have plates and cutlery for 12. And yes, cups and MUGS. There is a little room for cleaning utensils and products, shoe rack, hanging space for coats, umbrella rack, etc. Collapsible clothes rack too. Two sets of house keys (key code box to get in). Kleenex tissues. I'll add the shopping bags because it's true that our supermarket doesn't have free ones. Three towels (different sizes) per person + wash cloth. Extra towels if needed. Egg-cups (but the rental is not suitable for children), good glasses and porcelain plates. Oyster forks and grapefruit spoons. Yes, place mats (both fabric and plastic), paper napkins, coasters (to put under cups). No swimming pool. Toaster, bread knife, tea-towels and hand towels for the kitchen, dish rack, 3 pillows per person (square and rectangular), spare blanket, adequate rubbish bins, filled ice tray. And yes, I'm trying to give people everything they need even if it seems OTT.
Any other suggestions welcome.

CathinJoe. You are so right about blunt knives and nothing to sharpen them on. I think it is worth having good knives and either a shadow board or a block so the customer knows where to stick them back and the owner knows they have not been pinched. Sticking good knives in a drawer is dnagerous.

Oh, Aussie, it looks LOVELY. Now I want to go, even if it isn't in town (where I usually like to stay). And shame on you -- you failed to tell us the most important thing you include -- a raclette "machine". Sounds like those who have stayed have already told you that you have "everything". Good job.

Wow, am on my way.

Great place and obviously very thoughtful owner!

Thank you NeoPatrick. I wasn't sure anyone would know what a "raclette" machine is! Yes, we prefer to stay in town too, but in the Loire, since you'll be driving about and visiting all day, having some peace and quiet in the evening can be very attractive! If you've had a good lunch, you can just buy bread and cheese and wine (or maybe oysters!) and sit in the garden and relax.