1. Do not decorate your rental condo with fake fruit.
Because if you do, your renter’s kids will do this. All day,
Every day.
And their parents might or might not remember to run them through the dishwasher before they leave.
(The fruit, that is.)
2. Even if you typically have short-term renters, do not assume that they don’t need closet space.
They do. Because little people will be sleeping in those closets.
And yes, even if you don’t have walk-in closets, your guests will figure out how to cram their children into those, as well.
3. Try to have mattresses that don’t creak with the cacophony of laying on a sack of accordions every time someone shifts a half inch in position.
Remember, little people are sleeping in closets just across the room.
4. Do not decorate with fake cheese or bread. Whoever’s great-great-grandmother’s top-of-the-refrigerator that you swiped those from is surely feeling empty right now.
But if you insist, at least dust them every year or two. Toddlers don’t prefer the taste of dust mites on their fake food.
5. Fireworks at your complex on the Fourth of July is understandable.
Delaying them until 10pm is not. You do realize that kid-bedtime is 7pm, and 9pm on an especially generous vacation night, right?
Fireworks on the 5th of July will cause parents to go into nervous convulsions.
Fireworks on the SIXTH OF JULY is litigation-worthy.
6. In your twin-bed bedrooms, don’t have walls that beds can’t be pushed all the way against. Children adore to fall between these beds and walls, creating quite impressive middle-of-the-night injuries.
7. Put fiberglass up behind your railings. No matter how up-to-code they are, they never feel safe, as little people are notoriously creative and slippery.
8. If you and your spouse choose to sleep on opposite ends of the bed and therefore greatly deform your mattresses, don’t opt to place your old mattress with a gigantic mattress-sandbar down the middle into your rental property. Your guests might be nighttime cuddlers. And it is very uncomfortable to attempt to cuddle while falling off of the side of a mattress sandbar, which therefore multiplies the accordion disquietude.
9. Put electrical outlets in your closets. Little people that sleep there need noisemakers so that they do not hear the accordions.
10. If you advertise that your kitchen is fully stocked, it is NOT unless you provide plastic cups. Allowing children to use Martini Glasses may not end well, especially since you most likely have tile floors, and they do adore the noise that the two combined can create.
Your immediate attention regarding these items is greatly appreciated.
oh good, i’m not the only ones using the closets to put my kids in. i’m also a big fan of hotel bathrooms. martini glasses? HA! fireworks is hard for little guys. i’m glad ours were cancelled this year. last year my husband actually LET our 2 oldest stay up until 1130 setting our own off. i was not happy.
Nope, we’re all closet-kid storers around here!!
And yes, the fireworks were giving us all having panic attacks – every night, we’d get the kids finally tucked in, and THEN they’d start. So wrong.
Proud to have been a member of the “closet bedroom” club . Now that she’s 12 it doesn’t quite work. In fact on our last trip when we stayed at a hotel that had two double beds I wondered why my husband and I were squished while she had an entire bed to flop around on. (we are not a cuddly couple – I need my space)
Yeah, but what would have been worse, sleeping in a bed with your husband, whom you’re used to, or sleeping in the bed with her, who is probably much more active in her sleep, because she’s used to having the whole bed to flop around in?
I would pay BIG money for a hotel chain that came with latched drawers, outlet covers, and mirrors that weren’t easily knocked off of the wall by little hands. I like the closet-for-children-to-sleep-in idea, must remember that for future trips.
YES – Closets make all the difference. And I agree – Chris and I have talked about the business idea that someone needs to do a vrbo.com site for parents – that rates all of the parental needs of the unit.
The railings always make me nervous too, even though my son is now five. I always go out and ‘test’ them to see if they are wobbly before I let him out there, and all patio furniture must be far away from the edges so he couldn’t stand on it and fall over. Yet we still always try to get the highest floor we can for the views!
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I HATE going out on balconies with kids. Yet I do love a good balcony…