‘There was rubbish everywhere and the wet laundry was still there’
Image: Unsplash
A few weeks in another house, enjoying a vacation while someone else is watching your house. Sure, a home exchange is ideal, but things didn’t go well with these mothers.
Yvette (39), mother of Lisa (11), Gwen (8) and the twins Joris and Pepijn (4)
“We have been swapping houses for years and it always goes well. Except for the time we traded with a family from France. We had a nice click during the video call beforehand. But when we opened the door of their house after a day of driving, we were welcomed by a musty smoke.
The living room was full of cardboard box structures, the sofas had dirty blankets, the laundry basket overflowed, the beds were not made and there was not enough clean linen to be found. The whole kitchen was sticky and cleaning products were impossible to find. So I went to the supermarket to get it, so that we could try to tidy things up a bit.
The big cleanup
When we wanted to put the boys to bed a few hours later, we discovered that there was not enough bed. This was enough. So we subtly texted the owner, who was now living in our super clean house in the Netherlands. We gave them three days to leave our house and asked our neighbors to keep an eye on them in the meantime. The next morning we left for a castle nearby.
After two nights we were back home, luckily the guests were gone. We immediately started a major clean-up. The idea that these dirty people had been in our house still gives me the shivers.”
Also read – These holidays turned out to be a disaster: ‘After driving fifteen hundred kilometers we had to wrap ourselves in rain capes’ >
Still just a hotel
Ingrid (41), mother of Bart (12), Liene (10) and Gijs (5):
“We booked an apartment in Hamburg through a reputable home exchange site. The profile picture of the family made us feel good, they looked trustworthy. The pictures showed that their apartment was quite basic, but luxury is not important to us. They did not have to be in our house that week.
“We could see the holes and mold stains in the mattresses”
When we arrived in the evening, all five of us were flabbergasted. Their children were littered everywhere, the wet laundry hanging on a rack that took up the entire living room. Dirty laundry in the open laundry basket, there was a mountain of crumbs under the dining table. Since the beds were not made, we could see the holes and mold stains in the mattresses. We are really not difficult, but none of us wanted to sleep here. We closed the door behind us and booked a hotel.”
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