We don’t have any authentic roots in Norfolk but after discovering it so many years ago, its magic draws us back. My younger son and I enjoy our adventures as holiday landlords. We have two houses in the companion villages of Hemsby and Winterton- on-Sea. We snatch some time for ourselves when there is a gap in bookings. One, Sea Holly Cottage, is a charming faux olde-worlde thatched cottage, the other a simple building whose name, Beach View Cottage, tells you what its attraction is. We are pleased to have saved it from collapse though not so pleased with the unexpected cost of our heroism.
Mostly our guests are polite and appreciative. But we are puzzled by the small minority who – how can I put this – steal. One man pleaded for a cut price rate, saying that his planned weekend was make-or-break for him and his girlfriend. After they had left we discovered that they had taken a bed-throw with them, along with two Japanese kitchen knives and a cushion. The idea of glass or pottery ‘fruit’ intrigues me and this must have been shared by the guest who stole that bunch of handmade ceramic grapes. Sheets, towels and pillowcases frequently vanish. Last weekend I realised that an unusually fat fake ‘candle’ had gone. Our next-door neighbour in Winterton also runs a holiday let. Two weeks ago she had a set of pretty mugs stolen, along with an ornament she specially liked. If guests discover where the stash of washing up liquid is, some will just take it all. Hmmm. Perhaps they are confused about what is complimentary and what is not?
The social profile of these guests is not what you might expect. When you look up their addresses on Google Earth, you see that they live in pleasant, detached houses somewhere like Northampton, Milton Keynes or Manchester. They drive newish cars and have dogs with names like Jasper.
Some holiday landlords are ruthless. They expect theft and build in prevention. We stayed at one such place where every picture was firmly screwed into the wall at all four corners. There was only the exact number of knives, forks and spoons for four guests, just two kitchen knives and a laminated inventory left in a prominent position. Others deliberately buy poor quality furnishings and crockery, presumably on the assumption that no one is going to steal that mismatched set of ancient willow-pattern cups and saucers. In another house, the owner had drawn a large ‘eye’ and attached it with a magnet to the fridge. Under the eye was the legend, ‘We are watching you!’
We have taken a different tack. We want guests to enjoy themselves. We want them to appreciate the way we have decorated and equipped the houses – and the overwhelming majority do. We don’t spray ‘rules’ everywhere, we trust guests to behave well. We are committed to recycling and apart from bedlinen and kitchen equipment, almost everything was sourced at auctions, carboot sales and charity shops. But we have chosen carefully. Every single item in those houses has been picked for its quality and visual appeal. It’s upsetting to find that something has vanished.
What makes people think this kind of theft is OK?
It can’t be anything to do with economic need. An acquaintance has a house in France where he invites friends who have, as he does, substantial wealth. Every bedroom is beautifully decorated in themed colours. He told me of the ‘friends’ who stole every one of the expensive, carefully colour-matched towels in their room. They were apparently ‘surprised’ to receive his request to return them, claiming that they had packed them ‘by accident’.
Discussing this with others in our village, one popular explanation is that people steal as a memento of a holiday they have enjoyed. If that is the reason, could they not have bought something in the village shop which is full of nice knickknacks?
Another possibility is resentment. Maybe guests think that stays in our houses are overpriced so they want to punish us with sly thefts. If so, they must be unaware of how slender the margins are on holiday letting. By the time you have paid for cleaning, laundry, insurance, broadband, mortgage, TV, tax, maintenance and so on, there is not much left. The stolen items are mostly cheap and small enough to be slipped into a suitcase. Indignation about their loss is more about the pain of being the focus of such petty meanness than about their value.
It’s different with every holiday landlord’s biggest dread: Trashers. You can expect Trashers roughly once every eighteen months.
Our most recent experience was the family who left chocolate all over the sofas, pock marks in the bedrooms walls, and a child’s greasy handprints all over the chimney breast. Bedlinen was horribly stained and had to be binned, a handmade mohair and silk cushion was torn to shreds, there were black dog hairs everywhere including in the showers. Glasses and plates were broken. Then there was the family who left early, complaining about the ’filthy’ rug. It was indeed filthy but that was because their dog had peed copiously all over it many times. There is a serious cash cost to such wreckers. A fellow landlord needed to pay for an extra eleven hours of cleaning and that was before she had replaced all the broken items and arranged for the removal of rubbish, including a mountain of dirty nappies.
If you ask for and then trigger a safety deposit, the most common response is lying. They didn’t do it, you are exaggerating, your house is horrible anyway and they threaten a malicious review on a website with no right of reply.
I suspect that these are the same people who steal at self checkouts, claim not to have received Amazon parcels, invent whiplash injuries and sue the NHS for alleged mistreatment which never happened. They believe these are victimless crimes because they are the victims themselves: of unfairness, disappointment, rising prices. They deserve their little thrill. Resentment is the fuel for their thefts.
So Mr and Mrs A. of South London, if you’re reading this, could you return that pair of stripey Harlequin pillowcases? No questions asked.