Need unbiased opinion

milee30
Mon, 13 Aug 2018 23:13:44 +0000

“I ended up cleaning more than any mess we made, plus ensuring everything was in the exact places as we found it.”

A few years ago, one of our friends in another generously let my sailboat racing team stay on their very nice, classic boat during a regatta we’d all traveled to. Our team was respectful and careful, knowing that the boat was up for sale; we wanted to leave it spotless and in perfect shape. The day we were leaving, we deep cleaned and went over everything with a fine tooth comb. When we started looking at the details, there were lots of tiny things we weren’t sure if they’d been like that when we arrived or had broken when we were there. Since I had all my tools and supplies, we just went ahead and repaired everything we could see - small statue that had a cracked piece, model wooden boat that had a part snapped off, TV remote with a broken cover, wooden outdoor chair that was loose/shaky, microwave handle loose, etc. Just did it all and left a nice thank you note and homemade treats as gifts.

The next day the owner called up, shocked and said he’d never seen the boat looking that good and asked why we’d fixed all that stuff he’d been meaning to get to for months. I was just glad and relieved to know it wasn’t my team that broke them in the first place.

Guess I find that stuff stressful. It’s so kind when people host that I want to leave things nice. It’s easier for me to pay to stay somewhere and not stress about it sometimes.