10.12.2010

note to tenants

 This is going out to this year's tenants. How would you decide?
 As of Columbus Day weekend, our season is officially over, and we’re beginning the summer recap. We hope you will weigh in too.
    Despite the rising (and excessive costs) of electricity, water and propane, we have not raised rents in several years. However, some of you may have noticed that cleaning was more expensive this past summer. Previously, my daughter Hannah and her husband Chris and I did the linens and made the beds (and cleaned the grills and other outdoor stuff) for free. This year, because Hannah and Chris were pregnant, and I was in the Ozarks, our cleaners did everything.  It was hard for them to do two houses —ten beds and six bathrooms and multiple loads of laundry—in four hours with fewer pairs of hands. Bedding got scrambled, and sometimes you all had to wait to move in. Sorry. We really needed at least one more person.
    Edie suggested that we not do linens next year. Apparently nobody else on Block Island provides them—either guests bring their own or rent them from a linen service. The linen service prices, indicate that it would be about $160 for Claudia’s and $185 for  Hannah’s.
    We like arriving in a hotel room and finding the beds made and would be willing to pay extra cleaning fees for that service.
   How do you feel?

10 comments:

  1. Why not keep it simple, but poetic. How's this:

    Now that Hannah has a Babe
    And Grandma has the Goose
    We won't be changing out your sheets
    Unless...can you deduce?

    Chalk up that dough, or we say "No!"
    To things you took for granted.

    Your needs, you see
    By all of us,
    Have truly been supplanted.

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  2. take it neat

    if sheets are neat
    I'll go the penny, pound, or fin
    with day complete
    I like 'em three to the wind

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  3. You're right, CBA. They didn't seem to get the question. Sigh.
    And hey, Jude, no alcohol is supplied. Just coffee.

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  4. Celtic Mug

    I'll go black coffee
    jist no Starbucks stylish
    add a wee drop off me
    'n make mine Irish

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  5. If I'm a renter, and I read
    >The linen service prices, indicate that it would be about $160 for Claudia’s and $185 for Hannah’s.

    ...I would want to know, what does that mean to me? Are these numbers, per week, month, season? How would it break down?

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  6. Per week. You pick em up at the real estate office when you arrive. You drop em off there when you leave.

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  7. BYOL is standard when you rent a house so no biggie but maybe you should offer the option (and charge for it) of made beds for those who are used to that nice service.

    Sorry, can't seem to turn this into a poem today :)

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  8. On the Make

    poems are made
    not converted
    'careful what you say
    my feelings are hurted

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  9. Whoa! $160/$185 for the privilege of picking up clean sheets, making my bed each day, and dropping them off at the end of the week? Even if the laundry service does 4 loads of sheets, $40/load is a nice profit.

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  10. Maybe I should go into that business too.
    No, wait, I'm already in that business and looking to get out.

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