Rental Property laundry and dry cleaning

[carolyn]

We rent out our villa on VDM and the towels, sheets etc all go to the laundry at Lagoa each week. We find that the laundry is quite expensive (apparently they weigh what is to be dried when it is soaking wet!). and quite harsh on the items. We used to use the laundry in CVO - but they seemed to lose things!

We also send bedspreads and curtains for dry cleaning periodically.
We often find that the bedspreads have shrunk, and last time we were over tried the dry cleaners in Intermarche to clean some unlined cotton curtains (ie pretty basic) and they came back shrunk! ( I spent part of my 'holiday' letting them down!!)

We wondered what experience others out there have - does anyone know anywhere that offers a better service - or is our experience typical

[ANDY]

With my propertys on vale de milho the maids do all the washing while they are cleaning the property I just purchase the powder and softner, I certainly wouldnt pay to have it done apart, there goes all your rental profit, plus alot of these maids are over paid for what they do, and some a very lazy and do very bad cleaning jobs so that they can rush away to other cleaning job.

[carolyn]

Hi Andy
We have 4 bedrooms so there are 8 sets of sheets and towels to get through in a 4 -5 hour changeover slot. Your property must be of similar size if it is also on VDM, so how do the maids manage to get all that washng done in the time available using a domestic machine? Plus how/when do they iron? Would be really interested to know how you work it. Thanks. Carolyn

[Misty]

You only have 1 set of sheets?

[laserblazer]

Today is sheet changing day. Even numbered rooms will change sheets with odd numbered rooms

[lizzieh]

although we are not renting out our house we have friends locally who do and they have 3 sets of sheets and towels per bed and the maid washes these over a 2 day period whilst cleaning the villa. The laundry is the same as any home really, one to wear, one to wash and one to air. It is expensive to set up the linen closet but the numbers are needed. Its also worth remembering that if the occupants of the villa have small children accidents may occur so even more line will be needed. Liz

[Bruce Wallis]

We set up assuming the maximum rotation of linen. Ok the initial outlay in linen is a little high, but we have a seperate utility room, and a bloody good and efficient maid.

One tip is....we bought all our towels and linen from Primark here in the UK. The quality is as good as much more expensive linen, and cost a 3rd as much.

[tbbr]

WE have four singles, 1 double sofa bed plus i occ Z bed.

THis requires min of 16 sets of linen and towels, fortunately for us we have v good local managers who always manage to keep on top of everything.

Biggest problem has been the infamous Henna tattoos which stain sheets, a real pain even if you get the cost back from the client out of their security deposit.

We use dunelm and Ikea.

[carolyn]

Thanks for all the reponses so far, and like the rest of you we also have three sets of everything per bed. The problem really is that the maid only comes on Saturday and briefly mid-week - so its getting the laundry done that is really the issue - thus my original question. Do you have maids that come in everyday and so cope with the laundry that way?

[steve]

Under the two day a week system it is common for the maids to take laundry home with them for washing and ironing. You just have to trust the maid as to the time charged for the task. The only other way is to send the stuff to a laundry.

We took our curtains for drycleaning in Lagoa a couple of years ago and they came back very much shorter. Either the drycleaning process is very inefficient or they are washed at drycleaning prices!

[Bruce Wallis]

Our maid comes in for 2 hours a day, 3 times a week. That seems to be the level of service that the letting agencies prefer to offer, and clients look for. At that level everything seems to be covered