By the Unity Stays directors, Marcus Chong & Gadir Al-Khatib · Last updated 12 August 2026
In short: Stock a short let so guests can cook a proper meal for the stated occupancy and wash up: plates, cutlery, two decent pans, a sharp knife, plus tea, coffee and washing-up liquid. Provide refillable toiletries, three linen sets per bed, towels plus a spare set, plenty of hangers, and keep a written inventory checked at changeover.
The kitchen is where complaints come from
A guest on a two-week stay will cook, and a kitchen that looks equipped in photographs but has one blunt knife and a warped frying pan is the most common quiet disappointment in this business.
The test is simple: could someone cook a proper meal for the maximum occupancy, and then wash up? That means enough plates and cutlery for the stated occupancy plus a margin, two decent pans, an oven dish, a colander, a chopping board, a sharp knife, a can opener, a corkscrew, scissors and a bin.
Add tea, coffee, salt, pepper, oil and washing-up liquid as a starter. It costs almost nothing and it is disproportionately mentioned in reviews.
Bathroom and bedroom
Towels for the stated occupancy plus a spare set, and a bath mat. Hand soap, shower gel and shampoo — refillable dispensers rather than miniatures, which are cheaper, better regarded and less wasteful.
Toilet roll: more than you think. Running out is a genuine out-of-hours message and it is entirely preventable by leaving a visible spare pack.
On beds: three sets of linen per bed as a working minimum — one on, one clean, one in the wash. Two sets means a delayed laundry return becomes a failed changeover. Spare pillows and a spare duvet in a cupboard, because preferences differ and it saves a request.
The small things that appear in reviews
None of these cost anything meaningful and all of them get mentioned when absent.
- Hangers, and more than four. The most common single complaint in this category
- A hairdryer, and an iron and board
- Enough sockets near the bed, and at the desk
- A phone charger cable or two, left as a spare
- Bin bags, cleaning cloth, washing-up liquid for a longer stay
- An umbrella, which costs nothing and is remembered
- A torch, and a spare set of batteries
What walks, and what to do about it
Some loss is normal and pricing for it is more sensible than policing it. Towels, cutlery, glasses, chargers, coat hangers and the odd pan disappear at a low but steady rate.
The answer is to buy replaceable rather than precious — plain white towels you can top up from the same range, matching crockery you can buy one of, cheap hangers in quantity. A mismatched set that has been topped up three times looks worse than a plain one that is complete.
Anything genuinely valuable should not be in a short let. That includes sentimental items in a property you also use yourself, which is a common and avoidable mistake.
Keep a written inventory
Per property, with quantities, checked at changeover. It turns "I think we're low on towels" into a task, and it is what makes a damage or loss claim provable.
It also makes handover between cleaners possible, and it is the thing that stops a property drifting from fully equipped to nearly equipped over eighteen months without anyone noticing.
Restocking is part of the changeover on our properties, and consumables are recharged at cost like any other running expense.