Rearrangement Syndrome

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Our guests have just left. As we were saying goodbye I asked whether everything was ok for them and whether there was anything they needed that we hadn’t provided.

“No, everything was fine thank you but I am a building inspector for my work in the Netherlands and one of my things I look out for, and that many people get wrong, is the position of your carbon monoxide alarm, it should be low down, a metre or so from the floor, and closer to the woodburner”

I wasn’t defensive but explained I was following the instructions regards positioning which he countered with the logical answer “Hmm, well you see carbon monoxide is heavier than air and will fill the room up from the bottom first and so you’ll be dead by the time it reaches the alarm on the ceiling”

“Crikey, that’s terrible, it makes total sense, I’ll get onto it straight away and move it to a more effective location, thanks for pointing it out”.

I was slightly annoyed because I would have to fill a couple of holes in the ceiling and find some matching paint as well as find a new, unobtrusive position for the alarm (I consider those things an ugly necessity that generally spoil the aesthetic of any room). Anyhow, I took it on the chin and resolved to move it.

An hour or so later we went in the room to clean and were astonished to find that not a single bit of furniture, book or lamp was where we’d left it, the room looked like a deranged poltergeist had just gone through some sort of massive spasm. The sofa was where the armchair had been, the armchair where the table was, the table replaced the log basket, the log basket the dresser the sound system the kindling box and on it went. Nothing had escaped. In the kitchen it was the same, the toaster was on the book shelf, the cutlery there too….you get the picture.

To tell the truth it sort of blindsided me and I forgot completely about the carbon monoxide alarm and instead I had another alarm going off!

As we looked around though we tried to make sense of it, you know, giving them the benefit of doubt and wondering whether what they’d done was a better arrangement than the way we’d laid it out. But although they had left no stone unturned it was more like they’d left no turn unstoned!

It got us laughing and none of it really made any sense including the carbon monoxide alarm. A quick search on google revealed that CO is marginally lighter than air and the best place for the alarm is….exactly where it is.

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Perhaps they moved all the furniture around so he could thoroughly inspect every square centimeter of your property to ensure you hadn’t made any more glaring building errors. :wink:

Shall we take bets as to whether he is going to mention in the review that your CO detector is improperly placed? He def seems like the type.

Someone needs to collect all these stories of guests who appear normal but whose mental issues only become evident on check-out.

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I have had several guests who have rearranged several pieces of furniture, lamps etc and all the crockery and glasses moved to different shelves, toaster, microwave etc. Each time it has been on slightly longer 2 week breaks. I have wondered if they are trying to recreate what they have at home. Or do they want to make it their own. Its a nuisance as it makes for extra work.

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Correct on the CO monitor. Building codes where I live require hard wired alarms with battery back up. Ours were placed to code, in the ceiling. I would be so annoyed at having to put everything back to where you had it. I just wonder why people have the gall to do that.

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Parents of one of my daughter’s friends used to say to me I am so lucky to have a daughter like that, as every time she came over to play, she totally tidied up her friends’ rooms.

This was bamboozling, as she was my messiest daughter, whose bedroom was always ankle-deep in clothes, magazines, rotting leftovers of school lunches, etc.

When I asked her why she cleaned up her friends’ rooms, when her own room looked like a disaster zone, she explained:
“Oh, well, when I go to my friends’ houses, I get to pretend that their room is mine, and all their stuff is mine, so I like arranging everything the way I would do it if it really was my room and my stuff.”

Maybe that’s the mind set of guests with RS.

I could understand guests who are staying for months rearranging furniture, etc. to what suits them best, but pretty weird for guests who are short-term to do that. You’d think they would have more exciting things to do.

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Tell me you had a Dutch guest without telling me you had a Dutch guest.

We are happy when they come, but even happier when they leave. :grin:

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“You can always tell a Dutchman, but you can’t tell him much.”

The Dutch even think that’s right on, and seem proud of it. I was married to one.

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I wasn’t aware that there was a Dutch national trait except that they all seem to be taller than me. But there’s obviously something weird going on with the all the shuffling about of the furniture and contents. It makes me wonder whether they’re ever really content with their surroundings or if they have an innate compulsion to move everything about in a seemingly random, impractical way. Anyway, I guess I was lucky that I didn’t catch RS off them and set about moving the alarm to a random and useless spot.

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I didn’t mind having to move everything back, we pretty much turn the place upside down when we clean anyway and we had a good laugh trying to work out the rationale behind their new arrangement.

But you’re quite right to wonder at the gall of them doing something like that and then leaving it that way, one would think it sort of decent to just put it all back how it was before leaving… unless that’s what they were trying to do but couldn’t remember how it all went. :wink:

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Oh, I can understand why they didn’t put it all back. They wanted you to be aware that your furniture placement was all wrong, just like your CO detector. :rofl:

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Because this seems to be a thing, usually folks with small children, I have this on my check-out message:

:potted_plant: If you have moved any items, take a moment to put them back where they were when you arrived. If you have used the Murphy bed, you may leave it open.

And then I have more of an explanation in my “other things to note” section:

We ask that you please respect our home and DO NOT MOVE the decor or furniture (other than the “coffee table” baskets in order to use the Murphy bed). Oftentimes we have back-to-back guests and do not have the time to put the items back where they were intended to be. Also, there have been occasions when items have been lost or damaged. If you must move things, please put them back where you found them.

One thing I don’t mention as this is already most likely too much to read, is that sometimes we have new cleaners scheduled that don’t know how the place is supposed to be set up and the place will end up looking very disorganized.

This is me trying to control the world :smiley:

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At least one in four of every guest I have rearranges the kitchen cabinets. Short term stays, usually less than a week.

I have a coffee/beverage station next to the fridge. All the coffee supplies, it’s, etc are in a cupboard above the coffee maker.

They move the coffee mugs across the kitchen to the dish cabinet by the stove, stacking the small dishes on top of the dinner plates to make room.

I don’t understand it.

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That one isn’t hard to figure out at all. Most people do not have a “coffee station” in their homes and all the dishes, including coffee cups, go in the dishes cabinets. So your guests just put them there after they wash them- I seriously doubt they move in and then take the clean coffee cups above the coffee station and move them to the other cupboard.

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Maybe it was a Feng Shui thing!!!

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I read a host post once that said her guests had moved one particular piece of furniture so many times that she finally realized it obviously worked better for guests where they always moved it to, so she stopped moving it back.

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Well it did occur to us that this fresh new layout might have some merit and with open minds we sat down for a while looking at it all but there really wasn’t a single thing that made any ergonomic sense at all.
We thought that maybe they were trying to create floor space for doing yoga but they’d made less, you couldn’t get to the sideboard cupboard because the sofa was in front of it, couldn’t reach the table lamp switch without climbing on the armchair and you’d be completely buggered if you wanted to load up the fire from the log basket, it was weird and it was funny.

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Well, you turned it into a very entertaining anecdote! I thoroughly enjoyed the details and good writing. What impressed me most was your willingness to try to see things through the Dutchman’s eyes (I had a Dutch father :-).

You must be an excellent host! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Welcome to the blog @Sandy10.
It was actually the complete antithesis of Feng Shui more like an exercise in curated chaos. Mr Chui would have kicked their arses.

Reading back through the post I feel as though I’m blowing the whole thing out of all proportion, I mean, it was no real problem for us, rather it was just noteworthy the way that nearly everything in the room had been repositioned in such a strange and useless way coupled with the sincere, yet erroneous, instruction on how to relocate the CO alarm into a similarly useless position.

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To be honest I would be annoyed, it already takes me 4 hours to do a change over and with everything moved that means more time and also potential to ruin furnishings.
I say another thing to add to the house rules!!!
I have guests rearrange the kitchen items, but I figure they forget where they came from and that is ok. But on occasions guests have moved heavy cane chairs and sun lounges which is not, they scratch my timber decking and broken head rests by not knowing how to. I kindly ask them to leave them in place and if something is to be moved for a certain reason that we must do it for them. At the end of the day if they do damage anything they will be responsible for fixing them.
Hope this doesn’t happen again for you!

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I homeshare and share my kitchen with guests. I have noticed, both with guests and friends, that many people are simply not detail-oriented. I have a repeat guest who has stayed with me 4 times and she still puts the dishes randomly on the shelves, even though they are always arranged the same way when she arrives. I also have a built in silverware container on the counter- when you wash the cutlery, you put it directly into those containers, which have a drain in the bottom that is plumbed into the kitchen drain. I’ve reminded her of this a couple of times, but she still puts the cutlery randomly in the dish drainer.

I have a double shelf dishrack that spans the sink. The top rack obviously has a rack to stand the plates upright in, like a dishwasher, and she could see the plates I have washed there if she paid attention. Yet this guest always puts the plates on the flat bottom shelf, laying them one on top of the other, leaving no room for the cups, glasses and bowls that should go there to drain.

She is not detail oriented with her own stuff, either. She is constantly misplacing or losing items of her clothing and can’t remember where she last wore them or where she might have left them. I found some pink bathing suit bottoms under the bed when she left the last time and messsaged asking if she wanted me to bring them up when I came to Vancouver, where she lives, this summer. She said didn’t recall even having any pink bathing suit bottoms, but they were definitely hers, as I move the bed to clean under it between each booking.

She borrowed a bicycle from someone when she was here the last time, then couldn’t remember where at my place she’d stashed the bike lock.

These people can’t help it and will never change- their brains simply don’t register things the way other people’s do.