A long-term holiday home owner in Esperance pulled the pin on her pet-friendly accommodation on Monday following an incident she described as “icing on the cake”.
Kimdelia Cole, who owns Rustic Retreat Esperance, told the Kalgoorlie Miner she made the difficult decision to restrict pets from her property because of the inconsiderate behaviour of a minority of guests staying there.
The big Castletown home, which is 200m from the quay and sleeps up to 15 people, is consistently booked out, with current bookings up to 2024.
Ms Cole chose to offer pet-friendly accommodation about 10 years ago given it was difficult to secure and there was high demand for it, however the pressure put on her cleaning staff to clean-up pet urine and faeces had left her with no option but to stop offering it.
“It is really unfortunate and it always is the minority,” she said.
“It hasn’t been a hasty decision — it has actually been building up for a few months and I’ve let a lot of other things kind of go but this incident last week just put the icing on the cake and the pet owner would not take any accountability — no apologies.”
Ms Cole’s cleaning staff had to mop up two puddles of dog urine inside the house — one on and around the leg of the pool table and another in the dining area.
When confronted about the incident, the pet owner became defensive and told Ms Cole she should consider hiring a different cleaner if they did not want to clean up his dog’s urine.
“We have restrictions and regulations in place which are made very clear when they book and then again we have signage in the house to support that and these people just blatantly ignored it,” she said.
“They took no accountability — I sent them photos . . . and he just came back and said ‘well, your cleaner is cleaning and mopping the floor anyway so what’s the difference?’.”
A pet bond of $150 is added to cover any incidents but Ms Cole indicated this did not address the extra time and unpleasant nature of cleaning up after guest’s pets.
Ms Cole said pets were not allowed inside the house at all, however she consistently saw guests bring their dogs inside the house via the CCTV at the front of the property and had to remind the guests about the restriction.
If pets are brought into the home, they generally do not cause damage or leave a mess, but the guests who allow it to happen have caused Ms Cole to ban pets from the property even though she knows it will upset the responsible guests.
“You can’t please everyone — I know there is going to be people that have a big whinge and don’t see it from our point of view but you just can’t please everyone, and I suppose that’s why there are cat and dog kennels available for people,” she said.
“I think I’ve been quite patient but it’s just got to the point now where I’m just over it basically.
“A guest had two dogs inside knowing that they shouldn’t and when the cleaner went in we found that the dogs had actually chewed a leg of my antique dining table and one of the legs off the chairs which you can’t repair.”
Not only is the risk of damage to the property and furniture in her home a concern for Ms Cole, she also raised the serious problem of having guests with allergies and the requirement to sanitise the whole home between stays.
“I’ve got to think about my staff — I’ve got to think about the next people checking in,” she said.
“There’s actually 20 per cent of the population that have allergies to animals — you need to ensure that there is extra cleaning and sanitation done on top of what we would do anyway.
“I’m not to know if the pet has been vaccinated or has fleas.
“When you have back-to-back bookings — which we have a majority of — we’ve got a four-hour window for the cleaners to go in and get a five-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a games room — a large house and all the furniture and everything — clean and sanitised to health standards . . . it’s not viable.”
Ms Cole said any bookings with pets which had already been made would be honoured but new bookings would not have the option to include pets.