Question for Americans - what is the PROPER toaster ? :)

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

So we have this budget toasters in our apartments, I have one at my home, my daughter has it, my mother has it and we have the same one in our holiday home. We use it all the time for sandwiches and for toasting the bread  🙂

Our American guests said we should get a PROPER toaster !

I would like to know what the hell is it? Is it something like Mercedes among toasters? Does it bake the bread, make sandwitches and bring them to you in the bed? Does it babysit too ...?  :)))

[Huma0]

Thanks @Ben551

Good idea, but I think it was @Branka-and-Silvia0 who were having a problem with damage to their floor from the bath mat. I haven't really noticed guests leaving the mat in that bathroom soaking wet, perhaps because it's a large walk in shower, so there is a section where the guests can 'drip' before getting out. The damage on the floor there was from a leak. I have realised that not everyone is familiar with a walk in shower so I've had guests yank the glass panels out of their fixings because they thought they were doors!

I have had the soggy mats in the other bathrooms though, so I might try out your duck board idea. I'm just worried that it might be a little bit dangerous. Could guests not slip/trip on this if it's covered with the mat? I know that sounds a bit silly, but guests can sometimes do weird stuff!

[Ben551]

@Huma0 Ahh that’ll be my fault for speed reading. 

Yeah I think the duck board idea works for intelligent people but, geez if you have folks ripping glass doors out of their fixings then it might not be a good plan. Wow, I can’t believe they did that!! You’re right though, guests do some weird stuff...!

[Huma0]

@Ben551 at the risk of sounding discriminatory, the majority of breakages have been caused by American guests. Are things bulit more robustly in the States? I don't know, but American seems to apply more force when using things.

The glass was pulled out of the shower on two occasions, both times by Americans. I had no idea before I started hosting, but apparently walk in showers are very rare in the US. Another American broke a very expensive and strong front door lock by repeatedly slamming it with the dead bolt out. I should have known something like that was going to happen as, when he checked in, he asked, "What if I come home late? Won't I disturb people when I slam the door?" Why he felt he needed to slam it rather than just close it, I don't know, but the choice of words was telling!

More recently, two American girls turned the radiator valves so tight that they damaged the treads and the radiators leaked. Water got through the ceiling and silk curtains and a vintage velvet chair were both soaked.

Apart from the one lady who pulled out the shower glass, none of these guests have been willing to accept any responsibility for their actions.

On the other hand, Asian guests are most likely to flood the bathrooms! There have been numerous discussions about this on other threads, but the explanation I think is that bathrooms in most Asian countries are much more water tight than here. I am trying to explain this to them but I think, as suggested by others, that I will need to get the information translated for it to be effective.

[Ben551]

Wow @Huma0 that’s incredible. Such a lot of damage too! It sounds like you need a clear sign about your shower. It’s amazing what we take for granted about how things are done where we live. The most basic things are confusing for guests, especially those from overseas.

Translating things for non English speaking guests is also wise. We paid for a professional translation of all our house rules into Chinese. It has already paid off as we had some smoking Chinese folk, but they followed the rules we provided in Simplified Chinese. We have more coming later this month.

I haven’t been hosting long to notice any particular pattern, other than all our Indian guests have consistently stained tea towels with curry and left the microwave permanently smelling of curry. I don’t know what we would have done if my wife wasn’t so good at stain and odour removal. I thought a tea towel covered in huge curry stains was beyond saving, but she produced it good as new an hour later.  I swear the woman has a magic wand...

[Sarah977]

@Huma0  You know, a stone mason type place, with a hole cutting saw that cuts holes in slabs of marble and granite that people use for countertops could probably cut a hole in a sink like that to accomodate a mixer faucet. Not that I think you should do that, because the two single faucets are actually in keeping with the era of your house and furnishings. But a hole could be cut. Of course, you'd want to get someone really competent to do it,. the last thing you'd want is for them to crack the sink in the process.

@Branka-and-Silvia0 I think guests should be adaptable and if you can make toast in that appliance you have, then there shouldn't be any problem. But no, that is not called a toaster, certainly not by anyone in Canada or the US, it's called a sandwich maker. And I have to admit, if I were a guest, while I wouldn't be so petty as to complain that you should provide a "real" toaster, it would not occur to me that I could just toast bread in the sandwich maker, because they're not used for that purpose in most places.

[Huma0]

@Sarah977

Yes, I looked into this when I had my new bathroom done (photos not on the listings yet - waiting for the pro photographer to come round). You can do this using a special drill bit, but I would be very wary of doing it on an expensive sink myself and unfortunately, I have had too many tradespeople break stuff in my house to trust them either!

In the end, I went for a three hole basin in the new bathroom with a mixer tap that is still in a traditional style. I really like these three part type taps. I think they might be common in the US (no idea about Mexico), but here they are not that common and are super expensive. Of course, I got mine for less than 1/3 of the retail price. Bargain hunting is my forte! 

As for the basin with two tap holes, it isn't actually a problem I think. Because it's such a large house and that bathroom is a couple of floors up from the boiler, the hot water doesn't come out immediately. It gets to and stays at a comfortable temperature long enough to wash your face before it gets too hot. However, I have stayed at places with one tap with boiling hot water and one with freezing cold and that is just annoying.

I think traditionally, people in the UK used to fill the basin with water and use a flannel (wash cloth) to clean their faces, so there was no need for the mixer tap, you just mixed the hot and cold in the basin. I don't think anyone does that anymore though, unless they are elderly perhaps, but people certainly did when I was a small child. I remember being shocked seeing all my school mates doing this when I first went to camp because, in my (not British) family, we always washed our faces with clean, running water.

[Huma0]

Oh, and @Branka-and-Silvia0 you can see that the bath does have a mixer tap (proof that they exist here!) and actually that is a bath filler tap. It's brilliant. Although I have a very deep bath, it takes only two minutes for these taps to fill it. I have to remind guests NOT to leave the bathroom while running the bath.

[Sally221]

Dear Huma, that is a glamorous toaster, is it a brand I can buy in the U.S.? I'm probably getting the fancy-pants Japanese one for my big kid next birthday, he's a foodie and into all things Japanese.  The folding toaster is also pretty cool- so versatile- I may not be out seeing the world but I'm getting a mini tour of kitchen culture! I don't do kitchen access but I quickly realized that lots of guests appreciate a hot water maker  as well a a coffee maker in their room, Sally

[Huma0]

@Sally87(not sure if I was able to tag you), the toaster is from a shop called Dunhelm and is their own brand. Not sure if you have that store in the US? I had a very similar one before (in cream but it does come in different colours, including light green) from De'Longhi, which is an Italian brand, but pretty international, so I am sure you could find it. The range is called Argento Flora. It's pretty similar to the one I have now, but has a matt, rather than shiney finish. It worked well for nine years but I replaced it because, even though it still toasted the bread, the handles stopped functioning properly.

[Sally221]

Haven't been on this forum for a bit (hanging out her Not doing taxes) so thanks belatedly for the toaster info, & I love how your sense of style fairly leaps of the page- loved the use of color in the bedroom too XO Sally

[Ben551]

omg @Branka-and-Silvia0  I've thought this for years! 

I've travelled the world and been to dozens of countries and in that time I learned one very important mental saying (that I tell everyone to remember when they travel outside their country for the first time) :

It's not wrong, it's just different.

People need to recite this to themselves when they travel, or they will be stuck in a cycle of comparing everything they see to their view of what is "correct".  If you spend all your time doing that, you miss the beauty of seeing another way of life.  My wife and I enjoy travelling a lot and we've been so many places, I couldn't list them.  We've done the "Dutch bath sheets" ... "Indonesian hot rice porridge breakfast" ... "black pudding".... "giant American portion sizes"... "German Mett".... "French posh beaching".... and whatever else folks might call different on this planet.  But that's all it is, different.  It's not wrong, and to really appreciate and love travelling... you gotta see it like that. 

There are so many beautiful traditions to try and cultures to appreciate... maybe it's because I'm an artist, but I find every oddity fascinating and fantastic.  Being surprised by stuff makes me appreciate travelling even more.

[Jim-and-Marcia0]

@Ben551  You are spot on!  It's not wrong, it's just different.

When I travel internationally, one of my favorite things to do is visit kitchen shops and hardware stores.  I like to see the "inventions" of other countries. As surprising as some Americans might think, other countries are often ahead of us in inventing clever gadgets and  we often don't see some of them in the U.S. until years later. 

Kudos especially to the Germans!  So clever.  I first saw Gardena hose connectors  in Australia and electric kettles there too, many years before they were available in the U.S.  Nifty door stops and portable plug in ceiling light fixtures in Japan. The coolest wire whisk made by WMF found in Austria,  Our absolute favorite gadget? The "Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher". Google it, you can see it in action on YouTube: 

 https://www.wimp.com/this-device-cracks-eggs-perfectly-every-time/   or  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuTrzDR7yuE or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd7uhYXCBqY

 Even beds are made differently.in different regions of the world.  As an American, I'm used to sleeping between two sheets, instead of on top of a sheet covered only by a duvet, as I experienced in Gibralter. And what about the bathrroms in Japan where the shower water is meant to spray over the entire room with little troughs around the perimeter of the room that drain the water away. Wow!  Travelers with open minds have so much to look forward to!

[Ben551]

@Jim-and-Marcia0  I love it!  I actually have a "Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher" and I learned how to pronnounce it when we visited Cologne in Germany one year... ahh them were the days... when we lived in Edinburgh we went to Germany every year and ate at our favourite restaurant called Früh am Dom.  I will say one thing about living in New Zealand... it's lovely, but you're very remote and can't just "pop over to Europe" like we used to do for a weekend.

But I digress... you're completely right and I love knowing there are other folk out there who think as I do and travel with an open mind.  The gadgets approach sounds just awesome, I'll have to try that next time I'm in Singapore... they have entire Technology shopping malls filled with things I've never heard of.  In fact, when I visited in 2005 they had mini personal drones flying all over the mall!  We're only just seeing mini drones become popular in the last 2 years... so that's.... 12 years later lol! 

Right, I need to book a holiday...

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

aaaaa this Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher is genius 😄 😄 I love it  ( and I am not a fan of gadgets at all )  :))))

[Susan151]

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@Jim-and-Marcia0 wrote:

@Ben551  

Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher

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Oh, I have owned one of these for years! I also make my own bread to ensure that my "soilders" are just the right size.