This is a list of items guests suggested when I first started many years ago:
- More than one pillow so they can lounge and read in bed. I now have 3 pillows per person, a soft, a medium, and a firm.
- A nightstand and lamp on each side of the bed so they can both read in bed.
***This is a dealbreaker for us if we are looking for a place to stay. If I cannot see a nightstand on each side of the bed, or at least the space to put a small table or chair we saw in the photos to take from another room, we do not even consider that particular listing or hotel. Without my glasses, I am blind - as in if my glasses are accidently knocked on the floor I often cannot find them myself. Because of this, they are not taken off until after I am in bed, so I need somewhere within easy reach to lay them. My husband has to travel with his CPAP breathing machine so he needs a table or chair on his side of the bed also.
- A wastepaper basket and box of Kleenex in each room rather than just in the kitchen, the bathroom, and in the upstairs hallway.
- A small fan in each room - both for 'white noise' to block unfamiliar sounds and I'm surprised with how many people like to have air blowing on them while sleeping.
- Iron & ironing board, hair dryer (and I also added a large & small curling iron I no longer use)
- Small paper cups in the bathroom. I also added cotton swabs, cotton pads & makeup remover cloths, a couple safety pins & some hair pins.
- A chain lock on the inside of each room. Because we have an old house I was not about to change out all our antique door knobs for modern locking ones. We were also not willing to drill holes inour old doors to be able to install deadbolt locks on each room.
- At least one spare blanket per bed.
- I am surprised how many guests we have had who also have CPAPs, oxygen concentrators, or other medical equipment, so I have also added a power strip and/or grounded extension cords in each room so there will be at least 2 easy to reach outlets available per person besides the lamp(s), clock radio and fan that we put in the rooms.
I know there were a few other things requested early on that I cannot think of right now.
I do have a basket on a table in the hall with an extra ceiling light bulb as well as spare bedside lamp bulb, a lint brush, and a baggie with small spools of white, black, red, light blue, and tan thread, small scissors, and a couple sewing needles and pins. There is also a plug in nightlight in the bathroom, upstairs and downstairs halls, and in the kitchen as well as one in the basket if someone wants one in their room.
On the question of what sort of bath mats people use, I have a rubber mat in the tub (that gets changed each day if we have unrelated people staying rather than a family) and for when you get out of the tub I have one of these for each room.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=foam+bath+mat&rh=i%3A...
I chose machine washable/dryable ones that I just throw in with the towels. They have a nice thick rubbery backing that seems to hold up well as mine are several years old & still on good condition. They do not shed lint onto the plush towels like the cheaper thicker towel type mats and dry much faster than the heavy towel types. My sheets, towels and bath mat match each room, shades of blue and yellow in the blue room, tan and sage green in the green room, etc. That way people know for sure which is their towel if they accidently leave it in the bathroom or hang it on the large towel rack in the hall, rather than on the hooks in their own room. Color coordinating also helps on the rare occasion I need to have a friend come in to do the cleaning, and even for me makes things go faster since each room has different size beds, we do not have to spend time searching for the little tag on the corner of the sheets to see what size it is. If it is some shade of blue or yellow sheet it is queen size, If it is sage or tan it is an extra long twin, etc.
Our rental is a 100 year old house, 2 houses over from the 120 year old house that we live in. The 3 rooms are rented individually or as the whole house, so we have 4 listings for the one building.
