Between your departure and our next arrival, our housekeepers aim to return your accommodations to the conditions you found when you arrived. They budget about three hours for the entire Spring House and Writer’s Hut, and about two hours for just the upper floors of the Spring House or the (future) Barn Loft. As you plan your departure, kindly look around and ask yourself if that seems reasonably do-able for a one-person cleaning crew.

I bring this up because on a small number of occasions, our housekeepers have found Big Ridge in a state that requires considerably more time than they’ve budgeted. Our team sets aside a few hours to clean and recombobulate Big Ridge, and they often have other commitments to attend to afterward. They want to do an outstanding job for you, for me, and for the folks who are arriving after you. When necessary, they are happy to put in extra hours (and we are happy to pay them to!), but sometimes they simply don’t have more time than they’ve budgeted. When that happens, they’re left trying to squeeze eight hours of work into three hours of time.

Planning for these very rare incidents would require that we push members to depart earlier than 11 or delay their arrival to later than 4. I don’t want to do that. Instead, as your time to depart nears, my request is that you ask yourself if you think one person can return it to the condition you found it in three hours. If you think they won’t be able to do so, you’re leaving things in an unacceptable condition. Please don’t do that!

So that’s my request of you. Here’s what we’ll be doing to keep things running smoothly:

Mid-visit cleaning
First, for visits that are five nights or more, we’d like to stop in for a short mid-visit tidying. We’ll give you a heads up, so as not to disturb you. And you can also feel free to waive us off if you think it’s totally unnecessary.

Disaster Fee
Second, if we do encounter a disaster, we’re going to charge you a fee that starts at $500. To be clear, I definitely don’t want to charge anyone a disaster fee.

Lastly, you may be wondering, “Is this about me?” I wouldn’t have written this if it had only happened one time or with one member, but if I’ve never brought this to your attention one-on-one, that means you’ve never left Big Ridge in a condition where our housekeepers felt obliged to say something to me about it.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

The Management