Confessions of a Property Manager: What we see that you won’t have to

Owning a home in France is a dream for many people. But when the owner’s away, the property can tell a very different story. Carmel O’Connell explains…

As property managers looking after second homes for English-speaking clients across France, we’ve seen just about everything: snakes sunning themselves on patios, rogue robot mowers and even a skinny dipper with absolutely no regard for property lines. While property management may sound routine-a lawn tidy here, a pool check there-the truth is often far messier, funnier and more surprising. These ‘confessions’ pull back the curtain on what really happens when no one’s home, and why having someone local and eagle-eyed to keep a check on your property matters.

“What’s that smell? Oh right-July’s leftovers in December!” One of the more pungent problems we’ve dealt with began innocently enough: an owner left their home in late July with a fully stocked fridge and freezer, assuming they’d be back in a few weeks. But plans changed and their return kept getting postponed.

Somewhere along the way, the power went out. By December, when asked to check on the property, what we walked into wasn’t so much a kitchen as a biohazard zone. The stench hit us before we even stepped through the door. Inside, the fridge had grown something resembling a sentient life form, while the freezer contents had long since liquefied and leaked through the tiled flooring.

Aside from the clean-up (which involved industrial-strength gloves and breathing through our mouths), the real cost was in replacing appliances, cabinetry and floor tiles not to mention deodorising the house before the owners could return.

From rodents to reptiles-who moves in when you move out? When your holiday place sits quiet for weeks or months, nature doesn’t hesitate to make it self at home. And once the humans disappear, the wildlife moves in. We’ve come across everything from a beehive nicely established inside a chimney stack with honey dripping down into the hearth, to mice nesting in linen cupboards, hornets building rugby ball-sized nests in attics, snakes curled up in sunlit conservatories, and even a whole family of bats tucked behind exterior shutters.

And then there are loirs -European dormice. Cute, yes. But also impressively destructive. We once found one had shredded an entire roll of toilet paper to build a five-star rodent nest in a bathroom cabinet. They chew through soft furnishings, insulation, plasterboard and sometimes even wiring. It’s hard to stay mad when they’re staring at you with those big eyes-but the damage can be extensive. And it’s not just the small creatures. Snakes make an occasional appearance too-especially in rural gardens. One of our property management teams, who had sat behind desks in their previous UK careers, recently answered a call from a couple terrified by two harmless, but very real, snakes sunbathing on their terrace. The rescue involved a broom, a laundry basket and a surprising amount of bravery (and shrieking-mostly from the clients). Who knew our career-changers could channel Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee so convincingly? Sadly, not every wildlife encounter has a happy ending. Once we were called to a new client’s property, only to discover that two young deer had fallen into their uncovered swimming pool. By the time we arrived, it was too late to rescue them-we were faced with the grim task of dealing with what can only be described as deer soup.

Uninvited guests of the human kind… One memorable surprise happened during the 2022 heatwave, when temperatures in parts of France reached 44 degrees. On a routine check of a rural home in a quiet hamlet, one of our property managers found a woman-stark naked swimming in the client’s pool. Flustered and baffled, they double-checked the diary for any sign of a booking or family visit. Nothing. The woman? “Oh, I just saw the pool and couldn’t resist,” she said. She returned a second time for another dip. The cheek of it! Sometimes, cultural norms take a backseat to 40-degree heat. Still, a locked gate should have been a hint.

“Can you let my friends in?” Keyholders are the unsung heroes of holiday home ownership. One of the most frequent, frantic calls we get is “My friends/family have just arrived at the house, and they can’t get in can you help?” Whether it’s unexpected visitors, forgotten keys or heating that wasn’t turned on before guests arrived, being a local keyholder means becoming a lifeline. We’ve had requests to meet couriers, accept and assemble furniture deliveries, even corral a horse -yes, really.

In one case, an owner’s brother, who didn’t have a property manager, spotted an owl flapping around inside his house via a security camera. The result? A 24-hour dash from London to Burgundy involving a flight, train and taxi-costing a few hundred pounds just to let the owl out. Having a trusted local contact isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessary lifeline.

It’s not always drama-but it is always important. It’s not always chaos. Often, it’s the unnoticed little things that matter most a thermostat left on full blast, quietly burning euros; an overflowing post box, signalling ’empty home’ to thieves, overgrown gardens drawing complaints from neighbours, roof tiles missing from the back of the house, out of sight. Sometimes, it’s not what’s broken-it’s what’s baffling.

Take smart tech. Robot mowers are brilliant, until they go AWOL. One property under LBV’s care has a mower called René. Our team regularly tracks him down in ditches, under bushes or tangled in flowerbeds. At another house, the owner alternates between us and a local electrician to ‘rescue’ their mower-possibly they’re too embarrassed to keep calling the same person. When you get a guest booking for ‘four adults, you might think two couples, right? Especially when it’s a house with five double bedrooms. But one of the earliest lessons we learned is never assume anything when it comes to sleeping arrangements, We’ve had groups of friends, estranged in-laws, two couples who no longer liked each other and even one guest who brought their own inflatable mattress so they could sleep alone in the lounge. These days, we always ask for the exact room configuration. It saves on unnecessary laundry, last-minute sheet shuffles, and some very awkward misunderstandings.

The pipe that waited to burst until you were gone. Frozen pipes are bad. Frozen. pipes that burst silently while you’re away are worse. We’ve seen everything from collapsed ceilings to ruined flooring caused by small leaks that went unnoticed for weeks.

But the most extreme example? A client who had only recently acquired their dream holiday home in the stunning Gers department. Just six months in, one of those fierce, localised summer hailstorms swept through the area causing a mini-landslide that blocked the usual water courses. As water always finds a way, it found its way into homes in the valley-including theirs.

We’d never met the owners in person, but thankfully we held a key. Our van skidded along a mud-washed track that used to be a road. When we arrived, three teams of sapeurs-pompiers were alteady pumping sludge from the house. Inside, the living room was more than a metre deep in mud. An American-style fridge bobbed gently in the disgusting brown soup. In the weeks that followed, we coordinated with the fire brigade, the mairie, insurance assessors and tradespeople to clear, clean, dry and restore the house. The owners were devastated to find their ground floor furniture ruined-but relieved they hadn’t walked into it for the first time alone.

Microwave blindness and other mysteries. Some of the most important work we do never makes it onto an invoice. As one of our teams put it: “llesides the little favours we don’t charge for, there’s the unpleasant stuffi emptying bins guests were meant to clear (bathroom bins are the worst), unspeakable toilets, things in fridges that have grown legs and the occasional dead creature in the pool or live one.” Spiders, as it turns out, can hold their breath for an impressively long time.

And don’t get us started on microwaves. We’ve discovered ‘microwave blindness’ is real -most people simply can’t see the mess in there. Now it’s our secret test: if the microwave’s bad, the rest usually is too. But then there are the little wins. A client recently called me a superhero for setting up their smart TV for them in minutes after they’d been struggling with it for hours. “I don’t know about superhero, muttered my partner, to which I replied, “hey, don’t be jealous of my cape!”.

But the risks are real. Behind every bizarre anecdote is a truth: homes need care-even when no one’s in. Neglect multiplies problems and what seems like a small oversight can spiral into something costly, uninviting or catastrophic.

That’s where we come in. Whether it’s rescuing robot mowers, spotting a hornet’s nest or just flushing the loo and checking the microwave, a good property manager is your eyes, ears (and nose) on the ground. We’re not just caretakers. We’re guardians of your peace of mind.

Carmel O’Connell and husband Joe Wilson run Les Bons Voisins

Tel: 0033 (0)562 29 26-62

propertymanagementinfrance.com

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