Disclaimer: All characters, places, names, companies etc. are fictitious.
So please don't presume you think you know who I am writing about because they don't exist.
A reasonably short piece of background info, just to set the scene, for the 3 chapters.
Chapter One.
My mother and father have recently retired at the age of 50, and left my older brother, as he likes to remind me, to run the family business. My name is Rob I am 25 years old and my older brother Dave by the massive amount of 6 minutes, is also 25. You got it we are twins, but nothing like each other.
I am the short slightly tubby one and he is the 4 inch taller 6ft sporty version. He plays most sports and is annoyingly quite good at all of them. I do try hard but the only one I can beat him at every time, is golf. He plays off 10 and I play off 6, its his short game that lets him down every time much to his annoyance.
The firm is called Dawson Luxury Home and Motorhome Rentals, we specialise in luxury holiday home rentals in the South of England. At present we run fifty 4, 5 and 6 bedroom houses, all with heated indoor pools, fifty four lodges in sixteen different holiday parks or on golf courses. They are all 4 bedroom with hot tubs or private pools. We also have a fleet of thirty mobile homes 4, 5 or 6 berth models to rent out.
The minimum rental we do for all our properties is 3 days, at present we don't limit the length of hire periods, but the most we have done is for 3 months.
Dave and I have been working in the company from before we left school. Dad made us start at the bottom and I mean that. Our first job was cleaning the mobile homes to be ready for use, if it wasn't perfect we didn't get paid. That's how it was with his dad and it worked for him, so we had no choice.
Moving on from there, we learned how to maintain them and get small repairs done, like removing scratches from the paintwork. He always wanted them to go out looking like new.
To be honest that wasn't so hard the oldest one we have is only 3 years old. Over the years it had become the norm, sell the oldest one and buy a new one each year. It was the same with the lodges, but the oldest of them was 5 years old. The houses it was a different story, if one came up in a good area and we had the funds to buy it, it was added to the portfolio.
Next we moved onto inspection, this was mums job, every place has to be inspected at least 4 times a year. that's 416 visits a year. On top of that, if there are any problems highlighted by the cleaning service that warranted a visit, you went to see it. It is definitely enough to keep you busy, for 4 days a week and sometimes 5 or 6.
The mobiles homes are inspected at the yard but we don't look after that. The hardest part was the mileage you had to do, out early in the morning and back late afternoon, or early evening.
The schedule for that took some working out, getting there after clients had left, the cleaning crew had been in, or were still in and before the new clients arrived. Meant you could only do maybe 2 or 3 a day sometimes. Then it was back to work, write up the report, arrange any repairs and so on. If there was any damage in the lodges, check if the on site manager had recorded it and done the claims forms etc.