Essential Instruction Leaflets
When you stay in a hotel or a studio flat or rent or buy a second home for the summer or winter, everything is a mystery. You want to know how open the windows, turning the heating or air conditioning. To find out how to operate the electric curtains in Albania, I needed the number to call reception. (Is it 0,1 or 100?) To make a booking for a restaurant, or day tour, you might need the number to dial for an outside line. (Sometimes 9.)
Hidden Instructions
If you open the bedside drawer, you might find a page with the instructions. But once or twice I have found the useful guide only when I checked the drawers before checking out! Sometimes the room instructions are on a card underneath the magazine or the tour booking instruction. Or on the back page of the file of tours to book. The result is that if you don't want to book tours, you don't find the instruction page.
When I lived in the USA we had no family nearby so we spent our weekends taking trips to see other cities and landmarks. We stayed ed in a different hotel each night.
I found that American and Canadian hotels and especially studio flats had very good instructions. The washing machine often had the instructions inside or outside the lid.
In the kitchen or kitchen area, a laminated card was placed on the wall. It told you where to find the tin opener and bottle opener, soup ladle and kettle.
The window instructions were clear. In a San Francisco hotel windows could not be opened, for safety, so nobody and nothing fell out. But air vents were indicated, so you could open them and close them.
Other hotels, such as one in Greek Cyprus, told us not to go out leaving windows open, to prevent insects from flying in.
How to change a plug, check the fuse box, turn off the water at the stopcock, deal with a chip pan fire - what not to do, should be part of the school citizenship program.
Insurance companies should issue householders with a booklet to reduce the cost of claims for leaks.
Also, it is PR to sign up with us and get this free booklet. Estate agents could offer a free household check with with photos. Or it could be part of a surveyor's survey. Or part of the inventory (sometimes meter readings are included). It should be on the back page of your and lord-tenancy agreement.
Hotel guests, tenants and landlords, and householders need instructions. You could keep your sale and contract agreement and instructions and viatl emergency numbers it in a coloured box file for every occupiied, unoccupied and rented home, hotel and business.
I bought a brightly coloured box file when I let out my late father's home. It was occupied by my son, when he was still a student. A box file with the household instruction booklets for the washing machine and so on, the date to renew the gas check, replace the fire extinguisher, can be kept on a separate small shelf in the kitchen by the door or above the old phone or in the laundry room.
Education In Household Tasks
I have heard landlords and people letting out rooms complaining that the tenant called them up to drive across town and change a light bulb. I met a landlord, and a tenant, who took out light bulbs to cut down on electricity bills.
If you are looking to entertain a child or grandchild or babysitting, demonstrating one of these tasks could keep your child entertained. If you are a supply teacher at a school, you could run this as a lesson, if they don't want to learn, instead run it as a competitive quiz with multiple choice answers, and a small prize or certificate for the top three, and a certificate of attendance for the others.
When you buy a plug, it sometimes has wiring instructions attached. It is tempting to throw this away. You could put it in your magic instruction box,
Label your box enticingly - 'Quick DIY Tips to save you money!'. Print out a big diagram of what is inside each plastic see-through folder, keys (with pictures and numbers of the window keys, door keys, and . How do guests and tenants secure belongings if workers go into an empty room to check the heating or plumbing or electricity? You could look your valuables such as passports or money in a suitcase. In the safe. In the hotel safe at reception. (With an alarm on your phone remind you to collect your passport before leaving the hotel. I have been on group trips when the coach was ten minutes down the road, after touring to collect people from four hotels, and the tour guide got on and asked, "Do you all have your passports?" One guest, aghast, told us, "No - I left it in the hotel safe!"
Hotel Safes
Hotel rooms often have safes. On my most recent trip to Albania, one hotel has safes. One hotel guest complained that the safe closure did not work. No bedroom safe? Ask for a demo, or repair. Maybe reception has a safe. Lock valuables in your suitcase. Wear them with you in the hotel.
What about lost goods and insurance! Insurance companies may ask for receipts. You can take a photo of the receipt when you buy the goods. Then keep receipts in one file at home, perhaps a file marked Mail Order. Or in the underwear drawer. Or bedside table. Of in a hidden safe. Or at your office so that you have the record in the case of damage to your home, such as from fire, floods, explosion, bomb, hurricane, earthquake or burglary which might damage the records as well as the goods.
Most DIY jobs instructions can be found on
Wikihow
Youtube
Websites of Homebase, B & Q and other DIY stores. They often have leaflets printed out, or barcodes you can scan to get instructions.
Useful Websites
https://everydayoldhouse.com/quick-easy-ways-to-organize-user-manuals/
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