⛓️ Driveway

There is a chain across the driveway. The padlock code is 1934.

Park anywhere in front of the house — just avoid the septic tank area.

Please avoid parking over this area

🚪 Back Door (Yale Lock)

You'll enter through the back door when you first arrive.

1. Swipe your hand from the Yale logo down towards the door handle to wake the keypad
2. Enter the last 6 digits of your phone number
3. Press ✓ to unlock
4. Lift the handle to activate multi-point locking.

Swipe hand from Yale logo towards handle to wake keypad

Your code is active for your stay dates only. Any trouble? Call Steve.

🔔 Alarm

The alarm pad is just inside the back door. Enter the last 4 digits of your phone number, then press Enter.

Alarm keypad just inside the back door

🔑 Keys (Silver & Black)

On the key hook just inside the back door you'll find:

• Silver key — unlocks the two doors downstairs + the laundry
• Black plastic key — unlocks the spa pool cover

Downstairs doors:

• Left door → into the house (downstairs bedroom)
• Right door → straight to the shower (perfect after the beach)

Keys on the surf wagon hook

🏠 Layout Tip

There are two bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. The kitchen is also upstairs. It's best to bring all your gear headed for upstairs in through the back door and straight into the kitchen/bedrooms. The stairs are narrow and a bit steep and it can be tricky carrying bags up and down.

🏠 General

• No smoking or vaping inside the house please.
• To protect our beautiful new floors, we do not wear shoes inside and ask that you do the same.
• No pets, additional guests, parties or loud noise late at night please.
• There are books in the oak cabinet in the master bedroom. Please feel free to read any of them, but we'd appreciate it if you could leave them behind when you go!
• There are board games in the cabinet under the TV.

☕ Espresso Machine

There will likely be some beans in the machine, but bring your own whole beans or face the prices of the Piha Store!

1. Water tank is to the right of the espresso spouts and pulls straight out. You'll get a small red jug light if it needs topping up.
2. Press the power button (bottom right). Leave the jug under the spouts — it does a flush while warming up.
3. Slide the whole machine out to check there are beans in the hopper at the back (not the small square hole in the middle).
4. If you get a red warning light that looks like a bucket with marbles in it, the grinds need emptying. Slide the whole tray out and the grinds bin lifts out of the centre. Please empty it on the garden or in the rubbish — not down the sink.
5. Put a mug underneath and choose your preference.
6. Once your coffee is poured, for steamed milk: touch the top left button, wait for it to pressurise, then turn the silver knob to the left.
7. Please wipe the milk wand. For a deeper clean, twist the tip anti-clockwise and rinse under the tap.

🍳 Kitchen / Dining / Lounge

• Dishwashing suds / dishwasher detergent lives in the spinny corner cupboard.
• Bin bags, dishbrushes and dishwashing gloves (yellow for small hands, pink for big) are under the sink.
• Herbs and spices are in a hidden drawer between the fridge and the oven.
• The dishwasher generally works well on an auto wash with extra dry.
• Please don't put any painted glasses in the dishwasher or they'll end up like our red and clear ones — clear!
• Please use coasters and placemats on the inside dining and coffee tables. Coasters and placemats are in the end drawer in the kitchen.
• Please be careful when drawing the seaward curtains. It's best to move all the fabric past the hooks before pulling them closed, otherwise they can get caught.

Hidden herbs & spices drawer — between the fridge and oven

Coasters & placemats — end drawer in the kitchen

🚿 Water & Wastewater

We are on tank water and have a septic tank. The tank water is treated and safe to drink. Please limit water use in spring and summer. It is $500 and often a couple of days' wait if you run the tank dry — and it doesn't taste as good!

The septic tank only likes toilet paper and whatever comes out of you. Please try not to wash too much fat, sand or food scraps down the sinks / showers. You definitely don't want a septic tank emergency while you are here!

🛁 Bathrooms

• The heated towel rails will be off when you arrive. Each has a switch beneath to turn them on.
• Each bathroom has a hairdryer.
• Please don't use our towels / flannels to remove makeup. Makeup remover wipes are provided.

🔌 Phone Charging

• There are USB-C chargers in each bedroom and in the back of the kitchen pantry.
• The downstairs bedroom has lamps with USB-A chargers as well.
• Bring your cables!

👕 Laundry

The silver key unlocks the laundry. Inside:

• Outdoor furniture cushions
• Second fridge with ice maker (cubes, shards and chilled water). Inside the freezer it also produces the big clear ice cubes.
• Cleaning products, brooms and mops

If you need to do laundry, there is clothes washing detergent under the laundry tub. Detergent goes in the left hand compartment of the tray.

Hills rotary clothes line: behind the tank. The pole goes in the hole between the tank and the slide that has a black plastic cover over it. Unscrew that and then screw in the flange that is on the pole of the clothesline. The arms are held up in place by a cord. Unhook the cord and the arms will drop down. Push the flange that the arms attach to up to lock the arms in place. Pegs are in the broom cupboard in the laundry.

Outdoor cushions stored in the laundry

Washing machine in the external laundry

🔥 BBQ

The BBQ plate fits in the laundry tub for cleaning and there are specific BBQ cleaning products in the right hand drawers in the laundry.

🗑️ Rubbish & Recycling

Please separate out cardboard, paper, glass, cans, tins and plastics. They go in the recycling bin (the back bin in the kitchen is a recycling bin and there is a blue one beside the BBQ).

When these are full please empty them into the recycling bin (the bigger of the two bins with a green bottom) beside the fish filleting bench to the right of the house downstairs.

Rubbish goes into the smaller bin (blue bottom), also by the fish filleting bench.

🧹 Departure

Please:

• put all rubbish and recycling in the downstairs bins before you leave
• place the rubbish bin (or both bins) at the end of the driveway for collection
• take all of your food with you
• clean all of your dishes etc. and put away
• strip the beds and leave the sheets in the laundry
• clean the BBQ. There is an extra $70 cleaning cost if this is left dirty
• draw all curtains
• if you break something, please let us know
• lock all doors and shut all windows
• set the alarm by holding the "arm" button down for three seconds
• padlock the chain across the driveway
• drive safe and thanks for staying!

🌬️ Outdoors

Cushions for the outdoor dining chairs, couch and loungers are in the laundry. If it has been windy, the chairs themselves might have blown around! Hopefully they haven't gone too far.

There is a very high wind load here and sometimes squally gusts even on a still day. The outdoor umbrellas have stays that need to be installed to stop them damaging themselves.

⚠️ The umbrellas must come down when the windspeed hits 17 km/hr (you can see this inside on the weather station display).

🚿 Outdoor Shower

Perfect for rinsing off sand after the beach before heading inside (the septic tank doesn't like sand!). It's located just outside the downstairs shower entrance.

Outdoor shower for rinsing off after the beach

♨️ Spa

The small black plastic key unlocks the spa pool cover.

Please shower off any sand under the outside shower (downstairs) before using the spa.

Once every second use put a scoop of chlorine in when you get out. Chlorine is in the top of the broom closet in the laundry room.

⚠️ As the spa pool is not fenced, it must be locked at all times when it is not in use. This is a requirement of the Building Act 2004 to prevent drownings. Please make sure the spa pool is locked when you are not using it.

🎵 Stereo

There are speakers in the lounge and master bedroom. To use the stereo you'll need to download BluOS. Then you can just connect over bluetooth.

There is a portable Bose bluetooth speaker that can be used outside or downstairs.

📺 TV

The TV should be on the XYZ network. You have Netflix and free TV available to you and can log on to whatever services you have subscriptions to.

🪟 Master Bedroom Curtains

These are electric. You can say:

• "Alexa open master curtain"
• "Alexa close master curtain"
• "Alexa pause master curtain"
• "Alexa open master sheers"
• "Alexa close master sheers"
• "Alexa pause master sheers"

Failing all of that, if you give each curtain a brief pull, it will close / open as you need.

🔥 Underfloor Heating

There is underfloor heating under the tiles downstairs, in the upstairs bathroom and in the master bedroom. We will turn this on for you if it is winter.

❄️ Air Conditioning / Heating

The upstairs bedrooms and the lounge have ducted air conditioning / heating. The controller is on the wall next to the kitchen. You enliven the screen with a button on the bottom. You can choose to heat / cool 1, 2 or 3 rooms.

anywAiR wall controller by the kitchen

📹 Security

We will turn off the camera on the back deck while you are here.

⚠️ Beach Safety

Piha has strong rips and currents. Always swim between the flags when lifeguards are on duty. Never swim alone.