Cleaning fees and the oven!

[Maxine11]

Hi all hosts and Merry Christmas to you all...

I have a query.

I have cleaning fees applied to my listing  and it covers the cost my cleaner charges me to clean the place after guests have left.

Mostly this has been fine HOWEVER on two occasions now the oven has been used to cook obviously pork or something similar and there has been fat and honey type stuff stuck all over the inside and has taken a professional cleaner to come out and clean it.

My cleaner will wipe down the oven but this is far beyond anything other than a professional oven cleaner could tackle. 

Should I mention in house rules that there will be extra fees if the oven isn't left as it was when guests arrive?

And if that’s the case how do I add that?

what is the best way?

[Colleen253]

@Maxine11 The problem with that is you're chasing the guest for more payment, after check out and payment is already complete. That's a headache and guaranteed to increase your chances of  a less favorable review. It's completely at the whim of the guest to agree to the extra cleaning charge and pay it. Many won't. You could up your cleaning fee a bit and put the extra aside for when you need to call it in.

[Anonymous]

@Maxine11  Normal use of an oven causes the buildup you describe - it's not necessarily indicative of the guest abusing the appliance or cooking some crazy weird food like "pork." To hit guests with a penalty for making a pretty standard use of a listed amenity would go down very badly.

Perhaps the best solution here would be to either hire a more competent cleaner, or to supply your housekeeper with appropriate oven-cleaning supplies and extend their cleaning time to finish the job properly. It doesn't take a special pro skill to get an oven looking clean, it just takes more than a lazy wipe-down.

Alternatively, if you find that most guests don't require use of the kitchen, you can make it an add-on amenity and ask that guests pre-pay for the additional kitchen cleaning via Resolutions before arrival. This wouldn't be my first choice, because it gets complicated if people change their minds during a stay. Also, since you foreground the word "luxury" in both of your listings, your target customers will naturally prefer all the amenities and cleaning to be inclusive, rather than RyanAir-style add-ons.