Cleaning Review

[Adrienne174]

I do have a cleaning fee my question is when guests do leave trash on floor and or do not get up what they waste (liquids included) do you give them a 4 instead of a 5 or since you charge a cleaning fee they get a 5 anyway? 

[Anonymous]

@Adrienne174  This is not worth agonizing about. Guests don't see their star ratings, and most of them don't even seem to know that they receive them. Just give them the score that you feel best reflects their actual behavior, and leave a written review that reflects what you wish you had known before accepting their booking.

For what it's worth, most hosts don't believe that a "Cleaning Fee" means a blank check for guests to trash the home. It shouldn't even be called a cleaning fee - it's basically just a short-stay surcharge, or a changeover fee. 

[Sarah977]

@Adrienne174  Do you leave check-out instructions for guests? Like please ensure that all garbage is in the bins, wash the dishes, etc? Charging a cleaning fee doesn't mean the guests get to leave the place a pig sty, but some guests are under the impression they don't have to clean up after themselves at all if they've paid a cleaning fee. So you have to be specific about what is expected.

I've read hosts complaining about guests leaving toothpaste splatters all over the sink, the bathroom counter and the mirror, which seems like a ridiculous complaint to me, since the host is presumably going to clean and sterilize the bathroom anyway.

But if they leave piles of dirty dishes, and greasy pots and pans with leftover food stuck to them, or just left it all strewn with garbage, that's disrespectful. 

As Andrew says, the star rating isn't something to agonize over, but maybe just think of how you'd feel if you saw 5* cleanliness ratings for these guests- would you feel other hosts weren't being honest considering how they left your place? Rate in the way that if another host had rated them, it would tell you what you wanted to know.

5*s on cleanliness doesn't mean the guest left the place immaculate, few guests do, but if you walked in to something that made you feel disrespected, or was quite a bit worse than what you experience with other guests, I wouldn't leave 5*s.