To leave an accommodation as found AND justifying cleaning costs

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

Has any host found a way to instil in guests that they should 'leave the accommodation as they found it' in lieu of their rental obligations whilst at the same time as charging a cleaning fee?

We charge a diminutive cleaning fee but I'm questioning whether to just delete that and add it to the nightly rate? We charge £65 cleaning fee and over an average 3 night stay and extra £20 added to the rate wouldn't be an issue.

What is the killer is this; you expect that guests would "leave the place as they find it'" as they're supposed to do, but instead, they leave it like the dustbin man has just spilled the contents of the bins all over the floor and there's been an unholy demonic massacre in the oven.

Having a cleaning fee makes the excuse that the guests "are paying for cleaning" when obviously the fee covers no such state.

What is the sensible solution?

[Ange2]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0    It's true it is a balancing act.  I do include the cleaning in my nightly fee and I do actually give the shared spaces at night a once over so everything is fresh in the morning.   When they arrive and I explain how to lock the door etc. to feel free to contact me with any questions (I live here), I also tell them they can leave their washed dishes on the draining board no need to put them away,  and where the extra cleaning products, napkins, tissues etc. are, and that is it.  I have had three sets of guests affronted  by just the mere mention of where to leave their dishes etc.  deciding it was a personal attack against them.  It is a rarity for guests to be so super defensive, but it has happened and they retaliated in a completely obnoxious, dishonest way.  They were the only super slobs I have hosted, probably had people mention their behavior so they were primed to attack at any suggestion even one as bland as where to put dishes, hence the over the top defensive retaliatory reaction. I am hoping my share of obnoxious,  jaw-dropping, guests is over.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Ange2 

I also tell them they can leave their washed dishes on the draining board no need to put them away, 

Neat trick! So subtle. We're heading back to the 'Sparkling' NLP here. 

Such great suggestions!

[Sarah977]

If I hosted an entire home, I would leave a list of exactly what consitutes, to me, how I'd like guests to leave the place. Leaving things open to interpretation won't acheive the desired result, as everyone has different standards of clean. "Leave it as you found it" has always seemed strange to me, as obviously hosts aren't expecting guests to do a thorough deep clean, as we do before a guest arrives. Leaving it as they found it, even for my private room, would mean scrubbing the shower walls, sterilizing the rest of the bathroom, vacuuming from ceiling to floor, wiping the dust off every nook and cranny, washing the linen and towels and remaking the bed, washing the floors, etc. Which of course I don't expect guests to do.

If I had to come up with wording for cleaning expectations, I might say "Dear guests, the cleaning fee you paid covers the several hours of heavy duty cleaning we do between all bookings, laundry, restocking of amenities,etc. Please be respectful and tidy up your personal messes before leaving- all garbage in the bins, dishes clean, counters and stovetop wiped down, floor swept. Thank you for your consideration."

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Sarah977 

I think you've got it.

That word 'respectful' is what we expect guest to be. I think we state 'Please treat or home with respect... blah, blah...' in House Rules and mostly people do. However, I think I've come to the conclusion that no matter how much you tell, show, list... it is never going to work and all you can really hope for is that it works out OK.

I read your "stovetop wiped down' and wondered if that would be the extent of cooker cleaning you'd extend to? My last lot.. Oven.. Boom! I never knew that a Sunday roast was performed by just sticking a joint on a wire shelf! Indoor barbecue. So consequently, I get to do the renovation. That is not respectful or sensible or any skewed interpretation of 'leave the place as you found it' however you would try to interpret it.

We do have people come and stay specifically to cook and are immaculate. A Rumanian mixed group stayed over last year and one of the group was a baker who made bread, pizza, cakes, great feasts.. The oven was left immaculate as it was found, and the flour which was spread around the kitchen during the baking process was completely gone when we needed to clean. In the process it was near likened to a building site.

So, luck of the draw I suppose. More Rumanians, less slobs.

[Sarah977]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  Yeah, if I hosted an entire place and guests left the oven a disaster or the grill filthy, I'd put that on the list as well. What I wrote was just meant to be an example of being specific about what you want guests to do before leaving, rather than leaving it open to interpretation.

[Rowena29]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 

I add the cleaning fee to the nightly price. My minimum is 2 nights. i then offer a discount for 3 nights or more.  I say in my checkout instructions that unlike most similar size homes in the area we do NOT charge a cleaning fee of $150 - $200 adn that therefore we expect guests to leave the house neat and tidy.  As @Sarah977 suggests I leave a specific list ( which is not onerous IMO). Wipe down the kitchen bench tops. clean the crockery and cutlery you've used ( dishwasher)  take the garbage out, take your leftover food with you or put it in the "pig pantry"  if linens are excessively stained you'll lose part of your security deposit.   Some guests are much better than others, but so far we've not had anyone too terrible using this strategy

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Rowena29 

If you managed to read my reply to @Anonymous  your list could provide that tick box I referred to. Clarity in expectations is a good thing and when it moves on to the review bit, ratings are then easy and fair.

I'm intrigued by your night 3 discount. For the first time this year we introduced low season 2 nighters and its gone surprisingly well. All businesses try to up-sell and in my thoughts were something similar to what you are doing. After booking and sending your offer, after the guest accepts do you update the booking somehow? I guess you must have to. And I think you need to include Airbnb's in the offer.. Is that correct and how it works? Also, what sort of conversion rate do you get and what discount do you apply?

[Rowena29]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 

I set up the 3 night discount under pricing settings - length of stay discounts - add a discount for other stays ( I created a 3 day one).

I think this is available to everyone??? Wasn't there an announcement made re it about September last year?  ( I do have multi calendar so maybe it's associated with that, but I didnt' think so, If it IS multicalendar, I've discovered all the extras that come with that still come even if you have your second listing snoozed. so if you were interested you could duplicate your listing and then just have it permanently asleep)

I've never sent a special offer - that would kind of defeat the purpose for me because I want the price to show when guests are searching, not when they've more or less committed to coming.  Also I think with the discount in place airbnb gives them a prompt - "book one more night and you can receive a discount of XXXX"

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Rowena29 

I'll start with "WOW, just Wow!".

There's a slight difference in how I'd like to implement that. Main season we like to book 3 nights - no discounts. Low season 2 nights, and upsell to 3 somehow. Two nights, I believe I could sell every weekend throughout the year, the 3 nights take a little extra time to book through but we get fairly fully booked for 3 nights Main season. 

I'll definitely be looking into your suggestion with that 3rd night discount for the low season 2 night bookings. What sort of discount works for the third night if you don't mind me asking?

[Rowena29]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 I THINK I made it around 8% ( I added $40 on to the nightly rate - half the cleaning fee - so I figured  out whatever %age was roughly 40 of my average nightly rate. (I've removed the 3 day discount for the moment actually as I've had to drop my fees pretty low- absolutely no bookings between the usual slow Feb, bushfires and corona.)

From what you're saying though Ian i THINK rule sets would work quite well for you? You can choose a specific period of time on your calendar and apply a percentage increase,  - you can have it running concurrently with smart pricing for example ( so you don't have to alter your minimum nightly fee)

If you never plan to use your duplicate listing it's easy enough to make one - you don't need to cross all the t's - then you'll get access to the multicalendar perks ( at least I dont' think you ever need to have it active   - I DID briefly, but since it's snoozed I still have the perks...)

Yes i agree with you re the 11 hours - we once had a calendar glitch and had checkin and checkout on the same day ( I normally have 1 day between). I had my husband and son help - we had 3 hours and with the 3 of us RUNNING to the point I thought I might vomit we JUST managed it - but I had to take home mountains of washing, and we didn't' clean windows, or door tracks or even mop all that brilliantly. 

If there's one things that does irritate me occasionally on these boards it's hosts with a particular frame of reference and a particular style of listing and hosting, declaring with much authority how things should/shouldn't be done  when it's in relation to a host with a completely different style/type of listing or in a country with a completely different culture.

Even the argument re IB and request irritates me - people gets so bossy about it,  it's just opinion, not FACT and it's easy enough to alter if one doesn't suit you for some reason.

On the whole though these boards are  really great so long as you dont' take  absoslutley everything as gospel - FAR FAR FAR better than the community FB pages IMO...

[Sarah977]

@Rowena29  If I was left instructions to clean the "bench top" I'd be bamboozled as to what you were referring to.  A bench, to a North American, is like a long seat that several people can sit on. We call it a counter. As in- Wipe down the kitchen counter. Maybe you should have a little translation sheet of "Aussie-isms". (Tried to put some smiley-face symbol there, but as of about a week ago, they don't post at all-anyone else finding that?)🙂

[Rowena29]

valid point @Sarah977 except I've not had any overseas guests as yet, only Aussies ( and a Kiwi couple) so it's not been an issue ( and actually I think I might say clean used  surfaces especially in the kitchen - I was just paraphrasing...)

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Sarah977 

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All the source code is correct, emojis just not displaying on my devices.

[Susan17]

Odd one out here, as always :))

I don't have any specific rules at all in relation to how guests leave the house when they depart (and I only charge a €50 cleaning fee for a 4 bedroom, 3 storey house). The way I see it, they're on their holidays - last thing they want is to be confronted with is a laundry list of "do's" and "don'ts"

Around 10% of guests leave the place so spotless that you'd think that nobody had even been there. A further 80% leave it perfectly clean. Maybe 5% leave it pretty good, 4% leave it a bit messy, and 1% leave it like a pigsty (and no amount of rules would make that 1% do things any differently anyway) 

With the result, I'm always delighted when I turn up and the guests haven't been part of the aberrant 1%. And if they have been, I just swear a bit (ok - a lot!) put on some feelgood tunes, roll up my sleeves, crack on with the clean up, and thank my lucky stars that it only happens once in a blue moon :))

[Rowena29]

@Susan17  - I started off EXACTLY like that - a very modest cleaning fee for a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom house and no rules.  It didn't work. I wouldn't say people were pigs exactly but there was a LOT of cleaning to do far out of proportion to the nightly rate I charged.

I had to change tack

Since removing the cleaning fee and saying " your on holidays - we dont' expect you to strip beds or begin a load of washing, but we DO expect that you will turn off all the lights, lock the front door as you leave  and ( adn a few other basic things) the standard has changed completely.

Interesting the ways guest behaviour seems to alter from location to location. 

MInd you we're a beach house with wooden floor boards so I have to be reasonably firm or sand everywhere will trash the boards  And sand everywhere takes aaaaaages to clean.

I always snort to myself when I read posts from hosts ( usually with granny flat listings) informing usthat even a 4 bedroom house should only take 2 hours to clean MAXIMUM.   I wish