Cleaning fees

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Satya8
Level 2
Pennsylvania, United States

Cleaning fees

Sorry if this is not the appropriate place for this question.  Looked the best to me among the options.  From a guest perspective, I have always left the host facilities in pretty much the state I found them (cleaned up before leaving). Now I am looking at some places which have a very high fee for leaning included ($65 to $85+). I am wondering if in such cases, it will be reasonable for me not to clean up?  I am not talking about trashing the place of course, but things like making the beds, washing dishes, sweeping floor/s, garbage disposal etc...?

1 Best Answer
Dave333
Level 2
Chicago, IL

Read a thread earlier this week with an excellent answer which really resonated with me. I apologize to the originator because I don't have the exact citation nor will I plagiarize eloquently.

 

My takeaway was hosts following the Airbnb Living Wage Pledge pay cleaners minimum $25/hr (or company employed cleaners at least $15/hr because they presumably get benefits on top of wages - which I assume get translated into higher charge to host)

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1975/what-s-airbnb-s-living-wage-pledge

 

So if it takes 2-3 hours to turnover a unit the cleaner would be paid $50-75.

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74 Replies 74
Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Satya8   Some places have cleaning fees and some don't. You, of course, have the option to choose one that doesn't.

It might seem counter-intuitive, but hosts who charge a cleaning fee consider that to mean cleaning  for a guest, rather after  them. In other words, you would expect to arrive to find that the place is quite clean for your stay, whether the previous guest left a mess behind them or not.

Believe it or not, many cleaning fees charged don't actually cover the entire cost of cleaning when a host has a cleaning person or service- the host is often taking a bit of a loss on that. There is plenty of cleaning to do on an entire apartment or house listing without having to wash dishes left behind by a guest. Vacuuming, dusting, mopping floors, thoroughly cleaning and sterilizing the bathroom, cleaning out the fridge, stocking with fresh amenities, making beds and putting out clean towels are all part of the cleaning process done by responsible hosts between each and every guest.

Whether a place has a cleaning fee or not, guests are still expected to clean up their own messes- this means washing your dishes (a dirty breakfast cup and plate left when you're rushing to check out on time I wouldn't consider any big deal, myself), wiping down the stovetop and counters, making sure all garbage is in the trash bin, making sure there's no food left around on the floor or furniture to attract bugs or rodents.

Whether a host wants you to strip beds, start a load of sheets and towels, take garbage bags out to the bin will vary from host to host. Make sure you are clear on what is expected in terms of cleaning by thoroughly reading the listing description and messaging with the host to clarify before you decide to book a place. If you feel they're expecting too much, you can move on to look for another place.

Sally221
Level 10
Berkeley, CA

I'd also add that one way some hosts have countered the pressure to charge a price that barely gives them a break even is by increasing the cleaning fee. The idea is that the low room rate gives them exposure & charging a fee that's 1/3 or more of the base rate gives them a (slender) profit. That being said, I put at least 1 1/2 hour into cleaning 2 bedrooms & a bathroom between guests & while I don't charge a cleaning fee, if I was renting out a whole house, I would. A good host wants things to be immaculate and that means getting every last corner done shiny! Sally

Emilia42
Level 10
Orono, ME

@Satya8 

There is so much more that goes into completely cleaning the space to turn it over for a new guest. While I am very appreciative of guests who "leave the space as they found it" by washing their dishes, compiling their trash, and making the bed look presentable..... The real cleaning consists of scrubbing the toilets (on my hands and knees), scrubbing the entire shower, squeegeeing the glass doors, and wiping down everything in the bathroom so there are no water spots, pulling everything away from the walls and vacuuming every single surface of the floors for hair, dust, and crumbs, vacuuming under the couch cushions, stripping the bed and washing all bed linens, remaking the bed with clean linens, dusting all window sills and surfaces, and mopping all floors. I have to do this after each and every guest regardless of how ”clean” he or she leaves the space. No guest would be satisfied checking in if I didn’t.

It may be more useful to think of the cleaning fee as not paying for someone to clean up after you but paying to walk into a clean space which has been cleaned up after someone else.    

I agree. We do alot as hosts preparing for arrivals and cleaning up after departure. Sometimes we may not have a back to back booking and would need to clean for the next guests. If we were to stay anywhere, we would want the place to look and smell clean. I know dust cannot be eliminated only reduced. The best reduction we can do, we would be happy.

 

Although we bring in professional cleaners, we still dust, wipe down and go over alot. We purchase the cleaning supplies as well and allow the guests to use them to clean up after themselves.

 

Love the last line. Thanks!

 

 

Hi there! We have a complete log home, Happy Trails Lodge, here in the Seattle area. We have been a bnb for a year now & love it! I am still not sure how much we should charge for cleaning the home, depending on how many guests and etc. There are 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 8 beds. How much do you charge an hour to clean your bnb? I hear $25 and hour is standard. Just lately I changed the cleaning fee to $70 a night regardless of the number of guests. We have a min. 2 night stay with 2 min. guests. However we can sleep 12 in the lodge so I am wondering if it is a fair price of $70 no matter how many guests book? Of course it takes me longer to clean, change linens, etc. after 12 guests than it does for 2 guests. We are thinking of asking guests of just 2 people to not use the 2 lower level bedrooms and bathroom. That leaves a choice of queen bed in loft with a bathroom or queen bed on main floor with a bathroom. Our ad states the whole lodge is available. Any opinions out there on our dilemma of cleaning fees? 

@Eldon-And-Sayra0  Do you charge an extra guest fee after a certain number? If so, that fee should maybe be enough to cover the the extra linen washing and bed changing. But I'm sure hosts who have large places like yours will have some other possible options for you.

Thanks Sarah! Your suggestion for adding cleaning fee into the extra guest fee is a great idea. At present we charge an additional guest fee after we charge for the first 2 guests but didn't think about adding a cleaning fee to additional guest fee. At present we charge only $50 for a guest after the first 2 guests.  I now think we should add that cleaning fee to the $50. And now try to figure out what that extra guest cleaning fee should be as we now charge $140 cleaning fee for first two guests for 2 nights. Mm...that would be $35 per guest for cleaning added to the $50 extra guest we now charge. Guess we need to make some changes on Airbnb for cleaning & maybe give a discount for a larger group?

@Eldon-And-Sayra0  That $50 sounds like a pretty high extra guest fee to me. I only host a private room in my home, so no extra guest fees at all, but that's the highest extra guest fee I've heard of and if you add $35 to it I think it would be a deal breaker for most guests. And I wasn't suggesting that you charge it as a cleaning fee, but just that your extra guest fee would be enough to cover the extra linen washing and bed making. Does it really cost you $50 for each additional guest in terms of the added utilities, extra amenities needed, etc? To me, $60 seems like plenty to cover what each additional guest costs you and still be profitting.

We have been charging $50 and getting nice bookings but the lodge's 4 bedrooms are pretty spacious (2 have TVs) and it has 3 bathrooms guests can use. Two of them have soaking tubs. We provide all the amenities a home would have, dishes, appliances etc. plus total use of 5 private & forested acres, 10 min. drive to downtown Duvall. We had 6 wonderful guests this last week and all 4 queen beds and 1 twin bed were slept in all of the 4 bedrooms. That made a lot of laundry and cleaning so that's why I was thinking $50 is too cheap. But I will think on your advice of $60 and I so appreciate your thoughts! Thanks, Sarah!

@Eldon-And-Sayra0  Yes, I have no idea what your place is like and and what your expenses are and if your pricing is working for you, then there's obviously nothing wrong with the extra guest fee you're charging. But if it's just a matter of the extra linen cleaning, it seems to me that it only takes a minute to strip a bed, and a few bucks per set to wash and dry it, for the electricity, laundry soap and such, and maybe 10 minutes to do the work (unless stuff requires pre-treating for stains), so I'd just figure out if the actual costs for that really need to be more than $10 or so per person. And if it's a couple sharing a bed, then that's $20 for one set of linen, so not bad.

We rent out our lake house, Serenity on Lake Sinclair, Sparta, GA, that has 3 bedrooms, 2 bath, a boat dock, 4 kayaks, and many other lake side amenities.  We can sleep us to 11 guests and our cleaning staff said after our first party with 10 people, they demanded more for 1 extra hour of work.    We normally pay them $90 to clean the house, and they are worth every penny.  So, we charge an extra $20 per night per guest over 6 guests to cover the additional cleaning fees.  We state that right on our description that the additional fee is to cover our cleaning costs, so guests don't think we are gouging and they know it is to support people in the local economy.  We charge a flat cleaning fee equal to what our cleaning crew charges us.   We did have two parties that only put 6 people on the reservation but had 2-3 more (reservation was from another platform).  Fortunately our exterior camera system helps us with documenting this and we have not had an issue when we withhold $ from the deposit and provide documentation to the guests.   We only use the camera recordings when our cleaning crew tells us that something is amiss.   Hope this helps.

 

Emilia42
Level 10
Orono, ME

@Satya8 

There is so much more that goes into completely cleaning the space to turn it over for a new guest. While I am very appreciative of guests who "leave the space as they found it" by washing their dishes, compiling their trash, and making the bed look presentable..... The real cleaning consists of scrubbing the toilets (on my hands and knees), scrubbing the entire shower, squeegeeing the glass doors, and wiping down everything in the bathroom so there are no water spots, pulling everything away from the walls and vacuuming every single surface of the floors for hair, dust, and crumbs, vacuuming under the couch cushions, stripping the bed and washing all bed linens, remaking the bed with clean linens, dusting all window sills and surfaces, and mopping all floors. I have to do this after each and every guest regardless of how ”clean” he or she leaves the space. No guest would be satisfied checking in if I didn’t.

It may be more useful to think of the cleaning fee as not paying for someone to clean up after you but paying to walk into a clean space which has been cleaned up after someone else.    

I disagree, when a group leaves a place "clean" or "as they received it" it really cuts down on our cleaning time. Regardless all the usual stuff needs to be cleaned anyways but minimizing any extra cleaning really makes our day. As a guest, I dislike cleaning fees because we are good clean guests. If there is a cleaning fee, I'm much less likely to leave the place as received. So as hosts we don't charge one. We clean our own spaces so of course this helps with the cost. In turn we have a $200 deposit that insures the guest will not make an excessive mess. By even having simple signs that say things like "hand wash your dishes" we prevent dirty dishes and the use of the dishwasher for only two cups.

What does your wording say to guest to let them know you will give back their $200 if there is no excess mess? So do you add a basic cleaning fee (for you cleaning floors, bathrooms, laundry, etc.) added to the basic overnight stay and the guest knows this cleaning by you is included in the price they pay per night? In other words do you include your cost to clean and do laundry on your nightly fee so the guest doesn't know they are paying for you to clean?


@Juan63 wrote:

I disagree, when a group leaves a place "clean" or "as they received it" it really cuts down on our cleaning time. Regardless all the usual stuff needs to be cleaned anyways but minimizing any extra cleaning really makes our day. As a guest, I dislike cleaning fees because we are good clean guests. If there is a cleaning fee, I'm much less likely to leave the place as received. So as hosts we don't charge one. We clean our own spaces so of course this helps with the cost. In turn we have a $200 deposit that insures the guest will not make an excessive mess. By even having simple signs that say things like "hand wash your dishes" we prevent dirty dishes and the use of the dishwasher for only two cups.