Are 'Cleaning fees' turning guests off

[Robin4]

Sorry long post but in an endeavour to create less friction between guest and host, I think it is an important read.

Here we go again, every few days this cleaning fee thing drops back in here for another airing. By the frequency of posts here there seems to be an ever increasing pool of guests complaining about, not just having to pay a cleaning fee but, having to clean as well.

It seems to them that Airbnb and their hosts are double dipping!

Perhaps it's time we rationalized the cleaning fee from not just the guests perspective but the hosts as well.

To Airbnb's credit they have now dropped the 'cheapest cab at the rank' method of displaying listing prices, but it is the breakdown of extras on top of the base price that seems to be causing a lot of friction amongst guests.

Some of these extras like, an additional amount per person, guests will accept because they do understand that extra bodies mean extra facilities with extra work, and seasonal extra pricing for in demand situations. But a cleaning fee is seen as this nebulous thing that varies vastly from listing to listing, the guest still is required 'to clean' and many of them feel it has no right to be there.

So, as hosts.......

We need to be realistic with the cleaning fee we set. We have to strike a balance that can be justified from both sides. 

I understand that many city professional cleaning companies will charge $40 per hour pr cleaner and the average 3 bedroom apartment is going to take 2.5 hours to properly clean with 2 personnel. For the average apartment that amounts to a cleaning cost of $200 per turnaround which most guests are going to find difficult to accept.......and when you expect a certain amount of pre-cleaning on the guests part, they are going to be outright hostile!

But why accept a company cleaning fee of $200 per clean? There are many citizens out there in almost every community who will jump at the opportunity to take on a cleaning role for $60 per turnaround.......... I do and my cleaner charges me $30 per turnaround! She does 2-3 per week, is a real cleanaholic and just loves that additional $60-$90 pr/wk that this puts in her pocket that she would not have otherwise had. 

It is not hard to track down this cleaning help, I have done it for 2 other hosts in my area and it works wonderfully. If a host raises their hosting amount by $15 pr night and sets a cleaning fee of $40 and has 2 guests per week they are break even, get 3 guests per week and they are ahead and the guest will accept that gladly because they will see it as a reasonable charge and will be quite prepared to chuck the linens in the washer, put their rubbish out.

Personally I ask guest to do nothing, just walk out and leave the cleaning to us because, I know if the guest does it, it won't be done properly! The glasses and dishes will get a quick rinse over and put back in the cupboard with bits of food on the frypan and plates, lipstick smears on the glasses, all set for the next guest to give me a 'raspberry' for cleanliness! Bed linens will be put into the wash with blood and makeup stains which makes them even harder to remove. I don't want them putting there rubbish out because they won't recycle, they will just stick it all in one bag and stuff it in the nearest available bin!

I don't want to have to second guess what guests have or haven't done, I just want them to gather up their bags and leave the rest to us!

So from the hosts point of view:

Don't be some cleaning company's cash cow, seek out economical cleaning options.....they are available and they work well.

Don't expect your guests to do your work, it's up to the host to provide that clean and properly serviced listing.

Now as guests......

STR hosts are not hotel chains, they are not offering many stay options under the one roof where fixed and servicing costs can be spread across possibly hundreds of paying rooms. They are offering an individual experience and it's up to the guest to realise there is a distinction between providing that individual service, and maintaining it. 

To maintain the service.......

We don’t expect you to wipe down the walls, the counter-tops, attend to those coffee cup rings on the bedside and occasional tables, checking for insects and spider webs.

We don’t expect you to strip the bed and remove those blood, alcohol or makeup stains from the linens, put them through the washing machine, dry them and iron ready for a future guest.

We don’t expect you to wash the towels and provide new face-washers to replace those that were destroyed by nail polish remover, fake tan lotion and Acne cream.

We don’t expect you to remake the bed with fresh linens and put out a new set of towels and face washers.

We don’t expect you to vacuum the carpets, rugs and steam mop the floors and wet areas.

We don’t expect you to clean the toilet, shower alcove, sinks and taps.

We don’t expect that you will wash, dry and put away the dishes, cutlery, saucepans and glassware that you have used.

We don’t expect you to restock the fridge with a cheese plate, milk, eggs and bacon, fruit juice, a beer and a cider and water from the re-stock facilities.

We don’t expect you to test that the TV, the fridge, the hot water heater, the DVD player, the air conditioning filter, the washing machine, the smoke alarm, the microwave and hotplate, the electric blankets to make sure they are all working!

This is what we charge a cleaning fee for! To return the property to the state which you entered it in.

We just expect you will put your rubbish in the bin, pick up those used nappies and sundry items that were left under the bed and dispose of and not leave the property looking like a pig sty.

Put furniture back the way you found it.

Leave the property in a relatively tidy state.

To provide the service........

There are certain overheads that must be covered in order to provide a listing for guests in the first place.

There is a property mortgage to be covered, insurances, council rates and permits, maintenance, breakages, gardening, electricity and gas, water the constant supply of condiments……..This is what you pay for in the listing amount.

It is most unfortunate that many guests do not seem to be able to differentiate between the two!!

The listing amount covers the cost of supplying the property. The cleaning fee covers the cost of continuing to offer it to guests!

I hope this can give a bit of clarity to why  a cleaning fee is charged. Hopefully that will be respected by guests......... and not abused by hosts!

Cheers…..Rob

[Basha0]

I charge a cleaning fee and i send guests the house info and agreement within a week of their stay so they are less  likely to forget. There is a binder for them to refer to. All I ask is they strip the beds, take out trash, run dishwasher.  If I built the fee in per night then the longer staying guests end up paying more and the weekend stays do t pay enough. I have more weekend guests 

[Gillian19]

@Robin4 I love your theory re getting a good cleaner for that little - believe me, it simply isn't possible where my Airbnbs are. Since Covid no-one wants to work for that sort of $$. They got too used to being given money by the Government for not working. Maybe it will change back in a year or two. Even getting good cleaners for $40 an hour isn't easy.

[Robin4]

@Gillian19 

Hi Gill, I nearly put my foot in it.....yet again!

I just looked briefly at your tag and thought it was @Gillian166, and as her listings are only about 12 minutes away from where I am located  I got onto my cleaning woman, Fran, and asked if she would like a bit more cleaning work and she absolutely jumped at the opportunity. She said, "Bring it on, tell her I will do turnarounds for $40. Only time I am not available is Monday mornings when I am at Meals on Wheels"!  So I showed her a couple of pictures of Gillian's Hay Valley listings and told her there would be a bit more involved being of more generous proportions than my studio listing, but she was adamant she would be happy to service Gillian's 3 bedroom for $50 and her Butler's cottage for $40.

So I was all set to tell you the good news Gill and I suddenly saw the 19 tag and the St Leonards address and the practicality of it hit me! But these people are out there in almost every local area......it's not exploitation it is just two people helping each other and it works well.

Fran does a better job than I do because, she is a woman she attends to little details that men possibly overlook. 

Cheers.........Rob 

[Gillian19]

@Robin4 The properties are actually in Jervis Bay - but that isn't much closer to you either!

[Gillian166]

ha, thanks for thinking of us @Robin4  those fees are actually higher than what we charge guests for cleaning..... But, I'll keep this in mind because there might be a time when we need an extra hand. For now my daughter works full time on the farm so the cleaning is her job, and when i pop down every other month I do the "mum clean" stuff. 

I've been tinkering with "no cleaning fee" in the Butlers, can't say i've notice any change in bookings, we are solidly booked every weekend anyway. 

One of the benefits of doing 1-2 night stays is that the cleaning isn't as full-on. We don't vacuum behind the sofa in every turnover, usually just twice a week, and i don't wipe down the insides of the bathroom cabinet every time either, so you can portion out these "extras" over 5 cleans/week. We can do the Butlers in 1hr, even faster if we have to,  if we know the day before we did all those extras and of course by now we have the whole down to a system.  It does depend on the guest too of course, but the majority of our guests are marvellous. Sadly it's just the Vomit Girl and the Nappy people I remember, but that's 2 out of 100. 

[Deborah1299]

What is the nappy people? I'm from America 

[Fred13]

Disclaimer: I happened to be married to a clean freak who has ran/owned many hotels.

>>Our philosophy from Day #1, (7 years ago) is: we rather do our own cleaning and we charge about 3% as a cleaning fee.

>>We do not have any rules since we do not want to worry about enforcing any of them. Over the years, we have removed anything that may create the slightest hassle or confrontation with guests. 

>>We have noticed that 99% of the clientele we get today leave the place consistently spotless & organized. If they don't is ok, we know where everything should be and we will have the place ready for the next guests within 3 hrs. no matter how they leave it. Check out 10am, new arrivals come at 1pm.

>> No, we do not get lunatics, our simple approach won't certainly work having to deal with them or drama queens. 

[Huma0]

I think it was a mistake when Airbnb decided a fee years ago to display prices to guests not including the cleaning fee. Obviously, I am biased as I don't charge a cleaning fee, so this puts me at a disadvantage in the search results.

However, viewed from the guest's perspective, extra fees (unless they are very low) added on to the advertised price are just annoying and can reduce the guest' trust in Airbnb and the hosts. They already have the Airbnb service fee and taxes added on. Pretty soon the price they actually pay looks very different to the price they saw advertised on the listing and this makes people angry!

I know that a lot of hosts argue including the cleaning fee in the nightly rate doesn't make sense because guests who stay longer end up paying too much, but this can easily be countered by setting the long term discounts to take this into account. 

At the moment, the cleaning fee option only gives you the choice of a flat cleaning fee, or also having a lower fee for short stays, but 'short' means one or two nights. There is no option to differentiate between a 3-4 night stay and a 3-4 week one. I don't understand why a guest staying 3 nights should pay the same as a guest who stays for 10.

Another option, if hosts really feel that an additional cleaning fee is necessary, is to have it set as a percentage rather than a flat fee, the same as the service charges, with discounts for longer stays.

[Laura2592]

@Robin4 we kept our fee artificially low. We experimented with several scenarios.

Our cleaners charged about $150 to do our place-- sometimes $200 depending.

1. Charging the whole fee as we paid it? Guests got snippy and refused to do anything.
2. Charging nothing and just increasing the nightly price by the fee? The guests were the worst in this scenario and we had our poorest ratings. They were angry that they were paying what they felt was a lot per night and no cleaning fee meant (to them) that the place was not being professionally cleaned. In fact, we had the exact same process that we always did wherein we went behind our cleaners and re-cleaned certain things/disinfected as needed.
3. Charging a small cleaning fee and rolling the rest into the nightly price. This worked best for us. It let guests know that yes, we were still paying for cleaning, but they were less resentful about basic tasks to "help get the place ready."

I personally expect to see a cleaning fee when I book. If I feel its exorbitant, I pass. Everyone has a different idea of "exorbitant." 

It also depends on your area. If the average cleaning fee in your city is $200, then guests will quickly realize that wherever they book, that is pretty much what they can expect. If you are charging $400 in that city, then I can see how people might question it. Most guests don't understand what cleaning services cost-- many do not have them in their own home so they have no clue. 

[Fred13]

^^^ 

1. Charging a small cleaning fee and rolling the rest into the nightly price. This worked best for us. It let guests know that yes, we were still paying for cleaning, but they were less resentful about basic tasks to "help get the place ready."

Looks like we had the same journey and arrived at a similar place. We charged only $100 when average booking was $3k, now $150 at $5k; no one has ever even mentioned the cleaning fee.

[Debra300]

@Robin4,

We charge a cleaning fee only on our Atlanta spaces, because they are long-term rentals and the money goes directly to our cleaner.  We pay her a livable wage, and it takes her about 9-10 hours to do a top to bottom, inside to exterior, turnover of our apartment, and for our house it's about 12-13 hours over two days.  She is a bit slow due to shoulder problems, but the quality of her work is impeccable.  Since the stays are usually 45 to 90 days, our guests do not put up a fuss about the cleaning fee, because the cost is incremental to the overall reservation amount.  Plus, it's common enough in the US for regular apartment rentals to require a cleaning fee.  There is no separate cleaning fee for our guesthouse spaces, because the stays are usually much shorter, and we usually do the cleaning. 

I think that the guests who complain about cleaning fees often think that cleaning entails only the things that have been visibly used, and they don't consider that everything needs to be cleaned again regardless if it's been used or the duration of their stay.  However, I would guess they'd come up with a higher amount if they were asked how much per hour and how long it would take them to do a thorough turnover.  I also believe that there is an ingrained prejudice to devalue the worth of a cleaner, because the work is usually performed by women, and often they are immigrants or come from an economically disadvantaged background.

[Helen744]

@Robin4 Lately we have had few guests although at the moment with childrens holidays we are fully booked . I agree with Deborah .

I do the cleaning which involves bed turnovers , bathroom , kitchen . restocking , mopping vacummning of a three bed house every two days plus washing and drying linens  woman it is devalued. If someone was mowing the lawn or fixing the lights then paying Him , would not be an issue. This is a lot of work , guests can grumble all they like but I expect them , without being reminded to pick up after themselves . Everything is there for them.And they are usually pretty good .I do not want my workload doubled by saying 'oh just leave it' Are you joking . These are not children but I still do all you do Robin. I have reduced my prices in other areas at the moment but cleaning fees stay and will never cover costs of even buying products.This is not part of hosting that you leave to the guests discretion it is where you help cover costs. H

[Helen744]

Meaning 'womens work ?This is work , I damaged my shoulder lifting heavy mattresses and changed the mattresses so they are not big kingsize ones. The idea of getting cheap labor is anathema to me . Steam is coming out of my ears . It will continue . Cleaners are workers and not some third class people. I seriously cannot afford cleaners so I charge a small cleaning fee.H

[Robin4]

@Helen744 

I hadn't expected that my thread would have prompted a 'steam coming out of my ears' response and be seen as exploitation.

What I am doing is filling in blanks and helping people on every level at the same time.

None of my $15.00 cleaning fee goes in my pocket.....not one cent of it!

The woman who cleans for me is 72 years old, she has a husband who supports her minimally plus an adult son still living at home......that is where the exploitation comes in Helen! To try and make her life a bit more comfortable she contracted to do a local letter box drop round where each week she would stuff supermarket flyers and other promo material into letter boxes which took up the bulk of her every Tuesday for a lousy $90 per week. She hated her situation out there rain, hail or shine just to give herself a bit of comfort money. She didn't want to become a professional cleaner, set herself up with an ABN, start having to once again submit tax returns! She just wanted to pick a few days a week where she could give herself that comfort money to supplement her pension which she is entitled to do without penalty.

She is never, but never required to lift anything heavier than a laundry basket and any donkey work that is required I will, and do, perform.

It's just that I didn't want to have to keep doing 4-5 turnarounds a week, at age 78 I am not the spring chicken I once was  Helen. I put my listing amount up $5 per night and with the cleaning fee of $15 I have enough to cover Fran's work each week.

Does she feel exploited?.......do guests feel exploited?

Fran loves what she is doing, guests don't get walloped with a large cleaning fee, it works for everyone.

I am not trying to demean peoples jobs, under value them, take advantage of them.....all I am doing is helping the world go round by providing the best I can with what I have got.

I hope that's not seen as exploitive!

Now this is what I call exploitation, same number of bedrooms as yours Helen and this is what I am trying to address..........

Cheers........Rob