Cleaning Standards for a Long-Term Stay

[Ayo0]

Dear AirBnB Community,

We have been hosting on AirBnB (mostly short-term visitors) for just over a year now, with great experience and reviews!!  🙂  Unfortunately, we are currently having issues with an extremely difficult long-term guest.  😕

This guest is staying with us for six weeks (2.5 of which have passed), and we charged a one-time $41 cleaning fee, which we used to make both her suite and all common areas spotlessly clean with a professional cleaner prior to check-in day.  My husband and I take out the garbage, compost and recycling daily, we clean all dishes immediately and we also wash kitchen countertops daily.  Per her demands (not requests, these are pretty nasty sometimes yelling and sometimes passive-aggressive demands), we are now also washing the kitchen floors twice a day and cleaning the shared shower daily.  (She has her own private half bathroom in her suite, so only the shower is shared.) The one day a week that we do not clean is Saturday as we observe the Sabbath, but we clean on Saturday night when the Sabbath is over.

Our guest is constantly angry and critiquing that the place isn't clean enough and claims that we should have professional help coming in DAILY to keep the place top notch clean.  She's never used AirBnB before, so she is probably used to hotel standards as opposed to staying in a really nice suite that is ultimately still a room in a shared house.

So, the question: What are reasonable cleaning standards for a long-term stay?  We're definitely not going to be bringing in professional help daily (unless she wants to pay for it) as that would cost a fortune and everyone else who has ever entered our home comments on how spotless it is (I'm a super neat person!), so she is the first with an issue.  But this guest is excessively demanding and kind of thinks that as hosts we are her servants who are required to clean exactly how and when and how often she likes multiple times daily.

There are only 3.5 weeks left to her stay, but she is increasingly unpleasant and making threats to claim a refund from AirBnB (even though I am 99% sure that the claim would be unfounded given how pristine this place is).  So, how do we handle this and what are or are not reasonable expectations of hosts vis a vis cleaning?  We want to be excellent hosts, but this is all becoming a bit extreme.

Thank you!

Cheers,

Ayo

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

I really think that time has come to call her bluff: you can offer to have her room/place cleaned professionally once a week at your cost. If that is not acceptable then she needs to cancel her reservation and look elsewhere.

This is a salatory lesson between short stay and long stay guests. Long stay believe in general that they have a say in the running of your home and that they are sharing it with you.

[Paul0]

Hi @Ayo0,

Sounds like an untenable situation.

As @Gerry-And-Rashid0 suggested it's time to adjust the Guest's ridiculous expectations or (most likely for your own sanity) send them on their way. To my mind, the moment you are no longer comfortable in your own home, it's not worth any money in the world.  

To answer your query, in the 2 long term Guests I've hosted (both VERY carefully selected) I offered a mid-stay clean to them although this was for a whole apartment.  I'd suggest that so long as the bathroom isn't overly dirty then a once a week clean would be a sensible approach.

Heading down the future resolution / refund path, do you have any demands documented or is it all verbal? Either way get on the front foot and be pro-active with Airbnb - It's best to lead the conversation with both Guest and Airbnb.

Keep us in the loop on how you go.

Cheers,

Paul

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[Ayo0]

Dear Paul,

Thanks for taking the time to respond.  You are correct that being uncomfortable in our own home isn't an option.  We will try one more conversation with the guest.  To answer your question, I submitted an inquiry to the AirBnB resolution center a couple of weeks back when this first started (the guest flew off the handle calling us named and was quite inappropriate) and I also documented photos of the kitchen, etc. to show the cleanliness level.  There have also been a couple of e-mail exchanges since.  AirBnB said to keep them posted on how things develop and, if it worsens, to have them handle guest contact directly.  So, one more try, and then likely to the Resolution Center.

Thank you again for taking the time to offer guidance.

Warm wishes,

Ayo