Cleaning

Vee274
Level 2
Johannesburg, South Africa

Cleaning

Hi community members. I have just received a negative review wrt cleaning. I had a 7 night stay and usually clean mid stay for more than a 4 night stay. My place is immaculate and all other guests rate it a 5, and I am quite pedantic about cleanliness. The guest offered to book a cleaner in her capacity.. but I feel that she would want the place cleaned more frequently.. 

sometime I think that guests think  we run hotels..

 

what is the standard wrt longer stays and cleaning? Also, I wonder if I should rather remove the cleaning fee and just have a set rate, could it raise expectations? 

any advise out there would be appreciated 

2 Replies 2

@Vee274  None of your recent public reviews mention any cleanliness issues, and they all sound very positive, so I guess you're referring to either private feedback or a lower star rating in the Cleanliness category?

 

The Cleanliness rating is meant to reflect how the home is delivered to guests at check-in, rather than how frequently someone cleans up after the guests during their stay. But sometimes, you'll get guests who are used to hotels that have daily maid service and don't understand that this isn't a typical Airbnb amenity. Or perhaps they come from a culture and financial class where it's normal to have domestic servants. You may or may not want to cater to that clientele, but it might help to be explicit in the listing about how much interim cleaning is included in the standard price.

 

Some hosts do offer weekly or biweekly cleaning to their longer-stay guests - partly just to check up on the property - but I wouldn't say it's standard by any means. Most Entire Home properties are only cleaned between stays, and their guests don't expect the host to enter during the stay. I guess you can let guests hire their own housekeeping service if they're really so lazy that they can't be bothered to tidy up after themselves, but that puts you in a tricky position if something in the home is damaged or goes missing. On Airbnb, I generally don't recommend allowing the guests to bring anyone into the house who isn't registered in the booking.

 

As for your question about pricing, I don't find that guests' expectations are based on the room rates and fees. It's really all about setting accurate expectations in the listing, and confirming in the pre-booking correspondence that you're on the same page. 

Vee274
Level 2
Johannesburg, South Africa

Thank you @Anonymous , I have now explicitly stated the cleaning situation in the listing and for now I am going to test the  removal of  the ‘cleaning fee’ and include it  in the overall price so that there is no ambiguity 

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