I've been mulling this over for awhile and I'm having a hard time forming anything concrete from the nebulous cloud of thoughts in my head, so apologies if this post comes off a bit discombobulated.
In the olden days of vacation rentals, owners would buy a home for their personal use and some would list it as available for rent (usually in classified sections of vacation destination magazines). When a guest rented a home, there was sort of an unwritten rule that the guest would treat the home as if they were a houseguest--being careful with the host's belongings, picking up after themselves, and in general leaving it clean (if not completely sanitised, at least in good order) upon departure.
With the rise of Airbnb and professional cleaning companies and such, that culture started to change--but most people still recognized a difference between a hotel environment and renting someone's personal home (even if it's an investment property).
When COVID hit, though, there was a major shift. As people wanted a socially-distanced way to travel, they shifted en masse from hotels to whole-home vacation rentals where they could check in, stay, and leave without interacting with someone and sharing a lobby or hallway with other people. These millions of travellers who had never used Airbnb (or other vacation rental marketplaces) have brought a different culture with them.
So, that brings me to the subject of my post. Over the last 18 months, the number of times guests have left our property in utter disarray (trash left all over, excessive stains on sheets, using literally every piece of towel and bedding in the property and not even starting the wash) and often with damage (everything from grease stains on carpets to markers on walls to cracked tiles and occasionally even holes in walls) has skyrocketed.
My cleaning companies are threatening to raise rates or drop me because of this. I've tried to walk a fine line between setting expectations (with house rules that require checkout procedures) and guest complaints ("I'm paying an expensive cleaning fee--why do I have to clean anything up?"), and it's becoming a struggle to manage (both practically and also emotionally).
I'm beginning to think that one of the things I need to do is somehow convey to guests that the culture of vacation rentals is different from that of hotels. You're a guest in our home; please treat it accordingly. I had an aha moment the other day: vacation rental cleaners are there to clean the property, not clean up a mess. They are responsible for cleaning linens, vacuuming/mopping flooring, sanitizing surfaces, putting out linens and supplies, and in general getting the home in perfect condition for the next guests. They're not there to scrub leftover grease splatters, gather trash, put away a floor full of toys, or launder and soak shower curtains stained with grease and poop (yes, that happened to me last weekend).
So, my question is twofold:
- What is the correct balance of checkout procedures to require of guests, and
- How can I craft some verbiage that encourages guests to reframe their view as being a guest in a private home instead of a customer of a large business?
Anyone have any thoughts or advice or suggestions along these lines? I'm working with my housekeeping companies to come up with a minimalistic set of checkout procedures that protects them the most (e.g. take out the trash) and materially saves them time (e.g. start a load of towels before leaving) without feeling like a laundry list (no pun intended) of things to do early in the morning. But I'd like to somehow convey the spirit of vacation rental culture to guests to sort of make them think twice about leaving the place a pigsty without coming right out and saying, "Please think twice about leaving our home a pigsty." 🙂
