How do you charge a guest to clean up after a dog?

Answered!
Michael5778
Level 2
Arlington, VA

How do you charge a guest to clean up after a dog?

It is absolutely ridiculous Airbnb does not have an option for a pet cleaning fee.  You can charge for an extra human, but not a animal that leaves 10 pounds of fur behind and slobbered everywhere for 3 days.  Makes NO sense. 

 

I now have one cleaner, after each stay with a dog, dedicated to cleaning up dog hair and I am very close to not allowing dogs.   How do you charge a guest for the extra time and in my case, person, that has to clean up after the dog? 

 

Does anyone not allow dogs? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 Best Answer
Colleen253
Level 10
Alberta, Canada

@Michael5778 I love all  animals, but Airbnb is not the platform on which to be a pet friendly host, so my listing is no pets. Funny how Airbnb push hosts to allow pets, but offer nothing in the way of support in return. Here is an interesting post on the subject of pets. Read through the comments. Great food for thought.

 

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/New-to-Hosting/New-host-pet-stay-without-notice-advice/td-p/1419...

View Best Answer in original post

35 Replies 35

@Amanda660this is why we charge for human puppies as well 🙂 Every guest, regardless of their size and age are paying. Works wonderfully.

Stephanie
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Hi there @Michael5778 

 

Just coming back to this one as I have some exciting and relevant news. We’re really pleased to share some details with you that were recently announced! In the coming weeks, Hosts will be able to add a Pet fee to their listing. 

 

We have been listening to Host feedback, just like yours, so please do let us know how you like the new service by sharing your thoughts here on the Community Center once it has launched. 

 

Thanks again,

 

Stephanie

-----

 

Please follow the Community Guidelines 

Hi Stephanie,

 

I have tried to add the pet fee today.

I have noticed that I can only charge pet fee per trip and not by day.

 

Could you please help me if I am doing something wrong, since when I did the tutorial on pet fees it showed me the possibility to add it on my daily price.

 

Thank you

 

Rachel

@Rachel367  Yes, like the cleaning fee, it is a per stay fee, not a daily fee.

Thus I will not use this new feature.

As I charge now, as stated in my additional house rules, a daily fee, it would not be faire for a person staying 1 night having the same pricethan a guest staying for 7 nights.

As longer a pet stays as more dirt, hair etc. as to be cleaned and as more other accidents can happen.

Stephanie And AirBnB Management and programming staff:

 

Well, after dozens of requests, by scores of AirBnB hosts, you _finally_ implemented a Pet Fee on the guest registration form!

 

Unfortunately, you didn't do it correctly! 😞

 

The Pet Fee should allow the guest to disclose number of pets and calculate the fee based on that, and the number of days booked!

 

The Pet Fee recently implemented only allows for a single static dollar amount! That results in the guest being either under or overcharged and the host having to guess at how many pets and how long the average guest will stay when setting up the Pet Fee field!

 

Please correct this faux pas and implement a field, in the guest registration form, that asks:
"Are you bringing pets"
If yes
"How many"
then:
"How many days would you like to book?"

Then the program calculates the Pet Fees based upon what the host has input on the listing that they would like to charge per pet per night.

 

I really don't get how this could be so obvious to me, and not have been anticipated by those creating the upgrade?

What is perhaps more ridiculous is this new statement “if you are lucky enough to have more than 2 pets traveling with you, be sure to notify your host”

 

so… if people only have one or 2 pets, they need not say a thing to the host?

 

Incredibly ripe for abuse 

I have  few issues with the new pet fee.  First of all, AirBnb did not notify me that they were rolling this out, that it was automatically added to my listing.  Not only that, under pet fee in the listing it stated "Pets stay for free" ... WHAT?!?!?!? No, absolutely not.  Please inform hosts as soon as possible so that we can make the necessary edits.  My listings went for a week with guests booking and believing that there was no pet fee. 

 

Secondly, AirBnb has written right under the new pet fee, "Bringing an assistance animal?" which then leads to a screen stating that they do not have to tell me they are bringing an animal and that there will not be a charge for the animal.  Since this posted, the booking I got, the guests immediately state that they have a service animal and that there's a policy that there's no charge for a service animal.  Funny, I not once have had this issue previous to AirBnb feeding forward to potential guests that they can bring an animal, not tell me and I can't charge them.  I allow animals to stay with my guests, I do not discriminate, but I DO have to clean up after them and am charged extra for it by my cleaners.  So, now thanks to this new pet fee and the extra information AirBnb puts forward, I am now paying for guests to bring their animals.  This is NOT right!!!!   So many people are going to claim service animal and I'm going to pay the price.  I want to allow people to bring their pets on vacation. I like bringing my pets on vacation, so I extend the same curtesy to my guests, but I expect them to be responsible to bringing an animal to my property by paying for the clean-up. 

Please fix this, ASAP.

Elina860
Level 2
Tampere, Finland

I noticed guests are already able to set the count for pets on their booking since today (11.11.2021). But I'm not able to find where to set the fee for the animals as host? Can you help?

I'm looking for the same thing.  Posting here so I get a notice when an answer gomes through.  Good luck!

 

Yes I think Airbnb have bugs with this new pet fee: I have found it and implemented it from my computer, from the website, not the app.

But when I look from my phone on the app, there is nowhere to see the pet fee and I received 3 bookings with a pet: nowhere is the pet fee to be seen neither in the bookings, while it should appears at the same place as the cleaning fee...

Hi Elina,

 

I have today also the possibility to set the pet fee, but only by stay and not by night.

 

Yes,when we travel with our pet we would like to have more Airbnb that pet friendly.We also would not mind to host guests with a small pet,however there is no option!As Andrew mentioned it could be a 100 pounds dog or 5 pounds one-there is a huge difference.There should be an option for pet size and also pet stay should be charged as human stay-by number of days.It is very strange that Airbnb does not see a huge opportunity to make MORE MONEY as soon as this problem is fixed,because we are sure a lot of hosts will allow pets and subsequently more people will happily book Airbnb and bring their beloved pets with an ease and peace of mind for everyone.


@Sergei--and--Larina0 wrote:

 As Andrew mentioned it could be a 100 pounds dog or 5 pounds one-there is a huge difference. 


hmm, I think it's a misconception that a large dog is more trouble. Little dogs generally sit on your furniture, large dogs don't. Little dogs (at many ages) still jump, scratch, chew and many small breeds are just plain neurotic. Large dogs are way more chill, and less likely to bark constantly. Where i live 5 of us in a row have dogs. the 2 houses with the small dogs can be heard constantly barking, I never hear a peep from the big dog homes. 

Certain breeds are more inclined to dig and run around, and this isn't related to size necessarily. eg, a jack russell terrier is WAY more annoying than my placid large Rhodesian Ridgeback. (no offence to JRTs, they are adorable, we love all dogs on our farm)

I have guests say all the time "it's only a small dog" and the first thing I imagine is that it will sleep on the bed with them, and sit on the sofas, and maybe chew the lamp cord.  So I wouldn't support charging by dog size at all. We could go further as well into psychology, if you research this you'll find data supporting this. Big dogs are less aggressive, less territorial, less barky, easier to train, less neurotic, less likely to pee inside, and there's even a study saying owners of large dogs are happier than owners of small dogs. I know which guests I prefer! 😁

@Gillian166  Totally agree. I  have always had large dogs and almost all of them have been quite calm. None of my dogs has chewed things up because I have always given them bones to chew on. Nor have any of them ever been allowed on beds or other furniture. And all of my dogs have spent most of their time outside, including sleeping outside at night. 

 

Whenever I have stayed somewhere with my dog, people usually say something to the effect of "Your dog is so chill. I'd hardly know she's here."

 

Can't stand the little yappers. Plus little dog people seem to think everything their "fur baby" does is adorable. Even jumping up on people. "Oh, he really likes you!"

Yeah, well he just got dirt all over my clean clothes.