Long Term Stay - Cleaning Responsibilities

Savion0
Level 1
New York, NY

Long Term Stay - Cleaning Responsibilities

HI AirBnB Community,

My name is Savion and I'm fairly new to being a host.

I have a long term guest who is asking me to wash their sheets for them after requesting that I give them detergent. On top of that, I gave them a laundry card at the beginning of their stay to help them with their laundry during their stay at our local laundry mat.

 

Given the facts stated above, it is my resposibility to clean their towels? I charge no cleaning fee and I'm not sure if I see this as right.

 

I just wanted to check in with my community to confirm AirBnB policy and past experiences/ resolutions.

 

 

Thanks!,

Savion

8 Replies 8
Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Hi @Savion0, I am not sure if there is a policy on this, although I think I read somewhere on the forums that Airbnb recommends you do a clean/linen change after a week. I don't know if that is actually true as I couldn't find any info on it when I searched the help section.

 

I think what services you provide in terms of linens, towels, laundry and cleaning are up to you, but it would be a good idea to make these clear from the start. A good place to do this is in your house rules. Make sure you message guests before booking to double check that they have read the full listing and house rules and agree to them. I see you are using Instant Book, in which case, the guests still have to agree to the rules in theory, but it's better to message them after booking to make sure.

 

This is what I do. If I have guests staying two weeks or more, I tell them I will clean their room half way through and offer them clean linen and towels if they want them. This also gives me a chance to check up on things and make sure the room is okay (I don't go in without permission if I can help it, because I want to respect their privacy). I once had guests stay at my old apartment for a month, and as I wasn't living there, I couldn't do this, so just told them to use the laundrette which was on site. However, I regret this because they never washed the linen or towels, which were brand new, and I had to throw them away as it was impossible to get them clean after that!

 

That's just me though. If you can't/don't want to do this, fine, but going forward, put in your house rules that you don't provide any laundry services and that long-term guests are responsible for washing the towels and bedlinen. You could include that you provide a card for the local laundrette, if this is something you plan to do regularly. If you want, you could also add that you can do laundry for an extra charge.

 

Whatever you decide to do, put it in your house rules, make sure they have read and agreed to them before they come and maybe run through the important ones again when they arrive. A lot of hosts leave a print out of the rules for the guests as well.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Helen3
Level 10
Bristol, United Kingdom

I change sheets and bedding weekly and tidy the room. 

 

Do you have it in your house rules that for longer term guests you provide a laundry card for washing sheets/towels, as well as personal items? and make this clear in correspondence before the booking is confirmed? If so, then this is fine.

 

If not, I would just put them in your wash when you are doing your own and the guest can use the laundry card for personal items.

 

 

Eva628
Level 1
Innisfil, Canada

Do tou charge for this? How much?

Hi all. So I booked a long term stay. I make it a point to check house rules every time as I like leaving the apartment as I found it. In this case, the house rules did not mention any cleaning. Now, my host says that in long stays she takes turn in cleaning with the host. Which also I am fine with as she has become a friend and I do not want her to do all the work alone. But she explained to me what all has to be cleaned - it involves deep cleaning and cleaning to make the apartment cleaner than I found it. She lives in the apartment too. I always do my dishes and I swept and mopped the floor of my room and the common spaces. But she wants me to brush the carpet in the staircase of the building (the stairs leading to her floor) and sweep and clean that too. Rinse decorative spaces kept near the main door. Take out oil stains in the kitchen - where I have not even used the kitchen much and I found it with oil stains. Deep clean the bathroom - toilet, drains and shower tiles. She doesn’t have a change of bed linen (so 1 sheet and 1 pillow cover for 8 weeks) and I had to wash it to keep my allergy at bay. For washing she prefers me to use the shortest cycle (15 minutes) and says my clothes would be fine but I am afraid it would spoil my clothes. She doesn’t want me to use the kettle much and light use the kitchen as “anything I break I will have to replace”. Basically she doesn’t want a smelly kitchen. The point is all this was not mentioned in the house rules (and she had mentioned that kitchen use was allowed for long stay, not “light kitchen use”). And of course I have paid cleaning fees and am paying more than the market rate for such a room. Which is fine as it is airbnb and I am not a flat mate but a guest. She has also other guests coming in for a couple of days next week although she mentioned in the house rules that the guest for my room would be sharing the bathroom only with her. I accepted that as I don’t have a say and she needs the money so I am ok with it.  I have become friends with her because of which I can’t behave like a wronged customer. So my question is that should I be doing all that cleaning? I would like to help out as otherwise she has to do it all by herself as she can’t afford a cleaner (or so it seems). But can she expect me to do all this stuff? And how do I maintain my stance without being rude? Also the check was weird. I estimated that I would be at her apartment by 11 (although I am a foreigner) had given her my flight number and all. The flight arrived on time and the commute took half an hour less. She was not there in her apartment as I had given an estimate of 11. I had to wait in a bar and drag 30 kg of luggage through the 300 m after 17 hours of travel. Is this good check-in behaviour by a host? 

That seems a little exessive. We currently renting an old house converted over into 2 apartments and a studio inside then there is a unit out side the building as well. So a total of four units. It is a three floor house one washer and dryer for the three units inside the house. Which is a little ridiculous.  Our unit has hookups and such. But i sweep everyday, because my dogs sheds like crazy. We had two dogs and a cat up til april 16th. When i sweep, i sweep once with regular broom and then if swifter. Swifter mop at least once a week. And try and vaccum our 2 flights of stairs inside our unit at least once a week. And do all of dishes, bathrooms etc. But your list seems beyond.  We are ay this unit for about a total of nine weeks. This was only my second stay at an airbnb. We are traveling medical staff,  welm my husband is. Check in was a bit of a hassle for us.  Our host writes a book. And knew we had pets from the beginning.  Because when im looking i always double check withbthe hosts that they are pet unfriendly  even if they  say. And let them know how many pets we have and such. But never said anything about the pet fee. For a week and half til the day we were on the rd. Driving down from Cleveland oh to Cincinnati.  Normally my husband does the long haul driving and drive in and around town. But because he had just gotten his second shot that dat i was doing the driving. So then once were about an hour on the rd , starts messaging me saying can't  let you in til your fully paid and im like i paid the first months rent already and it set up for payments how am i not paid etc. And was a huge thing and hassle because finally said oh its the the pet fees that you still owe. Wanted 10.00 per pet per day. 30.00 day x 72 days =2,100 but dropped it down to 1825. You thinknfor long term stays like this that over 28 days or so do a one time fee of like 500 dollars or so. Not a pet fee has much as **bleep**ing rent.  Non refundable and we had to pay it up front. That part is down at the very bottom of the book on house rules. Never said anything prior of anything amd it is not part of the total you pay. As  with traveling medical personal we have a budget too just like any one else and yry and stick to it has much as possible  like anyone else. So when we had to put our oldest dog down on the 16th of April. Because she became anemic and an enlarged spleen with a tumor on it. I contacted airbnb to find out what can do to get her portion of the pet fees back, since we no longer had her. So they told me to open a request and ask.  And that the host has 72 hours to respond or else they jump in.  So the following day the host reaches out to me and goes what is this request for? And how come i didn't mention  it when was talking. I had told her we had to put her down.  And i responded back and said well that what air bnb told me to do. Then she said she was going to give me back x  amount at the end of my stay if no damage was done. And then i still had to have her explain her calculations because the math was not ending up what it should have been.  So apparently  she charged us 10.00 a day for two pets and the third pet was five dollars a day. Which was supposed to be the cat. But never really explained the breakdown when she lowered it from 2100 to 1825. 

Paul212
Level 2
Kota Kinabalu, MY

I feel Airbnb should make the terms of stay very transparent for the guests, especially those who stay longer than a week. This is because there are many who expect hotel housekeeping services while paying at Airbnb rates. I can hardly find any literature on this issue in the net.

Recently I have a group of Korean guests who stayed for 14 nights.  The guests expect free change of bed linens every 4 nights, plus regular change of fresh bath towels on alternate days. My practice is I do complimentary general cleaning and change of linens every 7 nights. But there are some guests who cannot accept this, and are not willing to pay for the extra charges, even though they are the ones who wanted the frequent housekeeping. Any advice on this please? I don't charge any cleaning fee on guests.

Thank you. Paul


@Paul212 wrote:

I feel Airbnb should make the terms of stay very transparent for the guests, especially those who stay longer than a week. This is because there are many who expect hotel housekeeping services while paying at Airbnb rates.


I had a bunch of workers stay for a coupe of months and cleaned every week. They only stayed M-F so it was easy, they loved it. They kept the place neat and tidy but being workers the bathroom really needed a weekly clean.

 

Compare that to a family that wanted to book for a month and were staying there weekends as well. They are NOT happy about me coming in to clean. There is no way I'm leaving the house unchecked and uncleaned for more then 2 weeks, they didn't get their booking accepted. (I discuss cleaning arrangement for long bookings up-front, so everybody knows what's going to happen. I also say that I may be OUTSIDE the house doing gardening and cleaning.)

You should charge for cleaning and add a cleaning deposit prior

 

however I disagree about mandatory cleaning after x days .  You could offer waiving or discounting a cleaning through out there stay .

 

sorry to say but I had an experience of the owner making me feel uncomfortable coming around too often .

 

charge high deposits