Yep, I’m lucky that my hair blends with the colour of the floor but my god, I had the same reaction as you when I started hosting women with thick, long black hair, the amount is just crazy. Snakes on a plane!
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We use a cleaning service because the economics work for us. I charge a USD60 cleaning fee for the one-bedroom english basement apartment in our row house in Washington, D.C. It’s high compared to what other people are seeing. However, I compensate for it by not charging as much as I can for the daily rate (at least for now).
The other benefit to us is that the minimum for our cleaners is USD75 for two hours of work. Because they’re fast and thorough, they are able to turn the apartment around in an hour (we have stained concrete floors, leather furniture, easy-to-maintain area rugs), the cleaners spend the remainder of their time doing maintenance cleaning on different parts of our own living areas upstairs (the kitchen, the various bathrooms, the stairs, etc).
The results are amazing. I keep a UV/black light flashlight just to do spot checks and haven’t seen any spots that they’ve missed.
My husband and I have jobs that require us to be away from the house frequently so this works out for us.
@ajl Do your cleaners also make the bed with fresh sheets?
How do you use the UV flashlight? I guess, turn lights off and start searching;) Can you discover hairs that way too? What else? I must buy one. Hope to find it on Amazon.
@MarkP: We initially had the guests strip the bed on their way out and we’d have the cleaners bring the sheets upstairs to our main living area where the laundry room is. We then did the laundry ourselves because it was easy.
However, our cleaners just started doing the laundry themselves without being asked (while managing to get through the rest of my priority lists). They’ve even started making the bed for me.
Here’s what I use to scan surfaces, floors and walls. Protein-based stains/urine/driver’s licenses/dollar bills/tropical fish all glow when you splash the light on them.
Caution: If you’re a germophobe or of weak constitution, I recommend bracing yourself before you use this on your bathrooms or kitchen for the first time. LOL
Stupid question: does it work on human urine? I’m thinking on using it once to see how well my cleaner cleans the bathroom and around the toilet. It feels clean every time I inspect it. And, guests have given me 5stars for cleanless across the board. Still, I’m curious and for $10 it’s a small price to pay to discover that.
I ended up hiring a cleaner because of foot reconstruction surgery that kept me non-weight bearing for about 12 weeks this spring… now I’m spoiled and have kept her on. She charges $30/hour (usually takes 2 hours and my cleaning fee is $65) and she totally gets the Airbnb drill. She has always been there when I need her… not always perfect but damn close. I do all the laundry… she does the rest… I LOVE IT!
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I posted a picture I took with my black light in the bathroom on this thread.
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In theory it does because urine contains phosphorus. You should see a yellowish/greenish glow. Cat urine grows particularly brightly.
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@KKC I guess it works for you, right? I’m reading reviews on Amazon and some people said it didn’t work right out of the box…
Works for me. There are dozens of different ones and I’m sure some are defective, especially the cheapest ones.
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I have found a young gal who is reliable, trough and charges by the flip rather than hour and is quite reasonable in proportion to the nightly rate. In order to be sure that she had the same OCD standards as I, we did the first flip together. We play a game called find the hair, they are always hiding, lurking and threating to take you from 5 to 4 stars as these wonderfully graphic photos show. I check the space after she is done just to make sure since there are 50 items on the check list. I have been getting great reviews on cleanliness. What a godsend.
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Yes Mark, not sure why this is hard to understand?
Exactly. Many hosts are charging only $50 per night for their accommodation. Most cleaners (here anyway) charge $25 per hour. Because we have a whole apartment, our turnover window is five hours and I need most of that time to prepare the apartment for the next guests. If I was paying a local cleaner at the hourly going rate, that would cost me up to $125 per turnover.
Our base price is $125 per night. As most of our bookings are back to back that wouldn’t be in the least bit practical, especially as our minimum is one night.
Most definitely! I rent a room in my house and with the exception of my teens room which I ask to at least smell nice and look reasonable in the event his door is left open, I think my guests are paying to come into a nice, tidy house. I think they expect this too. I was most disappointed upon arriving in San Senastion to a multiple room house to find the house had not been cleaned & mine got a 5 minute clean on arrival. Clearly just in for max profits and no care and that was $120 AUD per night!
@Emily In fact, I just wasn’t sure if that’s what you were saying. In my case, I have agreed the price per turnaround. My cleaner is a younger retiree. She lives nearby and appreciates the chance for a steady extra income. I have guests back-to-back almost every day and I pay her around $20 per turnaround for a 380 sq.f apartment (bathroom+living area with king size bed+kitchenette+patio). She also makes the beds, does the laundry for me and buys supplies when needed. Admiteddly, when I started with her we were playing a game called “find the hair” as @Lori_Beth_Merrill has put so nicely. After two weeks, she got it right. From then on, I’m was very pleased with the results. I can trust and she does a perfect job as I’m getting 5 stars for cleanless all the time.
Mark, I don’t know what country you live in, hopefully it’s Nepal where labor and cost of living is cheap and perhaps you should make this clear to put your posts in
context. In Australian, $20 for all of that work would be considered exploitative labour. I hope you are not doing this especially as I suspect you might be paying her ‘under the table’ to get a rate so low and not paying workers compensation, superannuation and payroll taxes (and she income tax) or your equivalent taxes and worker protections. I hope I am wrong, especially if she gets injured doing your cleaning and sues you and you have no cover. I would never want to make money but taking advantage of others and their desperate need for work if they are on benefits or a low income and you might not be doing this but food for thought to any hosts who are.
@Emily Thank you for mentioning this important aspect. I’m living in Europe. The tax code allows for retirees to work certain amount of hours per month. To her and my advantage, she has been a cleaner for her whole life so she is pretty efficient. Usually she completes the job in about 90 minutes or so and she is happy with the rate (it’s no different than other cleaners would get).
Living almost next door she’s happy to beef up her income within the permitted hours and that works well. In her own words “I rather do something useful then watch TV”.
On my part, I deliberately designed and set up my flat so it’s comfortable and pleasant to the eye but also easy to clean and maintain. That said, large metropolitan areas command different / higher prices and that’s when economics break. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. We’re just exchanging experience here on this forum so we can learn from each other.
No there isn’t Mark but that doesn’t mean you are not exploiting your cleaner either