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I have guests who will be staying for 11 days which is the longest I have ever had ( most has been 4 days). I have a washing machine and drier in the apartment.
Should I offer to replace the towels once during the stay, provide double the number of towels to start with and/or provide new sheets etc. or just tell them to launder their own towels if they wish? I only charge one cleaning fee that includes laundering of all linen/towels etc.
I would change the bedding, towels, bathmat and other washables on about day 5. Have a quick clean of the place too. If your rental has a kitchen or cooking facilities in the room, replace the used tea-towels, napkins and dishcloths too.
I agree with @jaquo, give the whole place a quick clean and fresh linens midway through the stay. It also gives you a chance to make sure everything is going okay with your guests.
When Iāve done this Iāve also left a small treat for my guests, croissants or such.
I also agree. I do a clean every 4-5 days more to check on the guests than anything else. I change the sheets, towels, restock anything running low and tidy up the place in general.
Thanks for all the replies. I think I will do as suggested which is pop by after day five to replace linens etc and do a quick clean. It will give me a chance to check on the guests.
Mine will present an alternative point of view. After reading these types of responses in the past I, too, thought that I would provide this āserviceā as a way to check on the situation. I quickly surmised that a) my initial vetting of the guests had served me well, b) my visit was extremely intrusive and interrupted what had been an āat homeā atmosphere, which is what I encourage, and c) it forced the guests to pick up and pack up inconveniently. I would be mortified if a host came to find my personal belongings out and my living space out of order, which it can be on vacation with a large group. I say go with your gut. I send a mid-visit message to check on any needs. If you sense a need for that mid-week check, then do so, but I think it is intrusive unless there is a good reason. UPDATE: I should probably add that my place offers a laundry room with full size washer & dryer; guests generally have one bath sheet, one bath towel, and access to at least two more per guest, plus wash cloths & hand towels; and my average booking is for 8-10 people, often 15 or 20.
I ask my guests their preference. If they want a full cleaning, I will offer it for a fee. If they want fresh linens and towels, Iāll leave them out for them. Most guests seem to prefer that I donāt go into their space.
Iāve sent a note (no reply yet) saying since they are staying for 11 days I can stop by on say day 6 with a fresh set of towels if they wish. All I ask is they put their dirty ones in a bag I provide for me to collect and launder. I am not going to offer fresh bed linen since that means I have to make the beds again and I didnāt charge for that.
For the future, I suggest setting the price to include clean bed linens and towels every week (or more often, depending on weather). As a guest, I would want both done. And we always do the bed and towel changing ourselves as hosts, because we want to see the condition of the linens before they go into the laundry.
Itās always great when we have different points of view. It allows readers to weigh up the pros and cons of any situation. After all, all hosts are different, all rentals are different and all guests are different.
As @Brandt says, if a listing has laundry facilities, that makes a difference. It also depends how many towels the host leaves out for the guests. I leave four towels (each apartment sleeps 2 people) and most guests (particularly Americans) need fresh towels after just a few days.
Personally I wouldnāt want to sleep in the same bedding for eleven days (and many guests agree) but other hosts and guests feel differently. After all, even the bed āusageā is a factor which differs from guest to guest.
I also think that expecting paying guests to use the same sheets for 11 days is pushing the envelope. Just because Iāll sleep on my sheets for 2 weeks isnāt any reason to expect guests to. I offer after 1 week or halfway through the stay if they here are from 1-2 weeks (my max availibility). Iāve had guests who are here for 10 days say it wasnāt necessary, and others who gladly accepted. I just ask if they want me to change them, but all have opted to do it themselves.
I think itās probably a good idea to arrange a clean once every few weeks if a guest is there long-term, just to make sure guests arenāt living like pigs in there, but anything under that length of time I would think guests might not like, as they want to feel private.
You donāt have to make the beds again. Just offer them clean sheets and let them change it themselves. Surely guests whoāve paid for 11 days have paid enough for you to wash some sheets. If not, add a dollar to your nightly price.
Iām curious if you have you actually figured this out? Do you charge a cleaning fee? Do you give a discount for stays of 7-days or longer (as Airbnb recommends). How much does it cost you to launder the bedding and make the beds?
I offer a discount for 7-day stay or more and I have a one-off cleaning fee. But I and my wife do all the cleaning and I do all the laundry myself The cleaning fee doesnāt necessarily cover the actual cost of the cleaning but really our time which in reality could not be used to earn income anyway. If the guest wants the linen changed after 6 days then I will do it but Iām happy to offer a fresh set of towels after 6 days since that is less effort on my part.
That is the same dilemma I face. I have mattress protectors and pillow protectors. I would prefer to do the beds myself but my other half is on vacation when the guests are there and since I have a day job, I would have to come by in the evening to change the beds. This is a fully self-contained apartment in the city and I donāt live there.
I donāt really want to do that when the guests are around, I think I will wait to hear what they say viz. are they happy to have new towels dropped off and they leave their used ones in a bag I provide and not have the linen on the beds changed or happy for me to be around to change the beds. Or they go out for dinner or something while I do it.
I ask the guests at the beginning if they would like a change of bedsheets and towels after the first week. Some do, some donāt. If they do, I give them two laundry bags, one empty and one with the clean linen and towels. They do the change themselves and give me the dirty linen. I donāt mind doing an extra clean like this as Iām benefitting from having to do fewer changeovers.
A lot depends on how much youāre charging, of course. At our prices, guests expect fresh linens and towels. (I had one couple once who assumed that it was like a hotel and theyād get everything fresh every day!) But even with budget accommodation, cleanliness is important for the guests and equally important for the hosts, if not more so.
Another issue is the bed āusageā. This is something that as hosts we have to think about, like it or not. Iām not saying that couples over 70 donāt, but they are possibly likely to have less frequency that a couple in their 20s. Itās a fact (deduced after hundreds if not thousands of guests) that a post-menopausal female will have cleaner sheets than a couple in their twenties or thirties. Sorry but itās largely the case.
Both our rentals have a queen bed and therefore most of our guests are couples. (Singles happen but are fairly rare). Couples will do in bed what couples do in bed, regardless of age or orientation.
However even people who are not having sex, including single people, can have a scratch that bleeds onto the bed and they still have the full variety of non-sexual bodily fluids.
Personally, I want them washed off my sheets before eleven days are up.
I donāt ask guests if they want a mid-stay clean, linen and towel change, I tell them.
I agree that mid stay makes sense. I have frequent longer guests and I chat with them on the first day and suggest a linen change timeframe. They are always amenable and often say donāt bother. My towel supply is open to all guests so they can change towels as often as they like.