As a host yourself, you should understand that the cost to clean the unit is the cost to clean the unit. If you only stayed for two nights, would you expect that cleaners would do something like “cleaning lite”? My cleaners give the house the same level of all over cleaning regardless of how long guests stayed. They don’t charge me extra if the house is a disaster after a big group or a group that stayed longer or had dogs or small messy kids (I usually tip them in that scenario). So my cleaning fee is a fixed cost charged by cleaners. The fixed cost is obviously market-related, with big urban areas or areas where it is very difficult to find cleaners perhaps charging higher rates. Hopefully hosts are not using cleaning as a profit center. Hope that helps.
Hotels used to clean your room every night of your stay. So it was straightforward for them to include the cleaning fee - it was about the same every night you stayed. Cleaning between guests was only marginally more expensive than cleaning when a guest was in the room.
Most STR’s only clean before a guest arrives. So the math just doesn’t work out the same as a hotel that cleans regularly.
A hotel also has cleaners on staff- they arrive in the morning and clean rooms all day until the end of their shift. They can just be directed to clean whichever rooms are needed, as needed.
That is totally different from scheduling cleaners for what might be every day, if you take one-nighters, to 2 weeks, or whatever, between cleanings. Finding someone who can accommodate an ever-changing schedule, not to mention them having to drive from one cleaning job to another, perhaps 3 in a day, catering to how each host likes things done and set up, means str cleaners are going to cost more than daily, full-time hotel employees.
Also, cleaners are ‘by appointment’ and have narrow windows to work in - after guest 1 and before guest 2 - and have to get to your location. Thinking that a cleaner will work for minimum wage or a similar wage is absurd - and insulting considering that the cleaner is under pressure to be ‘perfect’.
It’s called a living wage.
Thank you so much!
(And it isn’t a hotel😄)
Im not commenting on the price. But I will say it is the same effort of cleaning after 1 day VS 7 days. So cleaning fee is not a counting days kind of thing.
One reason I prefer one night stays is because I don’t charge a cleaning fee and it is indeed less cleaning than a longer stay. Maybe two nights and 6 nights are the same. I’m not
disputing anyone’s experience but in mine, it’s not the same if it’s one day or several days.
One day stays use fewer towels, so there is less laundry. Certain things don’t have to be restocked because the guest didn’t use it all like q-tips, refillable soaps (I’m not one that always tops off), kleenex. There’s more dust and dirt, more caked on, dried up stuff stuck everywhere. There’s more dried water spots that take more effort to polish off. People staying longer eat and drink more and produce more trash. There’s more hair on everything, and doing things like running the sticky roller over the sheets before washing takes longer. Organic stains multiply like magic. Stuff that gets sprayed on the mirror (perfume, hair product?) is greater in volume and adhesion.
Maybe it’s not an unbearable added effort, but it’s 100% not “same.”
That’s probably quite true for the vast majority of one-night bookings. Also if guests just need a place to sleep and shower, arrive fairly late and get back on the road early.
But I’ve also read posts where the hosts couldn’t believe what a mess the guests managed to create in the 15 hrs they were there.
With probably 500+ one night bookings under my belt, I’m sure it’s true for the vast majority. Here, it’s probably true for 90% of them and that’s with a good percentage having dogs with them. However, almost none have young children and I’m right here and do my own cleaning. I could imagine that personalizing the experience, or guests realizing I’m going to be going in right after they leave might alter their behavior.
The youngsters who left the big mess almost got a message saying “are you coming back because your unfinished breakfast is still sitting on the table.” But I decided just getting to work cleaning was a better use of my time.
I could come up with all kinds of rationales of why my experience is different than many others and also probably not the norm internationally.
I know there are lots of people like you who are unhappy about cleaning fees. I recently moved away from charging cleaning fees, and I hide it in my daily rate using discounts for longer stays. So guests still pay a cleaning fee, but they don’t see it broken out and they are happy that I didn’t charge them a cleaning fee.
I did this too, starting in January. I have bookings into the fall, with some gaps until then but not lots. I do not give a discount for longer stays but for some reason I am still getting more 7-10 day bookings than I ever did last year (when I gave a discount for 1 week). My theory is that being able to search for total price of the stay is helping me relative to my competition, since I also don’t charge a pet fee.
Big budget where to get normal budget
I don’t think that the fee is too much either… but then I figure the cleaning cost into the price of the room. I’m not fond of the extra cleaning fee charge. Although I do list a few bucks, just because. Don’t ask me questions. I’m too tired to think things logically right now.
One advantage of listing a cleaning fee is that it gives you (or AirBnB CS) a monetary value to start if the guest complains the property is dirty.
That just made me think- when the cleaning fee is separate, if a guest cancels after they are past a full refund cut-off date, they get the entire cleaning fee back, plus any refund due under your cancellation policy. If the cleaning fee is rolled into the nightly fee, the host would come out financially ahead compared to if it was separate.
Yes, absolutely. I’ve seen a lot of hosts say that it’s exactly why they are rolling their cleaning fee into their prices.
It
It works both ways though. It gives guests less of an incentive to cancel, and your calendar remains blocked.
I have rolled cleaning fees into the nightly rate. So, I have offered a separate cleaning fee refund to guests to encourage them to cancel.
No, I habe a 250m2 House where charge a €300 cleaningfee. It takes 20 hours to properly clean (and I have 6 hours between check-out and check-in)
And it does not matter if 2 guest stay 1 night or 12 for a whole week, the procedure is exactly the same.
I mostly have a 5-7 night minimum. But during the low season I accept 2 night stays. And people still book knowing they pay a high cleaning fee.
And guest compliment on how clean it is.
And I am not making any profit on it, it is exactly what I have to pay my cleaners. I even loose some money because of taxes.
And the host is right. As a host you should know to read a listing before booking.