It’s always hard to tell how many have stayed because a big group could be neat & a small group could be messy and sometimes four people want to sleep in four beds.
At that price, and if she’s good you want to keep her. If she won’t accept a pay rise would she take a bonus based on a number or percentage of 5* cleanliness reviews?
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I hired 2 different cleaners because I wanted to plan and be prepared if one of the cleaners weren’t available or didn’t do the job properly. This way, I had another cleaner ready and able. They didn’t know how many cleaners I hired and it wasn’t really their business.
One of the cleaners wasn’t as reliable so I stopped calling her. Then I went looking for another cleaner while my main cleaner was doing all the work. I didn’t miss a beat and after a while, I found another cleaner. Now I have 2 cleaners sharing workload but I’m not worried if one can’t make it.
I don’t have them as co-host so they don’t know when guests are booked. Number of guests doesn’t matter and they don’t know how many guests have been booked.
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That’s a good idea, thank you.
IMO cleaning is too important an issue to cut corners financially. I do my own cleaning and it takes me 3 - 4 hours to do each apartment and they are pretty small. (490 sq and 600 sq ft).
Cleaning to Airbnb 5 star standard is too important to be left to regular house cleaners or teenagers.
I used to have a great cleaner in my own home a few years ago. He was pretty detail-oriented and my house always looked great. But he was ‘just’ a regular cleaner and I wouldn’t have employed him to do Airbnb cleaning; it really is so important.
The cleaner who charges by the number of guests seems to not really understand what’s what. More guests means more laundry admittedly, but I’ve never found that more guests means that the windows have to be cleaned more or the shower curtains have to be laundered twice or the beds need more cleaning underneath etc. etc.
I used a cleaner on our current apartments when I was in the hospital. Despite the fact that there was a comprehensive cleaning manual (online so it could be referred to on the phone during cleaning) she was pretty hopeless. She was recommended as a regular cleaner but didn’t clean to Airbnb standards at all. She also took only about two hours to get an apartment ready.
Sometimes 2 piggy guests can manage to totally trash out a place in one 24 hour period, and a group of 6 could leave it looking great after a week-long stay. Aside from more laundry, you can’t really link the number of guests to the time it takes to clean.
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I’ve had exactly that experience a few times. Well, not the place trashed but my oft-recounted tomatoes-under-the-ottoman guests made a lot of mess in 24 hours. Although both apartments are listed for a maximum of 2 guests, I’ve had repeat guests - an older couple - who have brought their daughter and her husband into our larger place because it has a posh sofa bed. When the four of them leave you’d think no one had been there. 
Yeah, when I said trashed I didn’t mean the place was destroyed, with damaged stuff, more like they’re the kind of people who eat and drop food everywhere, never bother to wipe up a spill or a greasy countertop, unwrap a candy bar and can’t be bothered to put the wrapper in the bin, just leave it on the end table, slop and drip their bathroom products everywhere, that kind of thing. In other words, it’s pretty much like you had a couple of 4 year-olds staying.
Or put tomatoes under the ottoman. I’m a pretty laid back host and sometimes think I’ve seen it all (I haven’t, it’s not possible) and the tomatoes/ottoman guests were four or five years ago but it’s still a mystery I haven’t solved. What were the tomatoes doing there???
Game of hide and seek? They got distracted before the tomatoes were found and forgot about them? They went shopping and dropped the bag of groceries and they rolled under the ottoman and they never thought to look there? They were f**king with your head? “Hey I know, let’s leave a couple of tomatoes under the ottoman- I’ll bet the host goes nuts trying to figure out why that would ever happen.” 
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I agree if you have time and availability. But if you are working and host multiple listing, cleaning yourself isn’t an option.
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Yes totally this! I need a second one as well. Season came when I wasn’t expecting it. Lack of planning on my part!
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Yes agreed! My messiest guests ever were only 4 people. I’ve had 8 people stay and it looked like no one ever stayed there!
I do work and I do have multiple listings.
Actually I’m messing with you a bit there. I have two listings and I do freelance work at home so I do a lot of careful scheduling.
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Great job finding a replacement quickly. May we ask what hourly rate that is?
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35 an hour. Going rate for this area. Homes are spread out, more driving time place to place.