Dilemma - As I'm not superwoman, might have to wind things back a bit

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A family member had surgery recently and I’ve moved in with her. It is wonderful and difficult at the same time.
Dilemma is what to do with the air bnb. Not living in my own house it is doing my head in trying to race over there (five minutes up the road) and have linen etc and all other supplies ready for the cleaner.

I’ve got a few bookings coming up which admittedly are fairly spaced out.

I worked really hard to achieve super host status but I am not sure it’s sustainable. Has anyone else put a pause on their hosting or do you lose your status if you reduce the number of nights per period dramatically?

I have a full time job too so have carers coming in in the weekdays daytime to care for my Mum. I have always squeezed the most out of every day but i have become a clock watcher like you wouldn’t believe. Yesterday I left my own house completely open for 24 hours just from running around like a maniac to get the cottage ready.

I thought of getting the neighbour to completely manage it - do washing, get supplies etc and take a percentage of the income (she’s already cleaning it sometimes ) . Has anyone done this / Not sure if it would be worthwhile.

Thanks AIRBNB Peeps ! I think i know the answer but I am wistful, as I do love hosting.

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Here are the standards for Superhost:

I think that would be more stressful than what you are doing.

Just keep the existing reservations and block off days. Change your settings to have two days between bookings going forward and block more as needed.

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You can pause it without any penalties by blocking the calendar. I usually just block the days on the calendar for the months Dec-March and I haven’t lost my superhost status. I did notice that my listing moves down a page but that’s okay.

Wishing your mom a speedy recovery.

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Why don’t you make your cleaner do everything from beginning to end? As soon as you find someone who knows how turn around Airbnbs you don’t even have to participate.
My cleaner knows exactly what to do and I don’t even give her instructions anylonger

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That’s a good tip wonderlust . Thank you and good to know you’re alreayd doing it. It is a modest operation though and would need to be worth her while (and mine of course) .

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Thank you Ritz. Means a lot. :slight_smile: She’s a great age and there are complex issues.

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Do you charge your guests cleaning fees?

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Interesting. I didn’t know that was a thing, but I had the same experience after I recently had to close up for a month.

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Since the # of nights hosted stat for Superhost is based on the previous 365 days leading up to each assessment period, not the 3 month period itself, as long as you can maintain 10 bookings in the year before each assessment, you’ll be fine.

I have blocked off 3 months almost every year in the summer (not tourist season here- too hot and humid). One, because I normally go to Canada for 6 weeks in the summer to visit my kids and grandkids, two, because I use that time to fix things up, and three because even if the calendar is open then, I have rarely gotten a booking from May- Oct.

But I had enough bookings the rest of the year to make that 10 per year at each assessment.

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Yes. 40 dollars but doesn’t cover what I pay the cleaner.

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Had not thought of that.
Thank you

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May I ask why you don’t charge your guests same as you pay your cleaner?

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Sure! I started off charging $30 for cleaning and then I increased it to 40 but I paid the cleaner more because she was fantastic.
I’ve got a minimum of two nights but yeah of course I realise I’m going backwards on the cleaner as it stands currently.

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I started with 2 nights minimum but switched to 1 week long ago.

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You should charge what you should be paying your cleaner, plus another 15% because air is charging you that. Why would you not do that? It’s a business.

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