Extra Oven Cleaning

instead of recommending an expensive upgrade, I recommend inexpensive oven liners. we also line all baking trays in alfoil to try to mitigate mess (and we can tell if someone used the oven).

you can’t charge them but you can ding them for cleanliness, for sure.

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I know exactly why people who book on Airbnb instead of getting a proper monthly rental agreement don’t clean the oven. But I don’t understand why your cleaner doesn’t clean the oven when she goes in.

It’s worth doing the math on this!

Changing out sheets does not prevent them from being ruined. Every new set of sheets that your tenant (“guest”) uses has the same opportunity to be damaged as the first set of sheets. Likewise, paying someone to go in and wash them doesn’t keep them from being ruined either (especially if it’s only every 2 weeks).

Most importantly, both scenarios will end up costing you more money than what it would cost to replace the one original set of (possibly damaged) sheets. Instead, I recommend that you only provide the one set of sheets for each bed and put the cost into your rental rate and/or cleaning fee (assuming a cleaning fee is legal for your location) for replacement.

They can wash them themselves (or not) but you’ll save money and time by not giving them new sets nor paying someone to wash them every 2 weeks. And on the occasion that they aren’t damaged (they aren’t always), then you’ve pocketed extra money that you weren’t counting on.

Same with the cleaner (they aren’t even cleaning the oven, right?). It’s worth doing the math!

Perhaps you have a steal of a deal on the cleaner but perhaps you could save the every-2-weeks cleaning cost and then put it in on a single more thorough cleaning when your tenants checkout. And also provide a starter kit of cleaning supplies, a broom, vacuum and mop in your unit.

If it’s about getting a peek in on your property, then it’s much cheaper and less time-consuming (5 min) to give notice and change out the batteries on the smoke detectors or the filter for the water or the AC, etc. Or, just be totally honest and put in your agreement that you do an inspection after 2 weeks and then monthly - inspections have the added benefit of motivating some cleaning from your tenants (“guests”).

And don’t forget that in a worst-case scenario where you have a lot of damage (real damage, not sheets or towels) or extreme filth you likely do have landlord rights and do can claim in your local court. You don’t need a lawyer and it’s generally inexpensive ($100 in my city).

Unfortunately some renters don’t take the hint. :wink:
For sure good idea to leave cleaning supplies, though.

I did a curtain installation in a rental condo here, which involved bringing along my welder to mount the curtain rods he’d made. The unit was unoccupied, but had obviously already been cleaned, and guests were arriving the following day. There was a bit of a mess on the floor from the drilling that had to be done, so I searched high and low for a broom and couldn’t find one anywhere.

When I told the property manager that the floor needed to be swept where we had been working, and I would have done it had I been able to locate a broom, he told me all those cleaning supplies were locked up in the cleaners’ closet in the condo building’s main hallway.

I asked him what would happen if a guest dropped a glass on the tile floor at midnight- would they just have to walk around on broken shards of glass until the next day, when they could let him know to get the cleaner to come in?
He just shrugged, unconcerned.

Funny you ask.

This just happened today, and took the cleaners at least a half hour to clean.

The oven instructions say NOT to put foil at bottom of oven. So I just bought this

But I also added language to my listing that says that if deep cleaning of oven or refrigerator is required that a $50 deep cleaning fee applies (that’s what the cleaner will charge).

I understand the argument that it it should be included (we do not list a separate cleaning fee on our Airbnb listing) but I think it is unreasonable that the oven is left with baked-on food. Reasonable people can differ.

BTW, yes it is a self-cleaning oven but it is a pain the you-know-what, requires removing all the steel, and they ask you to clean first. Often the self-cleaning cycle does not get out baked-on food.

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If I found a a teflon liner in an oven, I’d remove it. No way I’d use the oven with that in there. Teflon is toxic.

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Well, that’s a very good point. We don’t have Teflon pans for that reason. Do you have an alternative suggestion given that the manual advises against aluminum foil. The manual says the foil could melt.

This one has PTFE:

I wonder if there is a difference with Teflon that comes in contact with your food, and a liner unless the liner off-gasses teflon gas (?).

No, sorry. I homeshare and I can’t recall any guest ever even using my oven, even the ones who did a lot of cooking. So I’ve never faced the filthy oven chore.

Years ago, when I had some housesitters from hell, who did a lot of damage to my place, I found the bottom tray at the base of the oven, over the element, in my gas oven with a huge 2 inch long gash, all buckled up, in it. I wracked my brain trying to come up with what on earth they could have done that would have resulted in that, but came up empty.

My first guest in one of my houses “helpfully” put foil on in the bottom of the brand new oven right on top of the words “do not put foil on bottom of oven” before cooking her pizza. The foil melted into the floor of the oven and we had to buy a new panel for the oven.

surely it’s standard to have a dustpan&broom under the kitchen sink? bare minimum.

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Like a little wisk broom? I never thought to look for that, but I doubt it. I’ve never seen those used here in Mexico, although I’ve seen them for sale. What they use here as far as cleaning supplies is pretty limited. A broom and a string mop they wring out by hand. Most cleaners won’t even use a vacuum cleaner. It’s like they’re scared of it or something.

A friend brought down an industrial mop pail on wheels with a wringer, thinking his cleaner would be thrilled. She used it once, stuck it in the storage closet, and went back to wringing the mop out by hand.

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how very odd. those little brooms & pans are very cheap.
I would have though somewhere like Mexico that is heavily touristy would have excellent cleaners and products available.

It’s not a matter of the cleaning tools being cheap, it’s that they have their traditional ways of doing things and they are really resistant to change. Piton View said her cleaners in St. Lucia are quite similar and also won’t use the vacuum cleaner.

Unless you find a cleaner here who has been doing it a long time and working in high end places who have been taught what is expected, you have to train them yourself.

I had a cleaner for 5 years, actually also she’s a neighbor, who was like gold. She was really thorough, and if she didn’t get around to something one day, she’d remember and tackle it the next time.

There’s some perception here that if it’s not visible, it doesn’t need to be cleaned, or they just don’t think of it. They’ll clean the fridge out nicely, clean the doors and the sides, but leave half an inch of dust on top. I had to show my current cleaning gal to clean under the kicks under the sink cabinets- she’d sweep and mop, but there would be dog hair and cobwebs hanging down from the top of the kick. One day she took everything out from under the kitchen sink and washed it all, washed the inside of the cupboard, and just put everything back without drying it- I opened the cupboard doors a few hours later to find it totally wet in there, and of course starting to smell funky and musty.

Last time she came (I just have her come for 4 hrs once every two weeks), I asked her to clean the 4 wooden chairs with cane seats, telling her to scrub the seats with a brush from the top and the bottom, as there was dust and dead bugs stuck in there. She did a good job on that, but it never occurred to her to wipe down the rest of the chair- the wood parts were still covered in dust.

And they’ll keep mopping the floors with the same pail of dirty black water, instead of changiing out the water, seeming to think if they dump half a bottle of cleaning product in, that makes the floors clean.

They love cleaning products, and there are multiple aisles of them in the grocery stores, most of them heavily perfumed. And they love to use bleach, but almost everyone I know has forbidden their cleaners from using it, because they somehow manage to splash it everywhere. Bleach spots on undersink curtains, bedspreads, colored towels.

this is such a mystery to me, why those types of mops are even in use, and how people think using dirty to clean is a thing.

haha, in my house that is called ‘boy clean’ :rofl:
and by “not visible” I mean “he doesn’t look there”

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Yes, my neighbor is a single guy my age. He’s quite tidy, never has a pile of dirty dishes, everything looks good on the surface. But the other day he called me over to help him because he had spotted a coral snake in his house that he thought he’d seen slither behind the little wardrobe. He didn’t want it to get away while he slid the piece of furniture away from the wall, so wanted me to watch. I couldn’t believe the amount of dirt and crud behind there. This is not a massive piece of furniture- it’s a small wardrobe about half a meter wide- I could slide it around myself.

( The snake wasn’t there, but I spotted it a few minutes later, slithering out from under the bedside table, which he also never moves)

As I said, set on their ways. They are pretty much the only kind of mops available here. They do sell sponge mops, but they are so cheaply made that they wouldn’t last for long.

@muddy - everything you said is the same for St Lucia cleaners! I think the philosophy is - it will just get dirty again so why bother cleaning it? It’s especially challenging for us because we are an open-air house (no glass over the windows and the doors are not sealed) and the doors are always left open to “let the view in”. We’re basically the definition of “glamping”.

I don’t usually get complaints because the overall experience is so wonderful, but we had a recent a@@hole guest (for other reasons) that pulled the “there were some cleaning opportunities when we got here, and we found a dead roach in a drawer” mid-way through their stay that may or may not have been true, but I refunded their cleaning fee anyway to avoid a bigger claim.

So I just added this disclaimer to the description: Our open-air design is wonderful for natural ventilation, but it also means things from outside, such as dust and leaves and small creatures (insects, geckos/anoles, and perhaps even an occasional mouse, bat or bird) will get in the villa. We treat or set traps to minimize pests, but no treatment is 100% effective. And also stated in the house rules that we don’t refund if they find any of those in the villa.

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I asked him what would happen if a guest dropped a glass on the tile floor at midnight- would they just have to walk around on broken shards of glass until the next day, when they could let him know to get the cleaner to come in?
He just shrugged, unconcerned.
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I make sure there is a broom, dust pan, and swiffer visible for guests if they should need to clean any spills etc.

We once had a guest who was so high they grabbed just the swiffer without putting a pad on it and attempted to clean what I’m guessing was pizza sauce. I had to clean both the floor and the swiffer.

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I feel your pain. I have taken to running all the dishes through a dishwasher cycle after all of my guests leave. After having found dirty pots and frying pans, plates floating in water and glasses with smudges and fingerprints all over them. I don’t trust any guest any more :frowning: Same with linens…Some people use them and put them back in the closet. I fold them a particular way so if I see them back in the closet, I check the folding to determine if they were used. If they were used and touched anything else in the closet, I wash everything. Cleaning is always huge for me.

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I actually did that myself to my own oven…I thought it was a good idea to catch the spills but I’ve never been able to remove all traces of the foil as it seems to have baked into the oven floor :cry:

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