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If there were just a few, I’d say the same. And if she has to wipe off a few, wiping off 100 probably isn’t much different.
What that many child hand prints indicates, though, is that these women just let their kids do whatever. It’s pretty irresponsible to let 3 kids under the age of 7 touch someone else’s electronic equipment at all.
That letting the kids do whatever is also evident in there being food all over the house. While you may have found that normal, based on experience with family and friends, I don’t consider it so and I raised 3. I also have 6 grandkids and none of my daughter’s houses are a mess just because they have kids.
Many parents these days seem to be lacking the consciousness that one of our jobs as parents is to civilize our children.
@Rolf Thanks for including the link to “Ground Rules for Guests”. I don’t remember seeing that before and I agree that “Treat my home like your own” is a disaster waiting to happen. I guess the unspoken rules I’m thinking of is to not leave an excessive mess, but even that is subjective.
@muddy that’s a really good point about the handprints. Cleaning didn’t really take any longer but maybe I was unwittingly wanting to imply that her kids clearly weren’t supervised.
We’ve hosted many families with little ones and almost all have been wonderful, even though it’s sometimes a bit more time consuming to clean.
But I’ll definitely be rethinking my house rules and check-out instructions, for sure. Even though it’s driving my husband crazy that I haven’t posted my review yet, I’m going to sleep on it one more night. Thanks again for your help, people.
This is such a great question, thank you for posting it. And the responses have been thoughtful and thought-provoking.
I only want to add that many airbnb guests do not think of your home as a “home,” but as a place they paid to stay in (a hotel does not require you to clean). It is also clear to me that a significant number of guests do not read the house rules.
I have been taken aback a few times by guests who leave gross trash or wet towels on furniture (or other things that seem disrespectful to me), but I believe that is the “cost of doing business” in this arena.
I will confess: when I am traveling and choosing a place to stay as a guest, I will not choose an airbnb that requires extensive cleaning (sweep, strip beds, etc). But I am a guest who actually reads the house rules lol.
@DanieNY I totally agree with re: when I travel and stay at an Airbnb… I don’t stay at houses with extensive cleaning rules. I understand that every host has different needs and I suspect that those of us on this site are some of the more hands-on hosts out there. Why else would be spending this much mental energy on this stuff!
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by 90% of our guests and how tidy they leave our house. As for towels, I have so so so many hooks throughout the house and so far, I’ve been lucky that the wet towels have been hung up.
I think Airbnb urged hosts to put the check-out list in the house rules not too long ago, but some hosts don’t, so reading the house rules might not help.
My son-in-law travels a lot on business and uses Airbnbs. He’s a thorough listing reader. He said he hates it when he’s charged a cleaning fee and then finds a list of “strip the bed, start a load of wash” chores only in the house manual in the unit.
I’ve never been a guest, but if I was and encountered that, I simply wouldn’t bother to do those things, and I’d let the host know why not. Springing that stuff
on guests only after arrival isn’t right.
Maybe I’m an outlier, but I wouldn’t mention in the public review. A guest new to Airbnb, particularly if there is a cleaning fee, might act as they would in a hotel room, and assume that crumbs and smears are taken care of by the cleaning crew.
UNLESS you have something specific in your check out instructions, e.g., “Please clean up spills, sweep crumbs and dirt from the floor, and wipe down surface smudges prior to check out. Cleaning products and tools are in the pantry.”
I would just be happy they managed to check out on time, wrangling 3 young children!
I might send a private note: "The small guests left quite a trail of food bits and smears that required some extra cleaning time on our part. This is understandable when traveling with children. But for your future Airbnb stays, hosts may expect excessive crumbs, spills and smudges to be cleaned up by the guest prior to check out and will downgrade guest ratings if not taken care of. When in doubt, check with the host.
I’m not sure why people would think a guest allowing their kids to carry food all over the house and not bother to clean it up is any more understandable than a guest leaving the yard covered in dog poop. The adults are responsible for cleaning up after those who travel with them, be it dogs or children, when they are not capable of cleaning up after themselves.
Your comment ’ it was so nice to actually meet our guests’ makes me feel so sad. It’s meeting my guests that is at the core of everything I do at my B&B.
I live on the premises, I speak to my guests, I give them advice (if they want it!) I help them to plan outings. That is what doing B&B is.
This is what I always hope to be recognised as ‘value’ when getting a review from a guest. If the guest is interested we’re there to provide additional help with whatever they need. Something they might not even get when staying at a hotel or other special requests.
The off-site multi listings in huge apartment buildings with paper thin walls often show reviews complaining about the host not even being reachable, nor able to intervene in a timely fashion. We strive to actually be there for our guests any time they need help.
I’m certain that the algorithm is set up such that you can’t stop children coming now, as an exclusion, as it’s considered discriminatory. (Maybe this is just in California). Even if you have jaw-dropping heights , wild tigers, etc. You can put in the safety section all the reasons why your listing isn’t suitable for kids - but you can’t stop ‘em coming.
The thing that I do at checkout, is add a selfie of me hanging out with our cleaning guy in the rental, all dolled up with our feather dusters. It seems to bounce people into better behavior at check out when they realize real humans (on an hourly wage usually) have to clean up behind them.
I love that!
A friend of mine, back when she was 18, moved into a big house with a bunch of her same age friends. She thought it was going to be so much fun, but she was the only one who ever cleaned anything.
One day, after cleaning the bathroom for the umpteenth time, she came into the living room, where her roommates were all sitting around drinking beer, waving the toilet brush, saying “Okay, it’s someone else’s turn to scrub the toilet next time!”
One of her roommates looked up and said, “Silly- no one cleans toilets.”
The girl apparently thought toilets were self-cleaning and didn’t realize her mother cleaned the toilet for the 18 years she lived with her parents.
Thanks for legislative overview , my point was Airbnb policy. See Airbnb non-discrimination policy updated end Jan of this year. If you can tell me where on my listing it’s possible to restrict booking based on age of children please do, as far as I’m concerned my ability to do that flipped in Jan and now all I can do is flag under ‘Safety Concerns’z
The point being that Air updated policy on non-discrimination due to age is not limited to the >40, as is common in workplaces and at state level. It’s defined as any age.
Very happy to be proved wrong on this one.(again. they could be selectively applying this California because always…)
Please do lmk if I missed something.
We recently had guests not declaring their 5 year old son and made a 2 adult reservation. We let them stay anyways as the studio allows up to 3 people (2 adults max. + 1 child). However, a 3 person reservation would normally cost extra. We didn’t make any waves but that would be probably the last time we handled it this way.
What I’m trying to say is - how do you handle a situation where you wouldn’t allow children but the guests still show up with one, never having made a reservation for it? Would that be grounds for a penalty free cancellation?
I only host one person at a time, so never run into this, but if I hosted more, this is the kind of thing I would ask when guests book or request to book.
“I see you have booked for 2 guests. Please ensure that this is the correct number of people, including children, who will be staying, and change the guest count if not”.
If guests show up with more than they booked for, I’d very matter-of-factly say, “Oh, there’s 3 of you. Your booking said 2 guests- I’ll send an alteration to the booking right now for you to accept- our insurance requires that the guest count is accurate, and, as stated on our listing, we do have a small extra guest fee for a third guest”.
I don’t think cancelling a booking when the guests are on the doorstep, just because they showed up with a 5 year old, is the route I would want to take. I once had a guest spring her boyfriend on me after she arrived. After my initial shock (it’s not like my listing is for more than 1 and they were trying to avoid an extra guest charge- she just didn’t realize she couldn’t have someone else join her- she was a young Airbnb newbie), I said, “You’re both going to squish into that single bed for 5 nights?”
They said no problem, so I just said, "Okay, but I will have to charge you an extra XX to cover extra utilities, towels, etc.)
They turned out to be really nice kids and she left a great review.
That’s why I let it slide. I was just wondering what hosts are allowed to do if children would not be allowed but the guests decide to not mention them?
