Same. I charge a USD$30 cleaning fee with a 3-night minimum stay requirement because if I don’t, I am not in line with my competition, which tends to charge hefty cleaning fees. Otherwise I would drop it altogether.
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I really appreciate everyone’s feedback. I increased our nightly price and reduced the cleaning fee to $60. I will report back on how this goes with the house. I do wonder if some people are just dirty.
In regards to the review, I am leaving them a three for house rules and cleanliness and a thumbs down for hosting again.
As a side note, I just had a request for 10 people in my house that sleeps seven. The guest stated that does the occupancy include children 14 and under. 
I declined and responded that our house sleeps seven people only. I envisioned people sleeping all over the house and floors. 
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Yes, some people are. I look after a little one room studio casita next door that rents to long term tenants. The place is 5 meters by 4 meters. Every time there is a change of tenants and I clean the place, I am shocked. How can they live in a tiny place for 9 months and never pull even a lightweight little end table away from the wall and sweep behind it? How can they put their clean dishes on a shelf covered in dust and dead bugs?
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from time to time we pop in to help a guest with the fireplace or to drop off something they’ve requested, and more often i’m appalled at what a mess people have made. Granted, they are on vacation but yikes, how can they stand it? it’s a reason i don’t put too many trinkets about, once a guest has “unpacked” the place can look very cluttered.
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I think it may have something to do with the fact that I only host one guest in a single room. All fly in or take the bus from another area of Mexico, so they don’t arrive with a carload of stuff.
That’s different from a family or a bunch of friends staying in an entire house. And most of my guests seem to be seasoned travelers. People who are used to travelling a lot tend to keep their stuff tidy and not spread out too much, so they don’t end up forgetting things when they pack up to leave.
But many people are just messy by nature. Rather than walk 3 steps to put something back where it goes when they’re done with it, they just set it down wherever they happen to be. It doesn’t take long for things to become chaotic.
I always put things back where they live right away, not because I’m fastidiously tidy, but because one of my pet peeves is wasting time looking for anything.
My sewing workshop can get quite messy, with fabrics and projects piled up everywhere if I have a lot of work to complete, but the scissors, seam rippers, measuring tapes, etc. are always put back in the same place and quick to access.
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We have a three bedroom rental. Recently rented to a couple with five children under age 10 for 3 1/2 weeks. I left clean sheets in each of the bedrooms so they could change the beds.
When we went in to clean, there were crushed and whole cheerios and shreddies all over the house. I had to vacuum before I could even start to clean. Cereal had been spilled around the kitchen table and dried… stuck on cereal was stuck to two table legs and several of the chair legs and seats. I had to wash the kitchen floor three times before it got back to my normal, using a scrubber and a scraper. The wall behind the table was all scraped from chairs being carelessly shoved around, even though I have a chair rail. (Wall paint was on the chair backs)
Upstairs, floors were equally littered with dry cereal and evidence of several spills not properly cleaned up on the hardwood. The upstairs bathroom with a black ceramic tile floor looked like there was a toothpaste fight at some point. It’s hard to clean dried toothpaste from black grout! One hook for hanging towels was pulled off the wall, the other for hand towels was hanging and had to have new plugs and be reinstalled. None of the extra bedding was actually used but it was in the laundry pile, mostly still folded up.
Damage to the wall in one bedroom required plaster and repainting of a wall to repair. A night table also was so badly marked up that it had to be sanded and repainted.
Most of the walls had to be washed from floor to about four feet up. Likewise, glass on doors and windows.
The fridge had spills not properly wiped up and two of the door shelves are now stained yellow with I don’t know what.
Yes, I charge a $75 cleaning fee…but it took me about four days to get everything ready for another guest. I had to wash mattress and pillow protectors, blankets, throws, bedspreads, six sets of sheets…. Luckily, we had a break in our bookings.
How to rate a guest like this? Idk, they were a really nice couple and the children were all very sweet. Thinking I may not want to host any more families like this though.
You’re not rating their niceness or sweetness. You’re rating their interaction with your space. Apparently some ‘really nice’ people are disrespectful and crude.
Your cleaning fee does not replace parental guidance.
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You mean you wouldn’t normally wash those things between guests? Most hosts do and should. And to think that isn’t normal after a 3 week booking is pretty strange.
Some people are just slobs whether they have kids or not. But I think Cherrios and such all over are pretty normal to find after a family with 3 young kids. Mark them down in the cleanliness rating, but I think your expectations don’t really jive with a long booking with little kids. Some parents might be the type to insist that food only be consumed at the table, and clean up before they leave, but some won’t be so inclined.
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No, they really weren’t. Nice people and sweet children do not leave a house requiring that many repairs. I’d rate them 1-star all the way and click “do not host again” so that they can’t easily do this to another host.
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The cheerios were the least of the issue. She had to replaster and repaint a wall. I haven’t had to replaster even after someone stayed for 3 years, much less 3 weeks. That is damage by any measurement.
But even leaving cheerios all over the house shows that they have no respect for someone else’s property. It is not expected that they behave as they do at home, it is expected that they behave like they are in someone else’s property.
This is from the terms of service, under guest responsibilities. These people did not leave the place in the condition it was found. There was damage.
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Oh, I agree that some bits of food scattered around is completely different from damages that need to be repaired and that those things aren’t excusable.
I guess I wasn’t clear that I was trying to point out that having to wash all the bedding is normal hosting protocol, and kids dropping food around isn’t that shocking, as it seems many parents these days don’t enforce any behavior rules with their kids, and you have to vacuum everything anyway- I wasn’t excusing the lack of respect, lack of attempt to clean up, and the damages.
My kids were taught from the time they could sit at the table on their own that food is only to be consumed there and I can’t imagine leaving someone else’s home in such state, regardless of whether one has kids or not.
And I have never really understood what people mean by “nice”, as I’ve read hosts characterizing guests as “nice”, when to me, the behavior described is not what I consider to be that of “nice” people at all.
Anyway, it is the actions of guests that are what we rate and review on, not their personalities. Unfriendly people with no social graces can still be 5 star guests, and cheerful, friendly, sweet people can be guests from hell that no one would want to host.
I think that’s agreed upon. The comment sounded like frustration from having to do all of that on top of all of the damage. And that it was 6 sets instead of 3 sets because she gave them 2 sets for each bed. It was just an extra hit on top of everything else, because it was double the bedding, not that she doesn’t wash everything between guests, only that giving extra sheets wasn’t even appreciated.
They didn’t even use the extra sheets because they were still folded up but in the laundry. And what that means is that they didn’t change the sheets for 3 weeks, because they acted like wild animals in her property. It’s just a symptom. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way too. But it doesn’t have anything to do with not expecting to wash bedding in between guests.
I recommend that you only give one set and account for the cost of them in your pricing. People will either change their sheets or they won’t but there’s no use in giving two sets to be destroyed or to be cleaned by you later.
And I know that some hosts here will recommend that you go in once a week and change the bedding for them and that’s an option too. However, you’re still giving them additional bedding to be destroyed everytime you change the sheets unless you wash them and put them back on, stains and all. Personally I don’t see the point in the extra work unless they’re paying extra for it and it will also change your tax status if you’re in the US so there’s a lot to consider.
You’re absolutely correct. I guess up to now, we have been very lucky with our guests. We have had mostly adults with some teenage children. This was our first experience with small children. Having said that, I wasn’t really sure what we should be expecting.
Thanks for clarifying that JJD. You’re so right. I was beyond frustrated…I’ve never had to wash my floors more than once. Ceramic tile is okay to use scrapers on but the hardwood was much more challenging. If we had had another guest like normal, these people would have left at 11 one day and the next guests would have arrived at 3 the next afternoon. I never could have accomplished all the standard stuff plus the repairs in that time.
Most of our guests stay for a week or less. Last time I had guests for a little over two weeks, I handed them fresh sheets and towels after the first week and asked them to hand me out the used stuff to be washed. Perhaps I should have handled it that way this time. I just thought it would be easier for them if they had the sheets and could change them at their convenience. Obviously, that didn’t work well. Frankly, I don’t want my beds slept in for more than a week without a sheet change. Even with two mattress covers, I’m afraid of anything getting through to the mattresses. I do spray them regularly with disinfectant spray. Can I put that in my house rules?
I don’t care how nice they were, that’s disgusting.
1* across the board and a review that tells the truth about the damages.
Also, you should put in a damage request with ABB (or should have from the start).
And a would not host again.
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I’ve never read that, who reads the fine print? Of course I’m a great guest (for the two 1 month stays we did i took my robot vac with me), possibly not “sweet” or “nice” though, haha.
I think i’ll add that Abb TOS to my ever-growing Guest Manual…
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That’s brilliant. And I’ve been thinking about getting one anyway. We travel with our dog so it would be really helpful. I do bring lint rollers and those help a lot. No one’s ever going to accuse my dog of sleeping under the covers 
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@JJD yes, it was because we had a dog and a cat on both stays. but i’m just so used to having one now, and running it each day around the place. both times we were relocating interstate and waiting for new house to be available, not sure i’d take it on a beach vacation, but who knows, who wants to sweep every day while you’re on vacation? yes, I know, champagne problems!
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I leave a broom amd dustpan in my guest ensuite bathroom behind the door. I don’t care if they sweep up or not, but as my guests go to the beach everyday, and it’s impossible not to bring some sand back, I figure they might not want to walk around on sandy floors in their bare feet.
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I don’t know what part of the country you’re in but in most places all the food and sticky stuff all over the floor would attract ants and mice. I had a friend stay with me a month in May. She had access to my kitchen but she also kept food in her room and consumed some of it there, I suspect in the late night or early morning when she was trying to stay quiet. She took out her trash daily. Still, when she checked out there were ants in the room it took me three days to eliminate.
If I had a place big enough to rent to families I’d shorten the max stay; maybe 4 nights.
Also, make it easy and obvious for guest to do a little tidying if they are staying several days. Broom and dustpan or a hand vac like a dustbuster is great for sucking up Cherrios. Make sure there are plenty of cloths or paper towels.
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