I’ve never dried dishes in my life. They get washed, put in the dish drainer rack, and put away when they are dry.
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Well, the guests could do that as well and opt not to.
As in the classic scenario of checking-out of the accommodation and trying to make it look like they followed the house rules but tossing the wet dishes back into the cabinets.
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… came here to say the job of cleaning is the host’s. If you provide ‘china and silverware’, it is not the guest’s job to make it ready for the next guest.
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I never said that it wasn’t…
I never claimed that either.
The question was to what extent other hosts have to go when it comes to the kitchen cleaning after their guests leave, especially in regards to cleaning time and the associated costs.
I was just curious if it’s common when guests ‘who make the effort of cleaning’ by throwing forks with caked on food into the cutlery drawer or not bothering to dry off the freshly washed glasses but still put them in the cabinet dripping wet. Guests are free to just leave their dirty dishes in the sink. I would be less surprised than ‘going through those efforts’.
…also came here to say that a guest’s standards can be much different that yours (fyi these comments are not directed at you Hosterer!). The big mistake is what all beginners make when they put in their house rules to ‘treat our home like your own’ - they assume that the guest has things like common sense or a set of values.
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It isn’t a matter of “making it ready for the next guest”. Responsible respectful people don’t leave a pile of dirty dishes behind them. Hosts or their cleaners are not guests’ personal maids.
People washing their own dishes isn’t “the job of cleaning”. It’s more like wiping your butt- not something anyone should expect someone else to do for them unless they are incapacitated.
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Call me whatever you like, I’d really be startled (not in a good way) by single-use plastics or paper plates. The environmental cost is painful; the message it sends is bleak. Just, no.
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I am mystified by the same thing.
That, however, I can’t agree with. We charge a $160 cleaning fee for a 3,000ft2+ house. We do ask that the guests start the dishwasher before leaving, but that’s all. We typically turn back the places we rent in a fairly impeccable state, but I would not feel good being charged a cleaning fee AND being expected to sweep the place or do a significant amount of cleaning.
In fact, in the many, many STRs we have rented over the past 30 years (yes, before VRBO it was already possible), I have NEVER been asked to sweep.
I also don’t understand asking guests to sweep. Assuming the floor gets swept or vacuumed and washed between guests, and that guests are not necessarily going to do a stellar sweeping job, I don’t see the point.
We dropped the “cleaning” rule.
Our studio is 250 ft² and charge $20 and we don’t expect or want guests to clean. When we travel we sweep the rooms before we leave. It’s matter of respect for us - not that we ‘need’ or ‘have to do it’. Rest assured that we never would ask guests to do anything (even turning on the dishwasher) for a $160 cleaning fee. I can push that button myself - if the guests are so friendly to put the dishes into the dishwasher at least…
Obviously, we (have to) clean the STR as long as we charge a fee. At the beginning we thought it would be somewhat helpful if guests would do a quick ‘first run’ to get the most dirt and clutter out of the way. Some guests have the ability to make a place look like a bomb exploded, without leaving it dirty, technically speaking. Like I said, we dropped the rule - some guests are just immune to some pointers on how to keep a place decent looking - we figured, we cannot change that.
The thought we had, ‘imposing’ that rule was that guests would simply leave the place in a decent looking state. Most guests do that regardless of this rule, we know. After hosting more than 300 people, we noticed that some guests have no concept housekeeping or leaving the place the way they found it - as in putting away the iron into the cabinet where they found it initially instead of leaving the iron on the floor next to the bed and the storage box in another room, also on the floor. Or collecting chips bags, flower petals, lumps of hair and other large sized garbage off the floor. So the idea was to gently push the guests to run through the rooms with a broom to get this “I’m not your mom”- trash taken care of by them.
Again, we removed the rule. So all is good now.
Our house is a great value but with a fairly high cleaning fee so it may not make sense for 1 night. But it is a large 3 bedroom home with a full basement that the guests use and many outdoor areas that need to be straightened up after. We charge the same fee regardless if it a couple or a family of 6. Housekeepers get paid the same so but they feel it all works out I the end. But we are okay with it not renting for 1 night!
We have a washer and dryer and dishwasher and provide some dishwashing pods to guest but never ask them to do the laundry or linens as many hosts have asked us to do.
We don’t ask them to do anything but take out trash and left overs and not leave any dirty dishes laying around and to put them in the dishwasher.
We live in the country and leaving food and trash by the bbq brings bears and coyotes etc. Leaving food on counters attracts mice. If we can’t get into clean and a storm takes the power out we don’t want things to go off. And even 24 hours with a cereal box left open on a counter can mean MICE! Obviously not something you want to mention to guests
But unless you are renting multiple units as a business I think we should all be free to ask guests what we like as these are our homes too!
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That makes sense. I’ve just never had guests who left trash all over the floor except once.