Large groups for a week: typical problems of damage and uncleanliness: any advice?

[HostAirbnbVRBO]

@Violette

fascinating that it’s strange to expect people to clean up after themselves.

Well, cleaning up after yourself is different than cleaning.

So, you clean off toothpaste that dropped in the bathroom sink, clean off dishes you used, clean up a big spill in the refrigerator.

But you don’t clean the bathroom sink, or scrub the kitchen sink, or clean off the little spills in the refrigerator. The cleaner does those things.

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@Violette

in fact the ground rules, kindly posted by HostAirbnbVRBO, say “treat your host’s home like your own”.

Yeah, we’ve talked about this one here.

Some people are slobs at home, and this gives them permission to do it at your place too. But this falls in the category of ‘you know what we mean’. Also, the casual home standard that a guest is held to is different from a commercial standard that a Host is held to.

@Violette

At home, you clean up after yourself, you don’t expect someone else to do it.

LOL. Have you seem any sitcoms? Read about the women’s movement here in the U.S.? Look at fairplaylife.. Unfortunately too many people look to their wife to do this. But her position is ‘I’m on vacation!’ Unfair.

@Violette

So by inference if a Host does NOT add a fee, then this “standard cleaning” is to be done by guests.

OK, now you’re just funnin’ with us. This is the disconnect for you; it’s a corollary to “I’m paying for a cleaning fee and so I can trash the place.” So, ‘No’ and ‘No’. Guests always pay for cleaning; they pay for everything (@lisanddavid ). Some Hosts build the cleaning fee into their rates; some don’t. So it’s about transparency not whether the guests are paying.

@Violette

airbnb’s definition of "a high standard of cleanliness is pretty lax: “free of extensive dust…dirty dishes…”

I agree. It really is hard to be specific without being tedious or unrealistic. Some short-term rentals are cabins; some are ‘regular’ homes; some are estates. There is some weasel language here; I think it’s unavoidable. The reviews are the intended mechanism for what’s appropriate. Look here at @Lynick4442 's post.

Here’s what Airbnb asks (notice what can be highlighted):

@Violette

After service fees, the guests are paying about 3400/week and that’s at the higher end of such offerings in this area.

That doesn’t sound like so much,

Here, in Worcester MA, with additional guest fees of $30/person after two guests, we’d get (and this is top end for the area) about $2,500 for a week’s summer stay for six people in a 1300 sq ft. home, with a pool and a nice back yard on a regular 1/3 acre lot. [If we could comfortably host 12 that would be another $1,300 in additional guest fees, for $3,800 total.] I would have thought you could get a lot more. Maybe you might experiment with different pricing. I don’t know if AirDNA [they say worldwide, includes Toulouse] or PriceLabs works in your area.

@Violette

I don’t think the amount of money people are willing to pay is a measure of their behavior, in fact it could be inversely related.

Many people anecdotally believe that there is a relationship (rich kids aside). But, at the least, with a security deposit and written contract in place (e.g., OwnerRez) and a super clean place to start, I think you’d find different behavior. Intuitively, I think you need to charge more to either attract a different clientele or afford the cleanup that’s necessary.

@muddy

You could post the link to your listing here- I suspect the wording is such that it attracts big party groups, not quiet family holidays.

Yeah,. Some listings invite this. Others ‘lay down the law’ and you kind of know that they’re not going to put up with anything. Search for posts by @dmartin336 here (I gave a link earlier). When you can cancel without refund mid-stay that gets people’s attention, or should. [Find out ahead of time your legal rights and whether local police would support you.]