Live-in hosts. I see many hosts do the cleaning and laundry themselves. Have you ever considered hiring someone for cleaning? If not, why not?
It would be great to have someone clean and do the laundry. The problem is the cost. The going rate to clean a house in my area is more than my nightly rate.
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@EllenN What do you mean? Are you saying that an hour or two of cleaning would cost more than you are charging for the whole place? How come? What if they would clean only the spaces intended for guests (+ bathroom/kitchen if shared).
Our guests have access to the entire house with the exception of my bedroom. I have to keep the entire house clean. The bedroom and bathroom are the easiest part of my cleaning routine. I donât know of any housekeepers who will come just for an hour or two. In Los Angeles, that wouldnât make sense. Most cleaning people live in the more affordable outlying areas of the city. Often, they donât have cars. As public transportation is inefficient here, they would be spending as much time commuting as they would be spending working.
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@EllenN I understand. Thank for your clarifying this point. I rent out a whole apartment in a metropolitan area so I was eager to understand why donât more people use some sort of help for cleaning.
Itâs also difficult to find someone that you are positive will be as obsessive about cleaning as you are.
I finally found a cleaner that can fill in for me when I am gone. She is OK with making $85 for a studio apartment, No laundry. That is what I charge the guests.
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@konacoconutz So, if I understand correctly, the cleaner is charging you $85 per turnaround? Sounds a lot!
No, Thatâs my cleaning fee. That is what I charge guests. So I pay her $85 to make sure the room is PERFECT, and I mean PERFECT. Thereâs a stove and fridge in the room too. It takes me a good 4-5 hours to get the studio, patio and yard the way I want it.
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@konacoconutz I agree with you. Itâs hard to find the cleaner you can trust and who know the consequences for the host if they donât do their work properly. When I hired my cleaning lady (she retired early and has lots of time) I spent 10-15 mins after each cleaning to inspect (before the next guests arrived). You wonât believe what I found at the beginning⌠She just wasnât used to my standards. I took pictures and took care of those things myself on the spot (little stains here and there on the floor, mostly hairs that she didnât notice,âŚ). But, then I showed her the pictures. I explained her that I will have zero tolerance for not-perfect cleaning. I let her know that if I get negative review for cleanliness, weâll be out of business pretty soon and so she will. I also created a detailed checklist for her and make her go through the list each and every time she was cleaning, to make sure she didnât forget something. Sure, in her eyes I was a weirdo, an over-demanding guy. With my help, it took her about two weeks to get accustomed to the 5-star hotel standards. But, it payed off handsomely. Now, I can trust her and only occasionally I check up on her. I had no complaints from my guests whatsoever. All of my reviews for cleanliness are 5-star which is what I want.
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I think some cleaners might have been used to getting away with semi-ok when cleaning VRBO, where owners are not rated with stars fro cleanliness.
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But I understand, you donât live in your studio. Itâs not a house where you live, right? As @EllenN pointed out, getting the cleaner to regularly clean the whole place (the house) might get costly.
Iâm one of the people who run a cleaning and management service here in San Francisco (www.HostWell.com).
In SF, the law requires that you only host in your full-time permanent residence. As such, all of our customers live at home and we do their turnover cleanings.
In some cases, we only do the cleanings when there are weekday same-day checkins since they are at work and canât do them. In other cases, they just want consistent cleaning and not have to worry about whether itâll be done or done well so they just have us do all their turnovers.
In some cases itâs just a guest room, in others itâs an entire apartment when theyâre out of town, and others itâs an in-law suite which is used full time for guests but is part of the hosts home.
Room rates relative to cleaning fees here are high, so the cleaning fees arenât really that big of a shock to the guest.
The problem with most cleaning services is that theyâre really not designed for short-term rental turnovers⌠They like to have regular schedules and usually have 2-3 hour minimums in order to amortize travel time between jobs.
In our business, as you all know, you may have many turnovers in one day, another day may have very few. People sometimes get bookings months in advance and sometimes the night before. For each listing, the amount of time the cleaning takes is known, but some are only an hour and most cleaning services wonât do them.
The other issue is the turnover window. Usually the earliest checkout time is 10am and latest checkin time is 4pm. The average is 11-3.
For a regular cleaning company, having to do 20x 1hour turnovers in doesnât work for them. They usually staff for 8 hour shifts.
Itâs a complex problem to solve.
As far as rationale, there are lots of reasons to hire a cleaning company even if you live in your listingâone I mentioned was consistency. Another main one is exhaustion. Itâs really quite a lot of work, especially if you allow short stays/1-night bookings. You could have a week you only have one turnover and another week you have 6. Some days youâre tired or busy and you may cut corners on the turnover. You might get lucky and the guest doesnât mind, or you get the guest that notices every little thing that you skipped.
While professional cleaners may not get it right every time either, the likelihood is probably higher that they will.
While Iâm biased, I got into this business mostly because I was doing my own turnovers and just got sick of it. Now, even when thereâs an occasion that weâre understaffed and I have to personally go out and do cleanings, Iâll have someone else clean my place while Iâm cleaning another customersâpsychologically this works out better. I do a better job for someone else than I do for myself, so while Iâm doing the same work, weâre both getting higher quality cleaning.
One other reason to hire a company with itâs own staff is that theyâll worry about making sure youâre place gets cleaned. Individual cleaners or those contractor cleaners (like handy ) arenât particularly reliable. Mainly itâs because they donât understand the consequences.
If your regular weekly house cleaner misses a day and shows up tomorrow, thatâs probably fine. if youâre turnover cleaner doesnât show up, they canât come tomorrow and everything will be fine if you have a guest arriving expecting a clean place.
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@keith So are you saying that if one has a second apartment in SF which is NOT their permanent residence, they effectively are not allowed to rent it short term? Is this a norm in US or does that apply only to SF?
Secondly, being a host, I see a big advantage in having the SAME person clean the place each and every time. They are simply more efficient because they know the place. How do you make this happen?
Lastly, what would you recommend for cases of @EllenN who actually lives in the house, so effectively the whole house has to be cleaned (except for the ownerâs bedroom perhaps)? This may cost a lot of money even if for example they are renting only a room or two with shared kitchen and the bathroom.
MarkP:
Itâs a local law in SF, but quite a few cities have similar rules. Some donât allow any stays shorter than 30 days unless itâs at an actual hotel.
You can read more about our law here: http://sf-planning.org/office-short-term-rental-registry-faqs
It is usually better if the same people do the same cleanings when possible. In our case it happens a lot but itâs not guaranteed. Scheduling is done based on availability of cleaners which may not be available all of the turnovers. Another is location. We try to cluster cleaners jobs so there is minimal travel between them. If your preferred cleaner is also preferred by someone who lives on the other side of town, itâs not really possible for that person to do both in the same day (or at least not without them foregoing payment while they travel, or in our case, we pay while people are clocked in so weâd be paying someone to travel for an hourâwe canât pass that on to the customer).
in @EllenN case, sheâs similar to me and most SF hosts. I live in my house, I have a sofa in the living room I rent out sometimes, and 2 other rooms I use for guest rooms. As such there are an average of 3-4 turnovers a week.
It doesnât make sense to deep clean a kitchen 4 times a week. What I usually do is if one room is being turned over in a day, the room and bathroom are cleaned and the kitchen gets a touchup (if the stoves been used, it gets cleaned, otherwise just surfaces are wiped down).
If there are 2 rooms being turned over in the same day (thatâs twice the cleaning fees and twice the time), then both rooms, the bathroom get the usual treatment and the kitchen gets a deeper cleaning (appliances wiped down, things on counter tops moved for cleaning underneath).
Itâs clear from my listings that these are private rooms in a shared space so the expectation that common areas are perfect every time isnât there.
for one of our customers we ONLY do the guest room and bathroom and the kitchen and living room (which are shared) are usually left alone (we also do regularly scheduled whole house cleanings for them, so the common areas are cleaned regularly but the turnover cleanings only cover the space thatâs for the exclusive use of the guests).
So, itâs a policy thing. If you want the ENTIRE house (exclusive of the ownerâs bedroom) that might require a cleaning (and related fee) that is more than would be reasonable to ask the guest to pay.
If the guest is renting a room in a apartment and not an entire apartment, is it reasonable they expect the entire apartment to be clean for their 2 day stay? If The guest would agree that it is, then they would also agree to a larger cleaning fee. In my experience most wouldnât.
Guests are savvy enough to understand the fee. They know a $125 fee covers a lot more cleaning than a $50 one would.
The difficulty for the host is making clear whatâs on offer and whatâs covered. If you do that then whatever you decide will work out because the right guests with the right expectations will book your listing.
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OCD alert: I lay a torch on the floor to check where I need to vacuum, and all the dust and hairs show up immediately, just like low sunlight accentuate the ripples on desert sand dunes (can you tell Iâm a photographer?). I also clean out all the filters on the vacuum after every use. I doubt any pro cleaner would go to these lengths. I try to get guests who stay 5-7 nights as thatâs a good cleaning interval for me anyway.
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Torch is Brit-speak for Flashlight!
My partner uses the term frequently still, after 25 years in flashlight-land 
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Ha - only ten minutes ago this Brit said âtorchâ to an American neighbour who didnât know what I meant! And Iâve been in the USA for twenty two years).
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No I wonât hire anyone for reasons already mentioned. First it would cost more than I get for the room. Almost all of my guests are one nighters. Second, Iâm sure no one would do it to my standards. Third, Iâm retired and in good health so there is no reason to not âpay myselfâ to do it. I recently added a co-host and although I trust her, I still wonder if the room will be to my standards if she handles a booking.
Cleaners here make at least $20 an hour. I have two bedrooms and a kitchen/living area. The math isnât hard. In this area airbnbs are thick - competition is fierce. I couldnât make any more if I paid someone.
Besides, my kids do a chunk of it, making it a true family business - we are all invested in itâs success, and profits go into the home or their education. win-win.
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