It annoys me that Air only has a “we pay our cleaners a living wage” tab. What about those of us that clean ourselves, after our darling guests?
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Why wouldn’t you pay yourselves? I pay myself for the jobs my cleaners can’t schedule. It goes in my own travel fund.
I also remind guests that checkout is at 11am and that the cleaners will arrive shortly after. They don’t need to know that’s me! 
I do think it’s funny that Airbnb wants us to sign the living wage pledge but then suggests prices that wouldn’t support it.
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I also pay myself for cleaning.
Do you think their suggested wages are too high or too low? Just curious.
I think the suggested wages are about right but not if they want to turn around and have me book at $60/night (which they’ve suggested and is ridiculous in my market).
$15 an hour seems reasonable for what’s essentially an unskilled labor position. I pay about $25 an hour but many services charge $35/hour in my area. To me that seems a little nuts, but if they can command it more power to them. When I trialed one of the services the lady who did the cleaning left her job as a medical billing coder because cleaning paid better.
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Aah. TOTALLY agree. The reason I clean myself is because I can’t afford to hire cleaners around here ($30-40/hr) and still make a profit. And Air thinks I should cut my prices in half. hahahahaha.
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Around here cleaners would charge $75+ – IF (and that’s a big if) you could find someone who would/could do “one offs” when you needed them. We clean ourselves and take our $20 cleaning fee as ‘mad money’.
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This is me being snooty admittedly, but to me there’s a world of difference between ‘cleaning’ and ‘preparing for guests’.
I think the latter is a far more specialised job and definitely not ‘unskilled labour’.
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I usually clean the rooms myself, but there are days when I have tours booked back to back and won’t have time between the 11am checkout and 4pm checkin to turn the room, so I have a local cleaning service do it. They charge $45 per hour but turn the room and clean the bathroom in an hour and are very thorough (she’s the service that small local landlords call to clean when tenants don’t leave a place clean and they want it spotless before the next tenant moves in, so it’s hard to book her at month end!). So my cleaning charge (which cheapskates have complained about) is to make sure that I can pay her when needed, and when not, to compensate me for the strain on my bad back from making beds.
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Are there tax implications in putting yourself on the payroll?
My daughter in law offered to clean for me once on a back to back turnaround. Luckily they arrived late and I could check it. My Lord.
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Nah, not snooty - it’s the truth. There is a world of difference between someone who treats the property as one of many to be cleaned as quickly as possible, cutting as many corners as possible, and someone who knows your property well, cares for it and will deal with/report small maintenance things they’ve noticed, treat linen stains properly etc etc., If you get such a person, hang on to them for dear life!
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This so much. My “cleaner” does more than just clean. She keeps an eye on things. She tells me if I’m low on something, or if something needs repairing, or if a glass is missing. She has even run over to the cottage to help guests who can’t figure out how to open the door. She is always available via text. She is devoted to her clients in the area and she is 100% reliable. I pay her $65 per turnover. $95 when there is a pet. I split the $65 pet fee with her. Worth it.
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Worth her weight in gold! Like I said above, hang on to her!!
OMG, you are sooo right about this!!! There are a lot of “cleaners” out there, but this takes someone that “gets” the hospitality business. Someone that not only gets it spotless (with NO hairs,LOL), but can do a bit of staging. Someone that gets the aesthetic of it. Also someone that makes sure that the guests will have everything they need, that the soap is filled for instance, that there is always shampoo & conditioner, that everything is in working order (and report anything that isn’t immediately), that lets you know if anything is stained, broken or left behind, someone that can rearrange the flowers and take out all the little dead bits and make it look fantastic so they last several turns, someone that checks the shower curtain and changes it out when she notices the tiniest bit of yukky stuff, someone that knows that the Bud Light left in the fridge is not the same as the local beer we leave, etc., etc. Our cleaner is amazing, and worth every penny. We’ve had many others that haven’t done any of those things listed above, even with a checklist and supposed tons of experience. I’m really picky, and I definitely wouldn’t call it unskilled labor.
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