I don’t charge a cleaning fee and ‘do’ my place as I like to make sure it’s done to my standard. It also gives me a chance to top up toiletries, tea, coffee etc.
Airbnb has also changed over time so that apartments and hotel rooms can be booked through them. It makes it very difficult for those who need somewhere to rent long term. It seems to be a world wide problem . My place is in my house .
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Beyond the cleaning fee issue, I think the spirit of the whole thing is lost on a lot of newer “hosts”. It didn’t start as a real estate investment capitalist scheme. It was about hosting travelers in spaces in the home that you live in. My wife and I have been hosting in L.A. for 9 years now. We have over 400 reviews that when I read them I get a little teary because they are all little stories of people we hosted and hosted well and their words make me feel good about how we made their trip more awesome. We got to meet and host people from all over the world, and bring them into our world for a brief time. I’m not gonna lie, the money is great, life changing. We are admittedly underachieving musicians and Airbnb has enabled us to get by quite nicely by just having good communication skills and cleaning our 'lil apartment. This is the true essence of Airbnb. I do get frustrated with it at times but mostly I feel the love and gratitude for the experience we have had with it.
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I very much want to come to England just to stay at your rental.
I feel this both as host and a guest. We seem to be suffering from a gratitude deficit in the country. The gig economy changed my life and I’ve made real life friends because of Airbnb.
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I would be honored to host you anytime.
Thanks for this amazing discussion and I wish our guests could read this for sure. @KirkD I agree with you wholeheartedly. I began my Airbnb/VRBO over 10 years ago to meet people from around the world and have done so. The money helped pay for my sons hefty living expenses at Tulane University in New Orleans. This week I had a phone call from a VRBO representative asking why my calendar was blocked and did I need help. I told him I am hosting a friend’s nephew who needed to leave an unhealthy girlfriend situation but while I was on the phone with the rep I said how grateful I was for the platforms that allow me to rent my rural Eastern Shore of Maryland waterfront guest apartment in a location not considered a “destination.” It has been a wonderful experience. I have also hosted travel nurses and doctors for 90 day contracts during the winter months which is my slow season and that has been good as well. Cheers!
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Thanks KKC, you’d be so welcome as would any of the contributors to this forum and it would be a pleasure to clean the place after you leave! If you need any further encouragement maybe whet your appetite with a visit to our https://www.instagram.com/thresholdsshropshire/
Couldn’t agree more, so many pleasures, offering hospitality and enjoying providing a service have been reduced to a monetary equation. Izaak Walton said “there’s more to fishing than fish” referring to the pleasures to be had from spending time on the riverbank and 370 years later I would echo that it’s not all about the money (although it is enormously helpful).
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[quote=“KirkD, post:22, topic:58749”]I
get a little teary because they are all little stories of people we hosted and hosted well and their words make me feel good about how we made their trip more awesome. We got to meet and host people from all over the world, and bring them into our world for a brief time.
[/quote]
This is exactly my sentiments, although I haven’t hosted nearly as many guests as you have. I am starting to make notes about each guest, because while I remembered each of them clearly for the first couple of years, once it got up to 40 guests, I look back and can’t quite remember some of them just from their name, especially if they have changed profile photos since and they only stayed for a few days.
I’ve had guests from all over the world as well, and learned so much I didn’t know about their countries and cultures. Been honored to have them share some very personal stories with me- some were going through a difficult time in their lives, which is why they needed a break and came here, had many great conversations and laughs over a bottle of wine.
Years down the road, guests are much more likely to have memories of when their host took them to a secret beach tourists wouldn’t know about, or invited them to join the host’s family for Thanksgiving dinner, than whether the place they stayed had a fancy coffee maker.
If hosting was stressful and not often fun, I wouldn’t do it just for the money. The human connection is what makes it truly rewarding.
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Charging a cleaning fee - or asking guests to keep things clean is just good manners. The Atlantic is fostering an “airbnb is greedy” motto which has created antagonism towards airbnb hosts. Many are not greedy - just trying to stay afloat and a little extra cleaning fee is nothing wrong with it. It’s already 3 hours of cleaning and a fee helps out - as rates keep falling. Powers that be that have ruined rentals for landlords with lax laws for tenants- just love to lay the blame on airbnb hosts- for ruining the amount of rentals available.
I ask guests to NOT strip the beds because the cleaners pre-treat stains…
I found out the hard way early on that a guest stripped the bed & I washed & dried them without seeing the stains.
I couldn’t remove the stain after drying
& the sheets were expensive.
That’s what I do. It works well for me.
In my first couple years as a host, many of my bookings were one-night stay. It was too much work for too little money. Still, I could not understand why other hosts were having 2 nights minimum. I finally got it 
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The problem with blaming AirBnB’s fees on excessive cleaning fees is that it distracts from the real issue at hand: AirBnB’s platform fees themselves. I’m not interested in cutting fees to cleaners so AirBnB can build more AI to stop parties because they won’t let hosts screen guests properly. Paying a premium for cleaning in today’s limited market is a market reality, not a price gouge by greedy hosts.
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While I agree with you, majority of guests don’t see it this way. So I’m happy to sing their tune by hiding the cleaning fee in the nightly rate and providing discounts for stays longer than one night. I advertise my listing as a “no cleaning fee” listing. I get better reviews and less pushback as one of my requests is to throw trash away at the dumpster and load the dishwasher before leaving. Trash and dishes with food stuck on them can attract ants, cockroaches, etc. I don’t provide a full kitchen so it doesn’t accumulate as much dirty dishes/pots/pans as a listing with many bedrooms.
The optics are important… many guests are naive and many don’t like cleaning fees out of principle.
I believe the issue presented is combining a cleaning fee with a list of chores for guests to accomplish prior to departure. I will now incorporate my cleaning fee into my hourly rate and I have a 3 night minimum in the winter and a 6 night in the summer so it is easily done. I have never actually had a complaint about a cleaning fee but probably lost business because of my fee. I do not charge an extra person fee now which I did get some push back about and incorporated that into my nightly rate. I have had many hundreds of guests at our homes and not had anyone abuse our property AND I do not have cameras at all. Have guests broken glasses, ruined towels, etc. Yes they have but it’s part of doing business and I do not charge for these incidentals. Thanks for the continuing discussion.
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I only ask guests to put dirty dishes and linens in specific containers. I would rather wash things myself anyway - just to be sure. I also stopped charging a cleaning fee after Covid wound down.
I think the problem stems mostly from The people who buy multiple properties just to BnB them. Less personal service ruins our reputation.
Also the article didn’t address the issues that we, as hosts, face. We need another article from our perspective!
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I have a small 900 sq Ft home. I ask that guests do there dishes and leave all blankets that they have used out. $50.00 cleaning fee that’s it. The ridiculous fees that some hosts charge and what they expect of there guests always astonishes me.
We are going to Greece and staying in 5 different airbnbs while we are there. I am interested to see what our Greek hosts expect.
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Yes, and that hosts who have lists of pre-departure cleaning chores seldom make those expectations clear in the listing info- it is sprung on guests in a house manual or note they find after arrival.
My son-in-law travels a lot on business, often booking Airbnbs. He said he doesn’t mind paying a cleaning fee, but resents it when he arrives to find a list of pre-check-out chores. He’s not the kind of guy who’d leave a mess behind him- he wouldn’t leave dirty dishes or wet towels wadded up somewhere, or rotting food on the counter, but he doesn’t want to have to strip the bed and start a load of wash, or hump the garbage down to a dumpster in the alley.
If the hosts had made the chore list clear in the listing ad, he would have passed on booking there.
Hosts, quite reasonably, dislike guests who expect amenities and services that aren’t listed in their ad. Why then should guests expect to have to do chores that also weren’t listed in the ad?
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Hi Helen
Totally agree but nice if they make an effort to empty the bins etc
As for cleaning charges that is an issue.
We have a 1 bed apartment with brilliant reviews and keep it spotless, as we all do.
I charge €45 for cleaning.
Laundrette costs are almost €70 alone
Now there is the cost of the cleaner.
Solid 3 hours to clean everything is good x €15/hr. It adds up
Cleaning is a loss leader and no matter how well the guests clean you know that you have to do everything yourself or you will not be comfortable
Don’t rely on guests to do your cleaning but they should not leave a mess either
I think the big problem I have with folks who debate cleaning fees is when they assume that cleaners (even us, hosts who clean) can somehow work for next to zero pay. They expect us to pay folks desperation wages.
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Thanks for your post @onlymurano and those numbers do add up. I have charged a $125.00 cleaning fee for my two bedroom apartment which is the cost of a cleaner when I use one which is almost never. It takes between 3 and 4 hours to clean depending on how many beds to change, we have four. I completely agree that we do the cleaning whether our guests deem to do some or not. As others have mentioned I like to clean myself to monitor my property and check to make sure things are working properly. I also find that guests are generally very thoughtful and let me know when they break or damage something. I did have a couple with a daughter that stayed for two weeks and about an hour before they were to leave asked if they needed to wash the dishes before they left. I said that would be appreciated and they must have used every dish in the apartment (service for 8 and many extras provided) since there were dishes drying on every surface when they left. We do not have an automatic dishwasher since we have an on-site septic system and a lift pump from the apartment. That being said I will adjust my rates to eliminate the cleaning fee and add it to my nightly rate and note it in my listing. By the way I do charge a pet fee since that causes extra cleaning and always have.
I think all your observations and points are well put Helen. Charge a cleaning fee or don’t but more and more guests are ‘revolting’ and reflecting in reviews when a host has a cleaning fee and requires the guest to also clean the property at the end of the stay. I think hosts ignore this at their own peril and as Airbnb moves farther and farther away from it’s origins and closer and closer to mimic the hotel model, more and more guests see the irony in this and the hotel claws back yet another advantage over the airbnb stay.
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