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The thing is my guests literally use my place for a place to sleep. They don’t come here for a holiday or make themselves at home. They are either doing a course at the local uni or they are on business. The bedroom is very clean, and I don’t think the odd hair on the floor is going to make people want to kill themselves and give me low ratings. I have had no complaints only praise.
I have pets who shed hairs, they don’t enter the guests room and are normally out of sight in rooms which the guest is not allowed (my bedroom and the lounge), but everyone that has come are pet lovers, maybe they understand that there is the odd pet hair around.
As for the bathroom, I really don’t see the point in cleaning it 3 times a week, it really doesn’t get that dirty.
And therein, dear people, are a couple of fundamental differences in hosting philosophies and practices. Do you know which host you would go with? (I do.)
Personally I like tiles. Which are also very easy to keep clean. With wooden floors a close second. But I suppose they might not be ideal for UK weather.
We do the same thing and typically get 5 stars on cleanliness, it is one area where you can directly impact your ratings as the behaviour of the guest is not in play with this category. We also take about 3-5 hours depending on whether the oven needs cleaning or there is breakage or damage of something.
Yea, I would say tiles are only for bathrooms and kitchens here. Most people have carpet for bedrooms and the rest of the house. Although wood floorboards seem to becoming more popular (my 3 bedrooms are just the sanded and varnished floorboards, like I said earlier to get rid of the old dirty carpet). Laminate flooring is popular, but I think it looks tacky.
Here basically our whole place is tiled. Possibly a cultural thing. Though I had a small townhouse in Chapel Hill once, and I tiled the downstairs. Which seemed fine too. Though NC is probably somewhat warmer than England on average.
Wood can look nice, but it requires more maintenance than tile. And yes, laminate does not look great. You want to use real wood.
I’ve always hated carpet. It’s way too high maintenance. And also I have bronchial issues.
I guess there is so much demand that they get away with it. You literally had no where else you could go so you had to pick a place with low rating for cleanliness. But in most places I’d think no one would book. I wouldn’t book anyone with less than 4 stars on cleanliness unless there were no other choice. I suppose ABB could remove hosts who consistently get one star in a category. But it all goes back to reviews.
I do similar & just have the one room with 2 guest beds & it takes me at least 2 hours plus I make sure kitchen & entry are spotless including all bins empty & guest fridge cleaned, much more than I would just for myself. I do always find some kind of rubbish, hair band wtc under the beds or furniture, dust & hairs in the bathroom. I did turn up to an air rental in Spsin & the room had not been cleaned & the host did a 5 min rush job clean & I thought that was not impressive. I also recently stayed in one interstate with family & the bathroom & kitchen was really dirty & a turn off so we didn’t extend our stay as planned.
But hey if it’s working for you what would I know! Just that from experience, some friends I have think their house is very clean but under the toilet, furniture, Windows, coffee machine & kitchen appliances really aren’t and this stuff is what takes ages to clean, I would just be surprised you could cover all these details in 10 mins between guests or just with a weekly clean & these are the first kind of things I notice.
I have to admit to being a bit anal with cleaning and do it pretty thoroughly after EVERY set of guests - not because of reviews but because that’s what I’d like to find in any Airbnb I stay in. And I had my share of grubby rooms, you know washed but stained sheets, floor that hadn’t seen a vac for months, dust all over everything, even s…t on my bath towel - yes! That grossed me out even if not intentional/known by host. It takes me about an hour to do my ensuite bedroom properly, vac, dust, change sheets, clean bathroom. I pay a cleaner for the studio apt because I’d take 2 hours to do that and my cleaner is in and out in an hour so it’s worth it. I have 100% 5 star ratings but as I said, I don’t do it for good reviews. I learnt a lot staying in other Airbnb’s and based on what I liked to find at a hosts is what I’ve based my listing offerings on - and cleanliness is pretty high on the list!
How do you advertise that differently? A girl I know locally does the same over Airbnb and gets great results. She drops the nightly price of her room but has a minimum one month stay at that price and gets o/s visitors here to work or study.
Some of my guests came from Flipkey, but some found me just googling. I advertised with booking.com which quite an awful platform to deal with, no comparison to Air, and I still come up with them. Most of guests though come from Air which is my favorite.
I had 3 long term so far, and I really love all of them. Working busy professionals is a way to go. It works perfectly with us as they are never home, and when they do get home, they are tired, and spend the rest of the day in the their room, getting ready to sleep.
I have an average size house but we don’t see our guests for days, or may be few minutes here and there.
I had to do few adjustments: put TV s in each room. Gave one shelf in a fridge to each guest.
Also I dropped price for a single guest. I had a plan in mind to get 1k per room, but dropped to 900$ for a single guest. It works well.
It comes to 30$ a day, it’s not much if you think by day. But anyway I would never in this low season get more than 45$ a day, if I did it daily. If that.
Also, it would one , two day stays, with bed changing, cleaning and other moments. Last month from one room I only made 90$, for 2 days out of the whole month. That’s how slow it is here.
To make any money the only option for me was rent it by month, and I love it so far
You just have to be SO CAREFUL going over a month! I would require them to sign a lease in addition to whatever they have done with Airbnb. One of our members her on the forum is dealing with a nightmare for taking a guest longer than a month. Please be careful if you do this guys.
You just give long term discounts, and guests find you/ When they do search and put 1 month, you will come up as monthly rent, not daily. I guess they put also monthly rate. ALso, i noticed when i gave long term discounts, my IB disspaears with it. I become a regular lisiting. I guess, Air wants us to talk first before booking if its that long
I did a very simple lease with them. And i mentioned that if they want to break it they will have to give me one week notice. 2 of my long term guests are not sure how long they will be staying. One guy just got married and is looking for appartment . SO, he does not know if he stays another month. Another guest wants to stay till March, but i told him my price is not going t to stay like this all the way through March, and it will change in November. We only signed lease till November. He is an engeener and working here on a project.
I think its important to be sure in long term cases that the person is employed.ANd preferably good paying jobs. I made copies of work IDs from both.
Yes interviewing them just like you would a long term tenant. Great idea…
Know that even if you have them stay in re-registered, 30 day blocks, it doesn’t make them into short term tenants … They become long term tenants so Yana you are so smart to make them sign a lease!!! You don’t want a nightmare like poor Lissi got.
I think i have another “washer”. This guy s is here only 3 days and already washed twice. I came home today and looked in a washer what he washed:2 pair of pants, one underwear, one swiming trunks, and bandana. On extra large water capacity. I wrote to him right away to not do this anymore, and that i can not have my guests do their laundry every day in tiny loads. He did not answer yet
