Unlike a hotel room, Airbnbs are not usually cleaned daily. In many ways, it's up to you as the host to decide how cleaning tasks will get done during a guest's stay. Some hosts provide guests with cleaning products for everyday spills and messes.
An average Airbnb is cleaned after or before each guest. This can equate to roughly two turnover cleans per month. Guests may utilize cleaning supplies available to them to pick up after themselves, but only sometimes. Turnover cleans are essential to getting your property ready for the next set of guests.
Cleanliness: Guests should not leave the listing in a state that requires excessive or deep cleaning (moldy dishes, soiled carpets, stains from pets, etc.). Cleaning fees set by Hosts are only meant to cover the cost of standard cleaning between reservations (laundry, vacuuming, etc.).
Airbnb hosts take great pride in providing a clean and comfortable space for their guests. They understand that the quality of their cleaning can make or break a guest's experience, so they strive to ensure that each room is thoroughly cleaned between stays.
Load and run the dishwasher before you go. Respect your host and their time by washing any dishes you've dirtied.
While guests are absolutely free to leave tips if they wish to, this is by no means required. Leaving an envelope for tips is even frowned upon by some Airbnb hosts. So to respond to the question of how much to tip an Airbnb housekeeper for guests, the answer is that a tip is usually unnecessary.
Can you eat the food at Airbnb? Generally yes but it depends on whether it's purely a rental home or someone's home they're renting out while they're away. If it's purely a rental home, I usually eat whatever's there because they're probably leftover from previous guests.
Hosts don't need to charge for cleaning, and there are no Airbnb cleaning fee rules enforced. Many hosts do choose to charge a cleaning fee, as it keeps their rentals immaculate and encourages guests to leave a 5-star review.
The cleaning fee is a one-time charge that hosts add to the price of their listing for each booking to cover cleaning expenses. This fee is added to the overall price of the booking and is paid for by the guest(s). It is not a security deposit; the guests don't get their money back at the end of their stay.
Professional Airbnb cleaning services are there for a reason—they're the best for the job. Not only do they provide a high standard of professional cleaning, but they also leave every nook and cranny looking pristine and intuitively tidy. However, most Airbnb hosts take it upon themselves to clean their listings.
Send a refund request
Submit your request: You'll describe the issue, provide photos or video if you can. You can ask the Host to fix the issue, request a refund of the cleaning fee, or, for severe issues, you could request to cancel your reservation for a full refund of remaining nights.
Eligible travel issues listed under Airbnb's policy
Airbnb property not safe or clean – Your property should be ready to welcome guests at the agreed check-in time. If a guest arrives and finds that the property has not been cleaned (i.e. dirty sheets, rubbish lying around) they have a right to request a refund.
It's 11am and your guest just checked out of your property, your upcoming guest arrives by 3pm and your property needs to be just perfect. In the best case scenario, you have 4hrs to do a complete turnover cleaning of every space of your property.
Most people allow themselves around 4 hours, which is a perfect amount of time to thoroughly clean the entire unit with special attention to guest “pain spots.” These are the highly frequented areas guests are most likely to notice spots or dirt, such as the linens, towels, floors, and bathroom.
The cleaning costs for Airbnb hosts are often higher than those for hotels because they likely can't take advantage of economies of scale. For example, hotels have commercial-size laundry machines. Plus, listings are typically spread out geographically, so there's the inefficiency of traveling miles between properties.
Airbnb hosts completely control what they charge for cleaning services. “We pay $200 and charge the guest $200,” Brandon says. “We do not make anything in the cleaning process.” Brandon says that while guests have so far been happy to pay the fee, she requires a two-night minimum stay so it doesn't take such a bite.
The host pays a flat rate of 3% of the total booking cost and the guest pays a percentage of their reservation fee (this is somewhere between 5-20% depending on the length of stay, the location, and the cost of the reservation to start with).
The analysis also discovered that cleaning fees amounted to about 25% of the total price paid. In fact, in almost 40% of listings, they were from 20% to 29.9% of the actual price.
Airbnb's official policy allows its hosts to use cameras that are "clearly disclosed" and "don't infringe on another person's privacy." There are bans on "hidden cameras" as well as cameras in any private spaces like bedrooms and bathrooms.
Depending on the nature of the violation, Airbnb may also take other actions, such as canceling an upcoming or active reservation, refunding a guest from a Host's payout, and/or requiring Hosts to provide proof that they have addressed issues before they can resume hosting.
Fake listings
These hosts give you their personal contact information and lure you into paying them directly, rather than through the authentic Airbnb website. You can spot this scam when someone asks you to pay outside the official Airbnb platform.
The following content is not allowed on Airbnb:
Spam, unwanted contact, or content that is shared repeatedly in a disruptive manner. Content that endorses or promotes illegal or harmful activity, or that is sexually explicit, violent, graphic, threatening, or harassing.
About the reimbursement process
If your Host believes that you're responsible for damage, missing items, or unexpected cleaning costs, they may send you a reimbursement request through our Resolution Center. You'll have 24 hours to respond. If you pay the full amount, the request will be closed.
If check-in or checkout times aren't specified in the listing description, then the default check-in time is 3:00 PM and checkout is 11:00 AM (local time), unless otherwise noted by the Host.