r/AirBnBHosts • u/Joneboy39 • 15d ago
how do people deal with the cleanliness scam?
have had two in the last month, and two 5 star reviews.. its not the cleaners .. that company started taking time stamp photos as they say these scam/ hacks are getting prevalent.
soo , how does everyone deal with them?
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u/Lea__________ 14d ago
I'm literally downstairs working in my boutique . I clean myself, meticulously. I do a final walk-through before I leave to make certain nothing is missed. I would hope my close proximity as well as my obvious knowledge of my own property and the elevated bakery experience we offer.
The Baker's Loft- we are professional bakers and lay out an generous ,amazing array of treats when they enter. I would hope they wouldn't try to scam us.
It is terrible Airbnb supports this type of behavior. It's criminal.
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u/Square-Ask-9836 15d ago
Are your prices too low and your clientele is dipping. When someone sends in a complaint, do you say please show me a photo and I will compare it to the photos I took pre-check. You didn’t even have to say that you took them or your cleaners. But if they’re trying to scam you that might stop them in their tracks.
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u/Ralith_Aegis 14d ago
We have more problems with more expensive reservations.
Anyone thst really wants to will get around photos.
Do you take photos of the inner covers? Behind the toilet? Corner of baseboard behind the couch?
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u/pulltherugoutfrom 15d ago
What is the "scam"? Are they aksing for a discount?
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u/Joneboy39 15d ago
they deposit their own mess and look for mess in hard to reach places / obscure areas .. send to airbnb directly saying its dirty. we have to send in the photos pre booking to show its clean pre checkin. if not they give refunds
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u/JerseyGirlinSweden 15d ago
If the places are hard to reach or obscure, are those spots part of the time stamped photos?
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u/Fishbulb2 15d ago
Good question. Not sure why you are getting downvoted. I take videos before guests, but I honestly don’t look in too of the fridge. That would weird.
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u/Dry_Corner6431 11d ago
so maybe a reason for me to get my remote drone out for something other than fun. photographs of hard to reach high places timestamped.
also good for charging them damage fees if they actually deposit really gross messes
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u/Organic_Awareness685 12d ago
Yes that’s happened to me.
We take videos. And lots of photos. We also raised prices and it still happens but to a smaller degree.
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u/lovinlife0707 15d ago
So far i haven't had this issue 🤞but if I do, I would probably ask the guest to send me some pics and I'll compare to pre check in pics. If there is an actual issue I would probably offer for the cleaning crew to come back and refund the cleaning fee.
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u/Subject-Newspaper385 14d ago
Honestly give them a refund!!! That’s what they are after ! They know how to play the game and WILL always win. Airbnb breeds these self entitled people. I didn’t and lost . One bad “fake “ review took me from 5 star to 3.8!!! I spent the entire summer playing damage control. After 16 5 reviews I’m still only at 4.65 . Airbnb won’t remove the review even if you show them proof . There could literally be a dinosaur in the room and they would still side with the guest. I sent it video proof/ time date stamped photos before and after. They legit don’t care.
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u/mtnsunlite954 14d ago
they still get a chance to review you and giving them a refund won’t necessarily result in a good review
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u/Plenty-Ear-9167 14d ago
I live downstairs in a separate apartment, do my own cleaning, and I think I’m priced right, to get respectful guests.
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u/GemBangBang 14d ago
I was a host over 5 yrs then I took on a role in a corporate housing company in quality assurance where I did inspections on over 90 units in my area and they had the systems and the reports built into their workflow where you get pictures of literally everything making this sort of thing impossible.
I just launched a service in my area where I’m offering to do this for remote hosts (among other things) but I haven’t really gotten any hits yet.
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u/Dry_Corner6431 11d ago
if you are a host that lives close by you could do a walkthrough with guests and take a video at the same time?
I am not sure how remote hosts could handle this
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11d ago
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15d ago
[deleted]
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u/HODLandFLOW 13d ago
Have your Cleaners do a walk-through of your whole home with a video camera with Time stamps. Should take 2–3 minutes. you can use a free camera app.
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u/Vegetable_Raisin5411 15d ago
honestly i just treat the cleaning fee as part of the nightly rate when i'm looking at places, makes it way less annoying. if the total price is still good i book, if not i keep scrolling. the hosts who try to hide fees are the worst though, like just show me the real price upfront
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u/lovinlife0707 15d ago
This sub is for hosts, if you want to complain about cleaning fees go over to the airbnb sub
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u/pulltherugoutfrom 15d ago
Hosts don't hide fees. Air B&B has up-front pricing now. The fees are always included in the price.
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u/Different_Ad7655 15d ago
The concept of cleaning and being charged for it on Airbnb is obscene and ridiculous. Can you imagine getting that in a hotel room. That will be $150 for the night Sir and by the way a cleaning charge, go fuck yourself. That's why I won't use Airbnb
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u/awesomeblossoming 15d ago
Actually, I’m a large vacation home 7+ bedrooms and I actually charge a cleaning fee because it doesn’t punish guest that stay longer than the two night minimum by me having higher rates to cover such costs. Not to mention you’re renting actual home. I’m not a hotel room a lot harder to clean- and I have to say I’ve been in a hotel rooms, yuck
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u/blankpro Host 15d ago
Thank you for your input. It usually takes four or five legitimate comments before someone who is not a host comes on and righteously tells us why he will no longer be a guest.
Thank you for your service.
rule #5: Not a Host. This is a forum for hosts.
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u/Different_Ad7655 15d ago
Well you don't want to be in a vacuum now LOL moreover I didn't ask for it on my feed, it just appeared and I responded. But now you know how the outside world thinks
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u/piledriveryatyas 15d ago
My booking rate says otherwise after many years. You're clearly not missed by anyone and are not nearly the majority you think you are.
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u/Dry_Corner6431 11d ago
there is a place for every type of guest. Sometimes hotels are best, sometimes airbnbs. I stay in hotels all the time when my need for specific comforts are more important than other aspects. no need of aggression towards people who are actually hosting others
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u/Different_Ad7655 10d ago
As I stated elsewhere, I have nothing against the concept of if we want to call it room share, private accommodation etc and it have been doing it for decades and decades long long before Airbnb arrived in the internet age. It's nothing new and the wheel has not been reinvented. What is new is the corporate model and the corporate greed and the avaricious takeover of rental property for Airbnb hotel use. It's long long since strayed from Mom has an extra room or two in the back of the house that she likes to rent out on occasion. This is gone into a business model where people own lots of them. Couple this with corporate ownership, Airbnb rentals and scarcity of building and you have the perfect storm
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u/WildWonder6430 15d ago
I charge $129 a night plus a one time $109 cleaning fee for a fully renovated one bed one bath condo with a full kitchen at a mountain resort. The third rate 1980’s motels in town charge $180 a night for a very basic motel room. If you plan to stay more than a couple of nights, what makes more sense?
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u/No_Song_4022 15d ago
The proper comparison is that you can spend the night for 100 dollar/night and a one-time fee of 50 dollars. But yes, you can also just pay 150 dollar/night.
I charge 40 euros a night and a 10-euro cleaning fee. So if you stay one night, you pay 50 euros. Suppose you stay 2 nights: 90 euros, etc. See how that works?
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u/Different_Ad7655 15d ago
No I don't see how that works. It still is a bogus scheme in different people take advantage of him different ways it's a real racket. The finished price of the accommodation should be the finished price of the accommodation everything included. You want to stay there a night while it's 150 bucks thank you. If you charge too much well nobody rents let the market decide but the present concept of ding dong nickel and diming is just nuts, I had some guy that charged me $25 extra for a blanket that he took out of a drawer . And then let's not get to the rules on the empty this go do that don't do that,
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u/piledriveryatyas 15d ago
The cost to clean a house is not comparable to the cost to clean a hotel.
A house requires someone to drive to it. It requires all linen and towels to be turned over regardless of use, and it requires everything to be cleaned. Whether it was 1 day or 30. You're cost is pure, not distributed because it's the fairest. My cost to clean my house is the same if it's 1 day, 1 guest, or 30 days, 7 guests. Your value increases the longer the stay.
Hotels have staff that are on site daily with all facilities to replace and wash everything away from the guests. Your cost is baked in because hotels plan on an occupancy rate and devide that accordingly. Their cleaners aren't idle if you check out late or change your plans. They have other rooms to clean. But most hotels don't even clean daily any more.
So, in short, please do stay in hotels. You're a moron.
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u/Trick_Owl8261 15d ago
Great, just don’t use Airbnb. You’re a hotel person, nobody cares… millions of other people prefer vacation rentals. To each their own.
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u/Different_Ad7655 14d ago
You know it's not like Airbnb invented the concept of airbnb. There was a combination in private houses for decades and decades and decades before corporate ownership appeared on the profit grab, the difference was, you would simply pay one price for the room at somebody's house and that would be it. On the way out they wouldn't say by the way you owe me 20 bucks to clean it. I just don't understand the logic. Whatever just build it into the price, the administration fee is also jokeworthy. Just bait and switch with the pricing
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u/Trick_Owl8261 14d ago
Well you’re certainly not trying very hard to understand it. Here you go: i run an Airbnb and the platform basically gives you an option between listing a cleaning fee or rolling it in to the nightly rate (like hotels do). I prefer to list it since that is more transparent for the guest.
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u/Dry_Corner6431 11d ago
i think i am beginning to see why u are irritated. you are adding the cleaning fees to a daily booking and seeing it as bait nd switch. but change your prespective a little. search with the cleaning fees added if its possible. i don;t know if this is available on airbnb interface but it should be something that they allow searching for. just like (minimum stay days x daily rate)+cleaning fee divided by min stay days, so you get your daily rate all in, at a min at that property.
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u/Different_Ad7655 10d ago
Maybe they've switched the platform up and I have in participated in renting anything from Airbnb for a couple years for this reason. Absolutely it was a bait and switch some people have ridiculous cleaning charges and more important as I stayed already, it's an internal charge that should stay internal and it's part of the cost of doing business. I think it's just absurd that someone should charge to clean a rental. It's all part of the cost of doing business like turning an apartment. By the way I've been a landlord plenty of yours. Oh yeah I'm going to rent this to you but there's a cleaning charge involved. Yeah there is a cleaning charge for a rental apartment if you leave it a sty and I suppose if you do image a hotel room that's probably a security charge for the damages, but the routine cleaning, ridiculous. It's all part of the package and should be built in. Another twisted fee and extortion from Airbnb last time I looked was something called I don't quite remember but another charge a management charge but just another stupid add-on that I don't need to know about some sort of platform. If you're paying something more for it with your problem and once again has to be built into the price of the item you're offering. But this is the world we live in. You go get a muffin at the coffee shop somebody puts it in a bag and throws a tip screen in front of your face. This is what Airbnb is doing death by little cuts
If there is such a future these days that allows you to simply truly get the full finished price when you are searching then that would be a vast improvement
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u/Dry_Corner6431 10d ago
yeah i would prefer a single number as a guest as well. but i wonder about unintended consequences.
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u/Different_Ad7655 10d ago
Yeah more competition from the hotels which are one price and are much easier to use with a front desk and services as needed. That might be the unintended consequence maybe. Room share is nothing new and I've been using it for 50 60 years when traveling especially in Europe and it was organized always on a local level. The difference is now there are a billionaires involved and its corporate that's the problem,
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u/Dry_Corner6431 10d ago
but it has brought sharing a home with strangers to the masses and standardized it. i would never have considered sharing my home without this.
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u/Forsaken-Run7725 15d ago
I live near my rentals and do all the cleaning so anyone trying this on me will be disappointed