Greetings fellow Exchangers!
Weāve been using this home exchange website for 8 years before Ed Kushins sold HE to Guest2Guest ā¦ before āballoonā Passports ā¦ before Guest Points ā¦ and when cleaning fees were not permitted and were never charged.
I find it nerve-wracking that newer Exchangers are treating this opportunity as if it were Vrbo or Airbnb (et cetera). Some even seem to be using the cleaning fee as an opportunity to make $$$.
As mentioned in another thread, this platform is all about ātrustā and a willingness to get to know our neighbors, worldwide. Yes, we always take a gift (usually something made locally in our hometown) and we always leave the place cleaner than when we arrived. (Often we bring sleeping bags and donāt even turn down the bed.)
Sure, some people may not do this. Some people may even damage your home (stains on carpet, especially).
But that is what the HomeExchange deposit is all about - you can charge after guestsā departure.
However, charging a fee for cleaning because that is what you do when it is a vacation rental is missing the point. Iāve seen fees that make the exchange cost more than the cost of a hotel room!
Please people - get to understand the purpose of this platform, the enormous opportunity, and the beyond-wonderful people who exchange. Let all that resonate with you and donāt charge a cleaning fee - or at least waive it for people who pledge to leave your place clean!!
Hello Jasper,
I am in agreement with you. Iāve been an exchanger for 15+ years, before guest points or cleaning fees. I always tell potential exchangers that I do not charge, or pay, guest points or cleaning fees. And these days I prefer exchangers who have been on the platform for at least a couple exchanges.
I recently did an offset exchange where I agreed to having an exchanger stay at my place with the understanding that I would stay at their place at a later date. Because the platform is only reciprocal/non-reciprocal, we closed the deal as reciprocal so that no guest points were used. And to your point, this is where the trust element is so important.
Susan
Hi, Jasper - My husband and I are also long-term home exchangers - before balloons, guest points or cleaning fees (2010). I love the trust element of home exchange and am also frustrated when exchanges are treated like AirBnB replacements. For this reason, we have never charged a cleaning fee on HE (but sadly we have paid them several times because they are more and more common).
Hi Everyone,
When I am vacationing the last thing I want to do is clean- I would much rather pay for a professional before/after cleaning! However, we completely understand those folks who would rather do it themselves so we try and be flexible. After all, this is a community, not a rental!
What we just encountered and completely disagree with was an exchange where we were both asked to clean including washing all linens and remaking the beds PLUS we were charged a cleaning fee!!! That was ridiculous!
Again, happy to do either/or and be flexible but not clean AND pay! Sheesh!
Btw, love this community and have over 90 exchanges so far!
I hate cleaning and itās why I have a cleaning service for my own home. I donāt charge for cleaning if guests are staying less than 2 weeks, just ask them to pick up and replace sheets and leave the dirty ones in the hamper.
But I would much rather pay to have someone clean where I am staying. Itās stressful enough trying to pack up and potentially get an early flight.
I disagree. Maybe because we DO charge a cleaning fee when doing GP exchanges. The reason being that we also do rent out our secondary holiday apartment via booking.com and in order to maintain the crucial top rating we got there (9.0 currently) we have to make sure that the apartment is clean as a whistle before paying guests enter. I have had HomeExchange guest before who did clean the apartment, but did a poor job. So a professional cleaning is mandatory from my perspective. Same goes for washing of linen. Why shouldnāt the guests pay for that? Iām also willing to pay when staying at other peopleās houses - for instance next week here in CuraƧao. Iāll even pay for electricity (yes, I trust the owner of that apartment that this is a substantial cost factor and therefore am willing to pay extra for that). If there are extra fixed costs associated with a stay it is fair to pass those on to guests in my opinion. Of course, this all needs to be communicated beforehand. As a guest I can always say ānoā, if I donāt like those terms. As a matter of fact, I think this should be made visible on HomeExchange directly, sich that people even can filter for it. I.e. āexclude homes with extra cost for cleaning and the likeā. Then everybody is happy and we wonāt be losing homes just because it is considered a no-no to charge for certain expenses.
But are you sure that cleaning fee is going to a professional housekeeper? If you have your home on an āexchangeā platform, the idea is that youāre getting the same (or something of similar value) in TRADE. Iād feel weird charging a cleaning fee and pocketing the money while I wash my own sheets. But as someone else here indicated, some folks (especially those charging upwards of $200 for one cleaning, regardless of how long you stay) are using it as a way to squeeze some cash out of a person or group excited about a property theyād like to stay in.
Alternatively, theyāre using it as an extra layer in a selection process. āCanāt afford the cleaning? Weāre not your kinda folk.ā I might know myself as an educated and hyper-responsible person when it comes to minding other peopleās property. But the host would only know that Iām not a person in the income bracket they like staying in their house. Weād both be missing out because I canāt afford the annual fee of HomeExchange AND ALSO the $200 fee when Iāve already invested well in making my home attractive to strangers in the share economy.
As a newbie I thought the best advice I got was to let people choose whether to āleave it as they found itā or pay a nominal cleaning fee. Some prefer the latter! Especially if they are catching early flights etc. On the guest side of things, I would be happy to have a choice
Iām certainly not trying to make money. Iām just trying not to lose any. I have a 5 bedroom house. We are just 2 people so already if I do a reciprocal exchange its not exactly even, but its not about being even. Iāve traded for a one bedroom condo in Costa Rica. The cleaner cost $25 (owner told me). My cleaner cost $200. 3 people for 2 hours = 6 hours. I only charge $100 because I benefit. And nothing for reciprocal only for guest points. People that donāt want to pay, am I supposed to be your cleaner? I am supposed to come back from my vacation and clean for 6 hours to return my home the way it was. People say they leave it as they found it? Are you telling me you clean for 6 hours? Wow that is impressive. Only 2 out of 34 times have I returned to a house that was just like I left it. Its still worth it to me, but I feel like you donāt have any perspective but your own. Almost no one has mopped. We live at the beach so in about 2 steps in the house you know by the traces of sand everywhere. No one has cleaned the tubs(2) or sinks (6). I could go on and if they have children (who love a home near the beach) there are fingerprints on all the glass doors, appliances and table tops. We all have a different idea of what CLEAN means so why not respect your host and make sure that THEIR cleaner leaves it the way THEY like it because its THEIR house. That is the way I respect people. I exchange 12 times per year so it adds up. Second problem is you never know what someoneās version of clean is. So if you do back to back exchanges you have to pay someone in between to make sure the next guest gets a sparkling clean experience. I love cleaning fees. I love to pay them so that the owner gets their house the way they like it and I appreciate it when someone offers although mine is still optional.
Kauboy, I believe youād just be better off using vacation rentals.
100% of what you say is devoid of an understanding of what makes HomeExchange special.
We have been on HE since 2018, we love this platform and community. I appreciated Jasperās post about the money for cleaning, but at the same time I also understand people like SoCalSusan. In life we āātalk about our perception of what we look at. Here, speaking of cleanliness, it is true that what is clean for another may not be enough for me. I paid for the cleaning, especially if the request is reasonable. I donāt charge cleaning fees, but after most exchanges I did a thorough cleaning because I always wanted to be able to offer what I want and find. So I can say that I didnāt mind paying, especially if we are talking about morning departures (night plane). So itās all very relative. Iām a perfectionist and thatās why I havenāt found someone to clean the way I like. Here I think that everyone does as they see fit. The community is large and you can look for exchanges without the cost of cleaning or with cleaning, only that the price of the cleaning must be real, being only a final cleaning. Clearly, if we are talking about more than $200, I also consider it exaggerated.
Nah. Totally disagree with you. YOU are missing the point. Not us. Try as I might I have yet to find a single cleaner who will take guest points as payment.
Iām completely ok (prefer actually) paying a cleaner to insure a place Iām staying in is immaculate. In many of the places Iāve stayed in, that hasnāt been the case.
The last two places I stayed in had live-in staff. Iām happy they were there. I was happy to have been able to pay them for taking care of me.
You also have to understand many of the homes in Home Exchange are secondary homes (like mine) and are also vacation rentals. I canāt rely on ANY guest returning a home to pristine condition for the next guest checking in.
Iām a very successful property manager. Trust me, relying on a guest rushing out to their next destination to clean the house properly and change out linens, simply doesnāt work.
Thank you so much for starting this conversation and sharing your opinion!
I can only speak from my own experience but as a guest, I donāt really mind having some members asking for cleaning fees. In some situations, I prefer having them maybe because I have to leave the home early and wonāt have time to give it a good clean before leaving (that doesnāt mean to say I leave the home in a mess!) or because Iām with others and prefer to spend our time together doing other things, in which case I happily accept the cleaning fee.
And in the situation where I can do the cleaning well myself, I simply skip the listings that ask for a cleaning fee because weāre just simply not a good match for the exchange Iām looking for
And as a host, I never ask for a cleaning fee as I do the cleaning myself and have always been satisfied with how I find my home after an exchange.
Yeah, well you are looking at this as yet another business for your āsuccessfulā self. HE is/was about a community working together. The BENEFIT is staying somewhere sans feesā¦until Airbnbāers and the like use it as another angle to extract $ from guests.
As a new HE host, I am finding predominantly that most donāt charge a cleaning fee. I myself wonāt, for single exchanges, however, as we will be travelling from Australia to Europe over a few weeks, we may find we will have multiple HE guests stay over the weeks and the only way to ensure the house is left in spotless condition will be to put our trust in each guest or guarantee a cleaner. Offering the opportunity to clean, to avoid a fee, before check out will definitely be part of the negotiations though. It would be hard though if youāre catching an early flight out and just canāt get the sheets washed and beds made with a clean set of linen. Options are good.
Hello. I donāt think itās okay to charge a fee, but I understand that there are situations where the host cannot handle the cleaning and must pay someone to clean. It also amazes me that sometimes the rates are too high. In my case, I do not charge fees, unless the future guest charges at home.
James, thank you for proving my point.
You are a āproperty managerā - you are not interested in the HomeExchange experience or community.
I put up this post for people new to the site - so they would (hopefully) see that there is a big difference between an exchange and a vacation rental. You are saying exactly the opposite ~ and that will be the downfall of this method of travel & hospitality.
Iāve done about 70 exchanges over the past 10+ years, but I was today years old when I discovered there was a forum attached to this site.
Sadly, this was the first thread I stumbled upon here, which brought me to the realization that literally every last social media site is poison.
āCleaning Fees Are Not Appropriateā in the eyes of the OP, but I have grown to love them. For perhaps my first 25 reciprocal exchanges I covered the $50 fee my cleaning lady charged me while also spending 3 or 4 hours cleaning someone elseās house at the end of my vacation. Ten years later, I still have the same cleaning lady but my cost is $125. There is no way I am going to pay that AND clean someone elseās house.
Moreover, I have found that hosts that do not charge cleaning fees and are therefore willing to have a stranger clean their house do not have very high standards of cleanliness.
Luckily, āteam cleaning feeā seems to be winning this fight since almost every place Iāve stayed in the past few years has charged a fee and Iāve only had to clean one apartment.
For the cleaning fee haters, I fully support your choice to stay somewhere else so I make sure to post the cleaning fee in a prominent location on my listings.
