NO!! Cleaning fee

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I am Giorgia, a member of HomeExchange for 3 and a half years with 40 exchanges under my belt. I love it, I adore its philosophy and the travel perspectives it has opened up for me. I can honestly say it has changed my life and the way I travel.

Today I am here to bring up a topic that has been troubling me for a few months now, hoping to involve as many of you as possible and raise awareness among the rest of the users.

I will start with a phrase my husband often says: “We at HomeExchange are one big family.” To me, this is the core, the heart of the platform. There is no profit motive; we don’t exchange to make money, but to enrich ourselves with culture, experiences, friendships, and so much more.

Let’s get to the point: Lately, I am finding more and more exchanges where a cleaning fee is requested. I’ll say it sincerely: I don’t like it, and it saddens me enormously. For me, HomeExchange has always been: “I will treat your home as well as, or better than, my own.” I take care of it, I enjoy it, and I leave it exactly as I found it. If I can, I repair or improve something, and I do so gladly. The fee breaks this magic. The fee tells me: “You are a stranger to me.” I don’t like that. I know many of you will argue that you’ve had bad experiences, or that some people don’t have time to clean due to an early morning flight or for any other reason. Indeed, there are truly exceptional cases, and perhaps offering cleaning as an option or an extra service in special situations can help us, but as a rule, please NO! Imposing a fee on guests—which is unfortunately often unjustified or excessively high—has nothing to do with HomeExchange. I will conclude by saying that, in my view, if as a guest you don’t feel like cleaning and tidying up what you used, or as a host you don’t trust who comes into your home, then quite simply, HomeExchange is not for you! Who is with me? Who wants to break this trend that risks ruining the very essence of our community?

A practical suggestion on what to do:

As a host, let’s ask in advance, even before accepting an exchange, if they agree to clean and leave the house exactly as they found it. If they agree, perfect. Furthermore, leaving it as found frees us from mixed interpretations of the concept of “clean.”

I have applied this system and so far I have never had any problems.

Another small tip: create a “to-do” list, meaning a list of things that need to be done before leaving the house. This reduces misunderstandings and helps the guest find their bearings more easily.

Let’s not add a cleaning fee by default, and if we really want to offer this service, let’s do it in private communication and exclusively for exceptional cases.

As a guest: let’s make ourselves available to clean, let’s make it clear that we are willing and want to take care of their home. Personally, I am starting to exclude anyone who asks for a fee upfront, and if I can’t avoid it, I speak with the owner, point out that it is not in the spirit of HomeExchange, and state that I will personally take care of the cleaning.

Come on! I look forward to hearing from many of you!

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Hello. It’s a subject which divises members. Personnaly I prefer to pay cleaning fees. You’ll ne happy to know that you would soon be able to filter the non cleaning fee homes, cause a filter is in development.

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Hi Etienne, thanks for your point of view.

Sure, cleaning fee (or I would prefere call it “service”) is sometimes a practice option.

My worries are about the compulsory of these fee. I would have the option to take care of it by myself if I can.

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Ok so soon you will be able to filter this and avoid members who require it

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Yes thanks, but that it is not my point. I can exclude them already now. My point is the mentality, the spirit of the community. From my point of view it was created to share without money! If, for particular reason it is offered like an extra service, like baby sitting, cooking service and so on, ok, but pretend it it something for me outside the aim of the community.

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Ok, that’s your point of view, I don’t agree with it. There are so many members who don’t clean in a correct way ( this summer it was almost every day in the facebook groups) , I completely understand members who require a fee and as I said myself I prefer this than doing the cleaning with 2 kids to take care of in the meantime. Everyone is different , there’s room for different type of members.

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Ok. Then, Only for curiosity, if you see my more than 40 exchanges all 5 stars reviews and I ask you for hosting me, and I am taking the responsibility to clean by myself and leave your house as I find it, will you decline my request?

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I don’t charge a cleaning fee myself but even a member with great reviews and a lot of experience can clean to a different standard of what the host wants. It’s so subjective

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I can understand, that is why I use the formula: please clean and leave the flat as clean and as tidy you find and until now I had only positive experiences :slight_smile:
I hope it will work so also in the future and I hope do not be obliged paying cleaning fees at least I choose it like additional service.

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I do agree with you @Giorgia

I don’t accept request from people who charge a cleaning fee to their guests.

It means they are clients , not Friends.
It also means they won’t great your home with respect.

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Hi Giorgia,

Like you, I love home exchange! Having completed 51 exchanges in the four years that we’ve been a part of this wonderful community, we’re thankful for the opportunities it has given us to welcome other members from around the world into our home and to travel.

As you asked to hear from many of us, I’m writing to say that if I wasn’t able to charge a reasonable cleaning fee, our second home would not be listed on home exchange. The cleaning fee ensures that our home is clean and properly prepared for our guests.

I also prefer to stay in homes that charge a reasonable cleaning fee. This summer we stayed in a home that was “cleaned” by the previous home exchange guests. I put “clean” in brackets because I had to clean the bathrooms and kitchen upon our arrival. I didn’t reduce the owner’s cleanliness rating because I assumed it was the previous guests who didn’t take the time to clean it prior to leaving. I don’t want our guests to be in a similar situation when they arrive at our home.

While I specifically look for exchanges with homes that are professionally cleaned, I have occasionally not proposed an exchange when I feel that the cleaning fee is too high. That’s the beauty of home exchange - it isn’t one size fits all. We have options. I’m happy to hear that there will soon be a filter so that members will be more easily be able to locate the homes according to their preferences regarding cleaning fees.

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According to HE, the cleaning fee cannot be used to prepare the house for guests; it is only intended to cover cleaning after your guests have checked out.

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Thanks for your post @iliopart. I wasn’t aware that my post could have been misleading. To clarify - the cleaning fee is for the cleaning lady to clean AFTER the guests depart. It ensures that our home is clean for the following guests because I’m normally not at our secondary residence for extended periods.

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Exactly Nathalie, that is the point :light_blue_heart:

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Hi Explorer,

​Thanks a lot for sharing your experience and situation.

​I completely agree with you—the cleaning fee only makes sense as an optional service. For me, cleaning is just like babysitting or cooking: an extra service you can choose. I don’t like feeling distrusted or being charged extra for something I always do myself anyway. I always put things back where they belong and clean up after myself, treating any exchange home as if it were my own! :blush:

​I’ve also dealt with back-to-back stays where a new family arrived right after the previous guests left. In those cases, I asked the outgoing family to clean and leave the flat in the same condition as when they arrived. I then asked the incoming family for feedback on the home’s condition, which gave me the info I needed for a fair review. It has worked smoothly every single time so far :crossed_fingers:t2:. I’m totally with you—it’s completely unacceptable to arrive at a stay and have to clean right away.

​It would be so much easier if everyone just respected the space and left it the way they found it!

I would like just share another experience: one time, I payed for the cleaning fees of a family’s house living in another country. The house has to be professional cleaned (high costs) but it wasn’t. I have reported it to the owner because she had also payed a service for nothing. That is also to say that sometimes paying also does not solve the problem :see_no_evil_monkey:

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In my opinion, allowing a host to require guests to pay a cleaning fee goes against some of the fundamental values of home exchange.

I am in favour of making cleaning services available as an optional extra. I understand that for some travellers this can make things much easier, especially when they are travelling with children, have limited time, or simply prefer not to deal with the cleaning themselves. My concern is not with offering this possibility, but with making it compulsory.

On the one hand, people who charge for cleaning can then stay in homes where they are not charged anything, even though those hosts have also spent time and money cleaning and preparing their homes. I don’t find it very consistent that some people can charge for this effort while, for others, it is simply taken for granted.

There is also an obvious inequality between countries. A host in the US, for example, might charge €250 for cleaning, while that same person, when travelling to a country with a lower cost of living, would pay much less for a similar service. It is difficult to see this as fair or particularly compatible with a community based on exchange.

I also think there are two arguments that do not really justify making these fees compulsory.

The first is that, as @Nathalie1 said, paying for cleaning does not guarantee that the house will actually be clean. You only have to look at the HE Facebook groups to see plenty of examples. Moreover, HE already has a specific criterion for assessing cleanliness in reviews. If a guest leaves the house in poor condition, this can be reflected in the review and, if it is a serious case, the host can contact HE so that the appropriate guarantees can be applied. I don’t think it is necessary to make cleaning a compulsory paid service to deal with this issue.

The second concerns the tax implications. If HE allows these fees, I believe it should require the service to be properly documented and invoiced.

Finally, I don’t think it is entirely valid to say, If you don’t want to pay the cleaning fee, you can simply choose another home. In many highly touristy destinations, particularly beach and ski areas where second homes are common, it can be genuinely difficult to find available homes that do not charge such a fee. So the freedom to choose is not always a realistic one.

For all these reasons, I believe that cleaning should be optional, not mandatory. It should remain a choice for the guest and not an imposed condition of the exchange.

And if HE eventually introduces a filter to identify homes that charge cleaning fees, I hope it will also require those hosts to provide proper proof and a legal invoice for the service.

Ultimately, I think this is about more than just a fee: it is about the kind of community we want to build. Home exchange is based on trust, reciprocity and solidarity, and I believe we should make sure it remains that way.

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@illopart , we obviously have different opinions about cleaning fees. That’s alright with me. Home exchange isn’t a “one size fits all” kind of community.

To quickly respond to a couple of your points:
When I’m in Switzerland (the country where our secondary residence is located) I prepare our home for our guests – so it’s not a question of “preferring not to deal with the cleaning”. When I’m not in Switzerland, our cleaner ensures that our home is cleaned to the same standard after guests depart. This way the level of cleanliness doesn’t depend on the previous guests.

Life (and exchanging!) is full of choices. If the place where I want to go doesn’t have many available homes, I still have options. I can pay the cleaning fee or go to a vacation rental, hostel or hotel. Alternatively, I can look for an exchange without a cleaning fee in a completely different location. When I talk about home exchanging with prospective members, I always tell them that it’s important to be flexible. If I have my heart set on going to a particular place at a particular time then I may be disappointed with home exchange. Some of our most memorable exchanges were ones where I wanted to go to place A and ended up going to place Q. That’s part of the adventure.

Again, guests have a choice. There aren’t any imposed conditions on Home Exchange. If I don’t want to care for a dog or cat during an exchange, I exclude homes that come with pet care. Likewise, with cleaning fees. You’re completely free to rule out any homes that don’t match your criteria.

Even though we don’t agree about cleaning fees, I recognize you as a committed and concerned home exchange member who wants to continue building a strong community. Thank you! :grinning_face:

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Hello @Explorer

Your logic doesn’t hold up because everyone has to prepare accommodations for their guests.

If you pay your host to clean up afterward and your guest pays you to clean up after their stay, the total comes to zero.

However, if some people take advantage of the situation to charge high fees to make money, that’s no longer an exchange at all.

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@explorer , of course home exchange isn’t, and shoudn’t be, as you say, a one size fits all kind of communnity. We agree on this point!

What I meant is not that the host may not want to take on the responsibility of preparing their home, but rather that the traveller may find themselves in a situation where they would prefer not to have to deal with the cleaning themselves. That is precisely where the possibility of offering cleaning as an option comes in — as an option, not as an obligation.

Of course, life is full of choices, and people are free to exchange homes, rent an apartment or stay in a hotel. That is precisely why I don’t see the point in introducing practices from the traditional tourism industry — such as compulsory cleaning fees — into home exchange.

If home exchange has been different from the very beginning, it is precisely because it was conceived as a more supportive, equal and less consumer-driven alternative to the conventional tourism model.

And this has nothing to do with being flexible when searching for accommodation.

On the other hand, I honestly think that comparing the choice between homes that allow pets and homes that charge compulsory cleaning fees is a false equivalence, because these are two fundamentally different issues.

Whether a home accepts pets is simply a characteristic or condition of that particular home. There are perfectly legitimate reasons why a host may decide not to accept animals — allergies, health issues, fear of certain animals, concerns about damage to the property, or simply personal preferences. This does not alter the fundamental nature of home exchange: both parties are still exchanging accommodation without introducing an additional financial charge.

A compulsory cleaning fee is completely different. It is not a characteristic of the home or a limitation arising from the host’s personal circumstances. It is an additional financial charge imposed on the guest as a condition of the exchange.

There is also an important difference in terms of economic inequality. Whether or not a home accepts pets does not create an economic imbalance between members. A traveller with a high income and one with a low income are affected in exactly the same way: they simply need to find a home that meets their circumstances.

Cleaning fees, however, can have a very different impact depending on where people live and what they earn. A fee that may seem insignificant to someone from a high-income country can represent a substantial amount of money for someone from a country with lower wages. The same person may charge a high cleaning fee when hosting in their own country and then pay a much lower amount when travelling to a country where cleaning services are cheaper.

There is also a geographical difference that makes the comparison even less convincing. Homes that do not accept pets are spread all over the world, because this is simply a matter of the individual characteristics and preferences of each host. Compulsory cleaning fees, on the other hand, tend to be concentrated in highly sought-after tourist destinations, particularly beach and ski areas, where demand for accommodation is already very high. In those places, saying that guests can simply choose another home without a cleaning fee is often much less realistic, because there may be very few alternatives available.

So I don’t think it is valid to argue that you can simply choose another home in both cases as if they were equivalent. Choosing a home that accepts pets is about finding accommodation that fits your needs; choosing whether to accept a compulsory financial charge is about the economic conditions of the exchange itself, so it introduces an additional financial transaction into a system that has traditionally been based on reciprocity and solidarity.

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@iliopart, if you reread my message, you’ll see that I was referring to homes where there are animals that require care. I don’t have an animal because I travel too much. :grin:

I’ve enjoyed the conversation but will say goodbye for now.