Cleaning Fees?
 

I have recently booked another condo through VRBO and found that all the condo's that I have looked at in my search through all the sites (which were many) are now charging $100 or more cleaning fees tacked on to the bill as a separate fee. Is this fairly new, or just to the area that I am booking? I have never ran across this before. (Just luck?) I am sure that I probably paid them anyway as an inclusion of the total bill, but never saw them being listed as a separate fee!

These are pretty common fees in some resort areas when you are renting a condo. They're more common with private owners who don't live locally and have to contract out the cleaning. I've heard of this in the Outer Banks and on the Gulf coast.

I think more and more places are separating those fees out, or else it's just where I was looking. I was surprised when looking at Hawaii VRBO apartments how many charged $120 for cleaning -- a flat fee. If you were renting the apartment for only 3 nights (which they allowed) that added $40 a day to the price listed per day. There's a lot of difference between $90 and day and $130 a day. Kind of misleading in my book.

But in the grand scheme of things, if they don't list it, you know it is just included in the bottom line price.

The amount you are being charged seems kind of high to me. I use vrbo a lot, & it is more typically in the $45-50 range. However, it also would depend on what they provide. We usually throw towels & sheets & stuff in the washer & dryer prior to leaving or oftentimes provide our own. We also usually remove garbage & recyclables. Nearly all of the Realty companies on the Carolina Beaches charge in the $35-45 range. The days of self-cleaning or free cleaning are over, I'm afraid.

The good news is you're probably not having to wait to get a deposit back & your not paying reservations fees, admin. fees & other garbage fees that many Realty companies do charge. Maybe not even tax.

Not all that we rent through VRBO charge a cleaning fee separately from the rental rate. One place we rented for years and years lost our business when they started charging a ridiculous amount for cleaning. On short rentals, it just wasn't worth it.

As I've said before I will not rent a place that allows "self cleaning". It would be my luck to arrive after someone departed early in the morning leaving the place a mess. How can people be expected to mop floors, clean bathrooms, and change the bed linens, including doing laundry, when they depart in the morning? The bottom line? They won't.

Yuck - I agree with Patrick. I'd rather pay for a "professional" cleaning myself so I can also be certain that it was professionally cleaned before I arrived. And as for the charges of $45-50, around here you couldn't find anybody to clean for that little.

I agree that $85-$125 for cleaning is getting to be standard, depending on the size of the place. I, too, would rather this fee was just rolled into the rental price, but I guess nobody wants to up their base prices enough.

I'm not sure, but I think I have always paid tax etc. on vrbo rentals, too. Although I have had satisfactory experiences with vrbo properties, I have to say--and have said before on other threads--that I have not seen any real difference in price between vrbo places and renting through a realty company. In areas where they are available, I am starting to prefer using rental companies because there just seems to be less hassle in terms of picking up keys, requirements for how the place should be left, etc.