Air BnB- dispute. What level of cleaning is expected?

[applesauce1]

My husband, SIL and BIL stayed for 2 nights in an Air BnB in France. In the description, the owner said that 'house keeping is the responsibility of the guest'. It also said that we should provide our own towels and bed linens. Before leaving, we took out all of the rubbish and recycling, washed up, dried up and put away. Washed, dried and ironed a table cloth and wiped down the surfaces. When the owner came to collect the keys on check out, she looked disappointed. She pointed at a drop of water on the kitchen floor and a few (barely noticeable) crumbs under the table and communicated that we should have swept up. My SIL and I immediately put down our bags and tried to rectify this but she insisted that she would do it.
We have now received an email saying that she wants us to pay a large sum (nearly £100) because we didn't sweep the floors or clean the bathroom sufficiently (she wanted us to clean the shower partition) and also said that we left the beds in a mess (she didn't provide ANYTHING for the beds to be left in a mess).
Were we unreasonable to have not done a professional level clean of her apartment? What type of cleaning would you expect under the umbrella of "housekeeping"? Should we pay up?

By nearly £100 I mean over £50 but less than £100. I don't want to be too specific just in case!

Christ, this sounds very unreasonable on the host's part. Can she force payment via AirBnB?

I would avoid paying if possible, she's trying it on. Not sure what Air's policy is though, did they have to be a deposit she can take it out of?

That is not on. You offered to rectify the crumb issue and as you state, you had your own linen so it was not possible to mess the bed. I don't see her expectations or her attitude as reasonable. I would not accept this, I would escalate it to Air BnB through their usual procedure to see if you can reach a compromise on price as she is trying to pull a fast one by charging the full amount. If she had given you a list of tasks that would be one thing but how would you know to clean the shower partition?

Me and DH have stayed in quite a few Airbnb places. If they ask that the guest clean before they leave I strip the beds, clean the bathroom and kitchen, hoover carpets, sweep and wash other floors. I also make sure all washing up is done and everything put away, bins emptied etc

The deposit was nearly £1000 but it's more of a bond - if her claim is upheld, she can claim up the that amount from our card. There was only one review where she complained about cleanliness- she was upset that a guest hadn't cleaned the tape. We only read that after this issue though...
Unfortunately, you can only post reviews of a host if they accept the review and then review you in turn.
We've tried to reject her claim through the resolution centre and are now waiting for her reply...

Don't most airbnb include a post cleaning charge?

I've never stayed with a host that expected me to clean. There's usually a £30 ish quid cleaning charge on the booking. I'd generally tidy, wash cups (but not out away), take out rubbish. But I wouldn't strip beds, chemically clean anything, sweep or owt.

I don't think you left it clean enough but she is trying it on trying to charge a ridiculous amount. From what you said it would take under an hour to get it up to standard so £15 worth of cleaning at the very most.

Honestly, the place was clean! Genuinely, one drop of water on the floor (I filled a bottle up at the sink before we left so must have dripped when I put it in a bag?) and so few crumbs that I could have sorted it with my hand.. We didn't clean the partition because... well it didn't dirty. If there were a squeegee I'd have done that as I find that quite therapeutic
We're all completely shocked as we thought we'd done a nice job of leaving the apartment looking nice and she was so visibly unhappy when she arrived. We didn't expect it at all. If we'd left it messy, I'd have been happy to pay to clean but it was super tidy and really rather clean too.
It was a great holiday, other than that! Back to the rain now!!

YANBU but I think there is a cultural issue here. It is normal in French holiday lets for the guests to clean them to a much higher standard than the tidy-up and surface clean that is normal for holiday lets in the UK.

Yes, what Zoya said. By normal British standards you would be fine, but I have heard it is not unusual in some French holiday lets to have no cleaning at all in between guests so you are expected to leave it ready for the next people. (Whereas if an owner tried that here they would come to grief very quickly.)

Moral of the story is get a place with an early enough check out time that gives owner time to clean the place, and you pay extra for the exit cleaning service.

I would Never, Ever (apart from leaving the place tidy and given a once over), even contemplate a deep clean on the last day of the hols. Never.

Worth the money to pay for it. Then you can waltz off.

Sorry OP, I hope it works out for you and is a lesson learned for future holiday rentals isn't it. Hope you had a great time before Madame arrived on the departure!

Rosietosey
Lesson definitely learned! I have stayed in places before where you pay a cleaning fee (around £15) up front as part of the cost.
Really hope that Air finds Madame's demands unreasonable... and yes! We had a fantastic holiday! Thank you
To the PP who mentioned the list of tasks, I might put that into the review as a suggestion - that way the host and guest can be happy at the end.
Cultural difference could definitely be the issue here. Not come across it in Airs in France before but maybe I've just been lucky!

Are there any Air B&B hosts or guests out there who've had similar experiences to share?

I would also never stay somewhere where I needed to clean because
peoples perception of cleanliness differ. If I was expected to clean before new guests arrived, I would properly clean floors not just sweep them.

Have you posted about this before?

Either that or there's a lot of finicky chancers hosts on Airbnb.

Someone posted an almost identical post to this recently and then replied to say Airbnb dismissed the claim without quibble

Host did then still write an unfavourable review of them

I live Airbnb but for the above reasons only use homes with multiple perfect reviews

@Caprianna.

Exactly, you are so right there.

Even if we cleaned the place to within an inch of its life, I would never be sure it would meet Madame's or other owner's standards. Too stressful.

That's why we pay for the place to be cleaned by others not us!

Isn't a cleaning fee usually included in the price on air b and b?

This is why I give up every time I try to book a SC holiday in France. I'm not willing to spend the end of my holiday cleaning, it seems like a way to ruin a holiday. I think expectations are vastly different.

We had a horrible experience in a gite in France with an owner who kept a big chunk of our deposit and said we'd left the place in an absolute state. Photos to illustrate this included a small mark on the kitchen floor left by the final bin bag where it had rested on the floor by the door, a tissue on the floor (and I'm still mystified by that as none of us were using tissues at the time), and the sun loungers not being where they were when we arrived. She was so rude and unpleasant. The booklet in the gite explicitly said that the gite would be cleaned and the cost was included, but we had done a fairly thorough clean anyway because we always do. It really put me off renting SC like that again.

I have a friend who cleans gites on change over days, she charges 20euros an hour, which seems to be the going rate, a 3 bedroom gite takes her 4 hours maximum that includes changing beds, hoovering, dusting, cleaning bathroom and kitchen, so Madames charges are not reasonable

I could have guessed it was in France. We rented a villa in Spain off a french couple, who turned up on our leaving day with loads of cleaning products (and a 6 hr gap between us leaving and the next people being allowed to check in) and they threatened to take our deposit because the fridge and floors weren't clean enough (they looked fine to me)

They didn't take the deposit but said they would if it happened 'next time'. No chance of there being a next time!