We are a group of young professionals that have often stayed at short stay properties but we have never been treated like this. At the end of our stay, despite us having cleaned for several hours prior, the property being left in a good state of cleanliness with no damage and us being almost ready to leave, a team of five staff from management and their four cleaning staff came in and started rudely accusing my guests and I of leaving the property in a bad state and that this was a major problem as they have another group of guests coming shortly. I was told that I must pay for extra cleaning charges for the "worst condition even seen", yet when I asked for clarification as to what the issues were, the owner was not able to provide any example and said "well, just, everything". This was an incredulous claim given the obviously good condition of the property that we had left being in front of us all, instead we figured that this explanation was false and that this was about stress of the next group coming in so shortly after us. This seemed to explain to me why the owners were treating us so indignantly, despite the fact that we'd paid them a very large rental fee and left the property in good condition and only slightly later after the agreed 11AM check out time due to missing car keys delaying our departure.
The next day a charge of over $1000 was made to my card without my prior authorisation. This included 12 hours of "extra cleaning" at $99 per hour which didn't make any sense given the good condition that we left the property in. We were also accused of breaking 20 glasses, which was another claim without basis given that I personally washed the glasses and took out the garbage, and therefore I know that there was no more than two broken glasses.
In the next conversation, the only explanation given for the massive cleaning charge that "we had a left a sticky remote control" in one of the rooms, and this justifies four cleaners spending a total of TWENTY FOUR HOURS to clean. Further, they claim that they are entitled to charge $99 per hour for cleaning despite this usuriously high rate not being in any part of the agreed terms and conditions, and representing many multiples of the quotes I attained from other reputable cleaners in the area to do a short stay changeover clean of the property in question.
We were happy to pay a reasonable additional charge as we vacated slightly after the agreed 11AM time due to our car keys being misplaced (we left around 12), however, given that we washed and staked all the dishes and glasses, removed garbage and left no damage, there was nothing left for the owners' cleaners to do other than mopping the commercial kitchen floor. We estimated this as being less than 30 minutes work for one person. Instead we were charged 12 hours cleaning at $99 per hour. We understood that another group of guests were due to stay later in that day, however after paying such a rental large fee for the property and leaving the property in good condition, as we always do we when staying in any property, we felt as though we were treated quite poorly and it definitely put a dampener on our stay. Given the unreasonable way that the owners have treated us, we expect the owners to imply that our group of guests were irresponsible with the property. We would suggest that given nothing was damaged and the property was cleaned by us each morning and left in a good state of cleanliness, that this is a claim without any basis.
Next time we book a property make sure that we take a full set of entry and exit photos just in case we find another owner like this one trying to blatantly rip people off.
All bookings are direct with the owner 