House cleaners for tenants?

[Baird King]

BPers - curious if anyone has experience (positive or negative) including mandatory cleaning services in the rent for single family homes?  Seems like this is not a common practice, but I am not sure why.  We are finishing renovation on our first rental property and want to do what we can to keep it clean.  We are in an expensive area (Santa Barbara, CA) where the cost for cleaning services is minimal relative to the rent prices, so I can't imagine many tenants would quarrel over this, especially if it is included in the rent. My feeling is this would be nice peace of mind when handing off the keys.  On the other hand, I can also see the argument that a one-time hit for a serious deep clean at turnover saves more in the long run.  Thanks for any advice.

[Jennifer T.]

It would definitely turn away some tenants.  If I were a potential tenant, I would be VERY put off by that.  Unless it's a smoking hot deal or a good rental is hard to find, I'd never want to rent from someone who meddles in my personal affairs that much.  There are reasons, other than money, someone wouldn't want a cleaning service forced on them.  Privacy is one that has been mentioned.  Or maybe the tenant feels they do a better job cleaning then most services do.  I know I do.  I hate deep cleaning and have never even remotely done it as a profession, but I do a substantially better job than any company I've ever hired.  Or it could be principle.  It's their home while they rent it and don't want someone, even the owner, telling them how to live.

With all that said, if you get dozens/hundreds of applications when you have a vacancy, then it probably doesn't matter if some people are put off by it.

Or, a compromise that is more common and not nearly as intrusive, is to have a set cleaning fee that is automatically taken out of the security deposit.  Set it high enough to where you can just hire a company to do a deep clean and call it a day.  The majority of the time, even filthy tenants are not going to cause damage from their lack of house cleaning that can't be scrubbed away with a good, deep clean.

I had a tenant leave me with a bath tub that looked like she'd been using it to dye things black.  The inside of the bathtub was a light black that wouldn't scrub off at all.  I was freaking out that she had permanently ruined the tub.  And "bonus" points because she had only lived there for 8 months and I needed to evict her, to get her out.  I looked up cleaning solutions.  Discovered the magic elixir of Dawn dishwashing soap, vinegar, and water.  We had to coat the tub three times with that solution and did some scrubbing in between, but the tub came out looking better than when I had originally bought the property.  I use that for everything now, even in my own home.  For normal cleaning, it's effortless.