Some hosts are threatening to strike, while others are plotting ways around Airbnb’s new restrictions. Guests, meanwhile, are celebrating.
AIRBNB HOSTS ARE melting down over a new policy banning them from making guests complete tasks that “would typically be performed by a cleaner,” like “stripping the bed, taking trash offsite, or washing and putting away dishes.”
The change, which applies to all bookings made on or after November 20, quickly sparked outrage after it was announced in an email to Airbnb hosts on Wednesday. Many began fuming online about losing the right to make their guests clean up after themselves.
“As hosts, we have a responsibility to protect our investments, our homes, and, in many cases, our personal living spaces,” one person wrote in Airbnb’s official forum for hosts. “The problem is that Airbnb increasingly expects hosts to accept the risks while limiting our ability to protect ourselves.”
If I was a customer forced to pay a $50-100 “cleaning fee” I wouldn’t clean absolutely anything, that’s what the fee is supposed to be
All AirBnBs do is buy up affordable housing and convert it into passive income. It’s one of the main reasons we have this major housing crisis today
They tried to run hotels without running hotels and are surprised maintenance and cleanup is on them, not guests? Wow, I am shocked
Tech is being used to speed run the history of every industry with themselves inserted in the middle to collect fees.
Maybe instead of striking they can form some sort of collective entity of their own. Some sort of group providing lodging for travelers. If they get big enough someday they might even have upscale luxury services such as cleaning. I believe the French have a fancy word for this: le hôtel.
or hostels
Disruption 😎
A different self-described host declared that going forward, the kitchens in their rentals will be “stripped down to only bare essentials.”
You think your Airbnb kitchen is currently well equipped?! 😂
I actually travel with a mini sharpener to make Airbnb knives usable.
What’s the problem? Hosts can still charge cleaning fees but they can’t force guests to do chores.
Yeah, but they were doing both.
Now they can’t have a cake and eat it too.
Exactly. If the hosts were able to both make guests clean up after themselves and charge a cleaning fee then the cleaning fee was just a money grab.
I rented an airbnb, my one and only time, where the host had an insane list of chores. For context: This was during the pandemic and it was me and my two best friends who just wanted to get out of NYC for the night to get some fresh air. I cooked at home and packed dinner, so we didn’t use the kitchen. We didn’t drink. We had a quiet movie night, enjoyed the trees and each others company and then went to sleep.
The next morning, I personally wiped the counters, wiped the fridge, took out the trash, stripped the beds, refluffed the couch, swept the fireplace… the works. I literally woke up 2 hours early to get all this cleaning done. They had a cleaning fee on top of all these chores, which I felt was odd, but it was a new experience for me so I went with it. I am big on rules and respect so i sincerely cleaned to the best of my ability.
After I posted a positive review of their home, they put up a review of me within seconds claiming I trashed the place. They were vying for an additional charge for me leaving the place messy. They said their cleaning lady called to complain about how I trashed the house. I messaged asking what they were talking about, absolutely confused, and they gave me a list of how I trashed their house.
- There were crumbs on the counter. I know I wiped it, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe i missed something.
- They said one of the blankets was a little damp. After asking the other girls, I think my friend briefly sat on the bed after she took a shower. I had stripped the bed so this was a blanket in the hamper they were complaining about that should have been going to be washed. I didn’t notice anything damp when I stripped her bed, but we were trying to rationalize the complaint while we were all talking about it after.
- The back of one of the couches had a smudge on it. It was allegedly charcoal from the fireplace. I didn’t see a smudge, it was just me and two girls and none of us touched the back of the couch. I don’t know where this came from. You can’t see the back of the couch in any of the photos I took, and I can’t 100% guarantee nothing happened but none of us had any reason to touch the back of the couch and I was the only one to sweep the fireplace (which was full of ash from the previous people but it was on their ‘house rules’ to leave it clean and I was worried we’d be charged so I swept it)
They hosts wanted to charge me a $500 additional cleaning fee for the “trashed” house. I had after pictures of the condition i left it in and nothing came of it, so I think Airbnb said they didn’t have a case, but I never used airbnb again.
It cost more than a hotel would have in the area. Such a scam.
Yeah, shitty people are going to be shitty. I’ve had good experiences, but have only booked weird quirky airbnbs. Unless you have a reason to need an Airbnb, like wanting a kitchen or special experience or something, you should definitely get a hotel.
That’s a terrible experience. I’ve never stayed at one and never had a desire though I can see the appeal for some. When I travel I want to be taken care of. Not go through this.
I’m not going to do anything at an Airbnb that I wouldn’t do at an actual bend and breakfast or normal hotel room.
These owners are making money off of me. I’m not doing their damn chores for them. “Protecting your investments“ does not include taking out the fucking trash and stripping the bed.
Bend and breakfast? With blackjack and hookers? Take my money!
oops…. 😅
They’re lucky they still exist. Fuck airbnb
Unfortunately, I kind of rely on them. I’m an Aspie so the noise of your standard hotel/motel makes them intolerable to me. Airbnbs tend to be less expensive than hotels and easier on my nerves.
From the article:
In a Facebook group for Airbnb hosts, one person posted what they claimed was a screenshot of their failed attempt to edit their property’s “Requests” section. They tried to ask guests to wash and air-dry dishes, put dirty towels in the laundry room, and take trash to a dumpster at an RV park they could find using a map on the refrigerator.
Until now, guests were supposed to pay huge cleaning fees AND clean AND drive their trash offsite to an RV park to deposit in the park’s dumpster? The one that the RV park and its guests are paying for?
Trash collection isn’t free, and in many rural areas isn’t run by the local township via property owners who pay the town for it via fees; that’s a city thing. Outside big cities it’s often something you have to arrange and pay for yourself, and this is especially true for commercial dumpsters. Like one you’d find at an RV park.
I got $100 that says there is no actual agreement between this RV park’s owners and this AirBNB host, that the RV park owner suspects but does not know, and that this AirBNB host just figured her AirBNB guests would blend in with the RVers while she raked in a five-finger trash discount for herself.
And nobody seemed to even notice. The Facebook post this came from has a link in the article; I don’t have Facebook but I’d honestly be shocked if anyone even caught this.
Stealing trash service from your neighboring business on top of exorbitant cleaning fees for cleaning you refuse to do? As classy as the rest of AirBNB, I guess.
The hostility these people have for their customers is really something to see.
You can kind of feel that hostility when just staying in a lot of those places. Which I refuse to do anymore. But I learned slowly after several bad experiences. I always justified it by “this doesn’t usually happen and I’m saving money”. Then at one point I realized it happens 50% of the time and you’re saving not much if any money anymore. Airbnb hosts are largely selfish assholes who lie on their listings and don’t care what happens to you or if you have a problem. I had my car broken into at an Airbnb and it was a whole debacle I won’t go into, but the host ignored my calls and texts for hours after it happened. That’s probably my worst experience but I’ve had at least 5 other memorably bad times as well.
Accept the risks of them… not washing the dishes?
As hosts, we have a responsibility to protect our investments, our homes, and, in many cases, our personal living spaces
Correct, since those are your moneymaker. You better be responsible for your assets, and that means investing in them. There’s no free meal.
cry baby cry
My one and only Airbnb experience: first it took an hour to get the keys and figure out how they worked on the locks— one was so stiff and difficult we feared breaking the key in it. We could only use the flimsy door handle lock to secure the room behind us. It was a little apartment in a block. It was not up to my level of cleanliness and there was a clogged toilet in the only bathroom. The owner argued with us about fixing it but we got it fixed several hours later after insisting. There were weird stains on the sheets on a bed in a small alcove in the hallway. My friend and I ended up sharing the remaining queen sized bed. I was afraid I’d get bedbugs the entire time. It was moderately priced off-season and I split with my friend— considering the shabbiness of the entire experience it should’ve been very cheap. I will never use Airbnb style accommodations ever again. No way it’s worth it.
How does a guest not having to strip the bed create additional risk?
