Airbnb has updated its rules to stop hosts from requiring guests to strip beds, do laundry, wash dishes or take trash offsite at check-out.
Long overdue, I'm fine with doing dishes or putting towels in the bathtub/shower, but some owners pushed it too far basically asking for a full cleaning DESPITE having cleaning fees AND quite early check-out.
No doubt, someone at AirBnB's HQ in SoMa worked real, real hard on this LLM prompt. Psh. Easy for a corporation to 'update' terms (and pretend to be 'consumer-friendly'), but effective enforcement against non-compliant hosts will be the real test. Saying “just be reasonable” means very little when their retaliatory review system already discourages guests from speaking up. I haven’t used Airbnb in years and won’t be returning anytime soon. Even the prospect of new coupon credits (Amex?) doesn't offset unpredictable standards and these absurd chore lists. Hotel chains have their own flaws, but at least I’m not paying a cleaning fee AND having to be the housekeeper, too.
"Retaliatory review system?" How does that work? Neither guests' nor hosts' reviews are available to the other party until both are written and submitted, so explain how one can retaliate against the other for a bad review.
As for paying a cleaning fee and having to be a housekeeper, well, I've stayed at dozens of airbnb's and never felt I was asked to do anything unreasonable in terms of housekeeping. "Load the dishwasher before you leave and turn it on" is not unreasonable, nor is "take out the trash so it doesn't stink up the place," in my view - both of these make it easier for the host to prepare the place for the next guest and take almost no effort. I've never been asked to do a major cleaning or to leave the space spotless, or even to sweep the floor before I leave.
I'm sure there are some nasty hosts who demand more, but they get bad reviews and you avoid problems by sticking with highly rated properties.
You're talking about tidying up vs cleaning, and that's not the issue.
The problem with hosts is that they charge a ridiculous cleaning fee AND ask guests to clean before they leave. You can't have it both ways.
Funny how I've just never had any of these problems. Never had a host retaliate (although I've brought up issues before) and never had unreasonable requests to clean the place up. Of course, I myself don't make unreasonable demands of hosts, and am always polite and deferential, and I try to be understanding of a host's point of view (e.g., if they make an obvious effort to fix a problem, I don't complain if the problem doesn't get fixed as fast as I'd like). So I kind of wonder what sorts of people (or circumstances) lead to these situations of so-called retaliation. I suspect that, with certain people, unpleasantness happens just as often when they're hotel guests as when they're staying in a vacation rental; the difference is that hotels don't generally get to publicly review their guests, so the guests end up getting away with being very demanding or even abusive and no one ever knows about it except the hotel staff who have to put up with it.
But whatever. Everyone's experience is valid. If you don't like AirBnB, that's great - more selection available for me and lower prices, too.
As a host, I charge 100€ cleaning. The cleaning lady costs me 120€.
Making a loss on it, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask guests to run the dishwasher and take their trash out.
snlc, you should know better than to try to 'sane-wash' this with a 'double-blind' cop-out.
If a guest brings up an issue during the stay (or pushes back on excessive checkout demands before leaving) the host knows a negative review or dispute is coming and will preemptively ding the guest in their review. That threat alone is what keeps many guests from speaking up, or leaving honest 1-3 star feedback.
And, as Todd pointed out, there's a huge difference between light courtesy and actual housekeeping. When a host stacks mandatory chore lists on top of a $200+ cleaning fee and holds your guest rating hostage over it, the whole model loses its appeal. There's a reason I haven't thought twice about AirBnB (or VRBO) for a while.
I think it should be pretty simple - either ask for guests to do the chores and don't charge a cleaning fee OR charge a cleaning fee and don't require guests to perform chores.
As someone who does 2-3 large group trips a year (primarily through Airbnb or VRBO), it's been absolutely crazy to see some requests which have included taking garbage offsite to a dumpster a quarter mile away and washing + drying bedsheets.
I could be misreading this, but it sounds like the platform still won't require hosts who maintain cleaning rules to disclose all of those rules prior to booking/full payment. Instead, the platform will just apply the generalized "includes cleaning requests" label. Full disclosure of all rules would be a better policy for a couple of reasons. First, it would keep renters fully informed of the expectations they'll be facing. Second, it makes enforcement way simpler on the back end. Renters could very easily demonstrate that a host applied rules during the stay that were not disclosed up front, while hosts could very easily demonstrate noncompliance with rules that were disclosed during both booking and the stay.
Maybe I've just been lucky, but nearly all of the Airbnb/VRBO requests I've received are "take the trash out on trash day" and "run the dishwasher before you leave". Very occasionally strip the beds, but more often not.
I'm sure this is a case of a minority of listings going overboard.
Airbnb/VRBO continues to be a useful service. Can be great for family stays, etc.
Somehow, I doubt it is a minority because I don't think they'd alter their policy if it were.
They likely had a couple of years of complaints from guests before finally doing something about it.
Squeaky wheel and all.
You think it's a majority of the listings that were asking folks to take their trash to an offsite location? I highly doubt that.
I think they saw a 1% problem turn into a 3% problem and took corrective action before that spread further.
"Why do I have to run the dishwasher if I already PAID for the cleaning fees."
Because it takes 5 seconds and is common courtesy. The dishwasher can take an hour or two to finish, so if the cleaner arrives an hour before the next guest is due, if they have to start running it at that point, the dishes won't be put away for the next guest.
I can’t figure out why but I struggle to get behind Airbnb. Except for a large group stay in a true luxury home (where I’ve never had an expectation to clean anything) I’d just much rather be in a hotel. I know all the arguments and they are totally rational, but for some reason I just am not a fan of generic airbnbs.
In my experience with AirBnBs, I’ve never had a whole list of things to do. Most was the strip the linens and place in the bathtubs. They’ve usually been pretty good except for one that had stains on sheets and one where the owner went out of her way to make it difficult for me to use the laundry that was clearly advertised.
My biggest issue with making guests clean Dishes is when people are trying to get out of there they are not going to do a good job so I always end up washing any dish I use because I trust the last guest. That needed to change and really glad it did
It's been hilarious seeing the start different between the AirBnB subreddit and the AirBnB_Hosts subreddit on this topic. Had to go make some popcorn 🙂
What are the owners upset about? AirBnB users pay a cleaning fee. Not sure why guests should do more.
From my perspective, no one has been better for the hotel industry than the vacation rental industry
I NEVER ask my guests to do ANYTHING! They are on vacation! Most of the time my guests DO clean up, even though I don't require it, because they respect my home, and are not slobs!
Even if the host has no specific instructions, I usually at least make sure the dishes are clean before I leave as I think that's just common courtesy. I don't want to (and won't) clean toilets or make beds, but tossing dishes in the dishwasher is trivial.
AirBnB needs to set the rules themselves.
Either guests are expected to do the cleaning or they’re not.
Making it arbitrary and from host to host is absurd.
Anyway, why anyone would want to deal with this rather than just pay for a hotel is beyond me. Pay nearly the same price but get 10% of the service. Not for me.
Actually, my experience with AirBnB is that I pay the same price as a hotel but I get 2 to 3 times the space as well as a kitchen that allows me to store my food in the fridge and prepare simple meals to minimize restaurant costs (and minimize unhealthy food intake - restaurant meals tend to be too salty and fatty to eat regularly). Even hotels mostly don't clean the room every day unless you ask (and, in some cases, pay extra for it), so it's not as if I'm somehow getting more or better service at a hotel. Generally I find the opposite to be the case - a friendly local owner who takes pride in their place and in their town or region is a big difference from a hotel front desk clerk who has 50 people in line to check in.
It's about time. So many people going back to hotels because of all the crazy rules and chores. They had to do this.
I believe general tideness should be an expectation of a hotel or AirBnb. It helps to eliminate items left behind. Turning the dishwasher on or moving furniture back to where it originally was does takes less then a minute. Hotel or Airbnb should be done.
AirBNB is awful. Similar to Marriott, whose real clients are the hotel owners, the real clients for AirBNB are the hosts.
Too little too late- chores, fees, weird rules, weird layouts, and owners have priced out residents and bypassed laws in how many places? Once a way to encourage small business by owners, but now a mix of extractive capitalism doing harm.
I might check airbnb (or more likely their competition at vrbo) for unusual or unique properties like villas and cabins. But in lieu of hotels? Hard no.
As a host, this rollout has been ham handed, at best. The truth is, there are a fair number of hosts making unreasonable requests for guests to clean the property before departure, which is what this is a welcome response to. But the way these changes have been rolled out, it appears that common sense has also been eliminated. Based on reading what we’ve seen in the host side, asking for guests to load and run the dishwasher or asking that trash be taken to the curb would be afoul of the new rules. If true, these changes run the risk of significantly increasing our cleaning costs, as they could increase the time our cleaners need to spend on site or even require multiple visits. I hope that Airbnb take the maelstrom these changes have created to clarify these rules.
AirBNB needs to be taxed/regulated out of bsuiness. It's become a platform to:
1) Avoid zoning restrictions by operating a commercial short-stay business from what should be a residential property
2) Avoid hotel licenesing laws
3) Facilitate tax evasion
I've had first-hand experience of the damage and disruption that 1 to 2 AirBNBs can do to an otherwise great apartment complex.
Why are people obsessed with the cleaning fee? All I ever care about and compare is the TOTAL cost; how that cost is broken down is irrelevant: £1 rent + £99 cleaning fee is the same as £99 rent + £1 cleaning fee.
Sounds like someone complained that it's bad for the environment and therefore needs to be addressed to match their politically correct agenda.
You don't see an improvement being made otherwise these days.