Airbnb hosts are furious they can no longer make guests do their chores
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.”
https://www.wired.com/story/airbnb-hosts-are-furious-they-can-no-longer-make-guests-do-their-chores/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
288 replies
I don't understand the appeal of these stupid things. Chores while on vacation/travelling? lol
If I wanted to experience being in a home covered in bodily fluid and filled with hidden cameras then I would just... stay home for vacation.
If I wanted to be forced to be a maid while doing it then I would visit a BDSM dungeon.
cry baby cry
Strike? Against whom, yourself? You're the boss.
This must be murica, hereabouts no guest will do any cleaning.
They're technically independent contractors with some of their own capital. What makes them different than an Uber driver or a truck owner-operator is the amount of capital required to do their job is a lot higher and they generally don't need to do as much labor.
Who's taking the trash out now dumbasses? Not me. You deal with the insane rules of your strata. Not my problem boo. (I also think AirBnB is an evil model and wouldn't use the app but....I could not resist)
they might as well spend the money to have a houskeeping service.
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.
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.
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.
What the fuck do hotels do?!?! Fuck landlords of all types. Entitled twats. Fuck right off. Glad I never use these. Just do a fucking hotel. An actual business. Not these craigslist-ass half-assed supplementing someone else's overpriced mortgage and bad financial decisions.
Exactly. If you're going to pretend to be a hotel, then you have to act like a hotel.
Hotels, motels, boarding houses, albergues, inns, resorts, serviced apartments, and actual freaking B&B...
All of those are good for the economy to varying degrees; the smaller the business and the less corporate they are. Airbnb is just corporate leeching without any benefits.
"striking" would imply they were performing any work in the first place lmao
Yes, you get it! It's not my job to take care of your house dumbasses!!
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…. 😅
I remember renting vacation houses and cabins a few times before AirBnB got big from smaller companies. That was way better because it worked more like a hotel where they actually had cleaning staff and other staff. It was much nicer stopping by an office, checking in with an actual human who is professional and courteous and getting a key, as opposed to dealing with shitty tech bros and slum lords both trying to get maximum profit while doing the bare minimum.
"Strike" would imply you work lmao
You think your Airbnb kitchen is currently well equipped?! 😂
I actually travel with a mini sharpener to make Airbnb knives usable.
They tried to run hotels without running hotels and are surprised maintenance and cleanup is on them, not guests? Wow, I am shocked
Exactly. Finally some sane choices by Airbnb.
But I wonder what's the real reason, because no company is so nice towards final customers. Maybe Airbnb saw a decrease on booking on their platform because people are rightly fed up with that bullshit and they just prefer hotels.
It's because bookings are down. Even Marriott offers full house rentals, that operate the exact same as their hotels, minus the free breakfast (And sometimes light dinner that some hotels offer).
I wish to hope for that, but my mind says there must be some shit they are trying to cover up
Fuck these parasites, I'll continue to not use Airbnb.
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
https://insideairbnb.com/
Just chech your city. Even if the data is inflated it is still shocking.
Unfortunately my city, along with the major city I live near, are not options available on that site. :(
isnt that the coporate landlords/rich landlords doing that, they are the problem. a nearby house airbnbs, but i dont know if they still do it, but the occupants own(the son has a fancy car gifted to him by the dad) asthon martin sports car.
It's both. Airbnb have ruined the core of major tourist towns due to everything being a short term rental. Locals and workers get pushed out. It's a big problem in places like Venice, veil, lake Tahoe, etc...
"disruption" really is a synonym for damaging the industries.
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.
Idk about you but the majority of hotels I've stayed at are quiet.
Lucky you.
also for large groups, or families, it also make sense. rather than painstinkgly trying to share a couple hotel rooms and being uncomfortable.
Large groups in Air BnBs will likely get you banned, or charged for each additional occupant over 2.
It depends. Some hotels have shareable rooms with doors between them that they can open if a big group is renting contiguous rooms. That's always been nice in my experience.
What is an aspie
Someone diagnosed with Apserger's Syndrome. Me.
Aspergers syndrome sufferers have sensitivity to loud noises, bright lights, or certain textures, alongside occasional physical clumsiness or coordination challenges.
sounds like u just gotta lock in
As hosts, you can go fuck yourselves after what you did with the house market.
No, the problem is that you expect all the good from the hotel market without all the bad from the hotel market. Because let's be honest, you're not renting your house or your room for one night eventually, you're trying to live off this, and that makes you a hotel.
No sympathy for these assholes that only deserve the worst after fucking so many cities and towns.
Oh please... don't threaten us with a good time. Please do, strike indefinitely. My only hope is that you start losing money and go broke because that's what you deserve for making a business off the house market.
I don't even understand why people use Airbnb.
Every time I've looked at Airbnb, a hotel was cheaper and easier. Hotels certainly have some hidden fees, but nothing like airbnb has.
Oh look, this house is 60 dollars a night. That could work for my two night stay.. oh wait, now that I've clicked the listing, it has a 400 dollar cleaning fee. I've worked in cleaning. cleaning a house does not cost 400 dollars, and thats assuming you have professional cleaners coming in to clean it, which we both know you don't. You expect the guest to do all the cleaning, and you come in, spend 30 minutes doing the bare minimum touchup, and want 400 dollars for it.
Tenish years ago I would use air bnb because it was a good bit cheaper than a mid level hotel and you'd get a whole house with a kitchen. Means I'd save money and could cook. But that's changed and it's usually more expensive for air bnb now
It was so much cheaper back in the day. Me and my wife would rent out either a guest suite or a room for a couple nights in new cities. I’m talking like $40/night with fees or a little more but with advantages of a kitchen and a couch vs a hotel suite.
Also we rented one twice to host big parties because neither us nor any of our friends in the city have a house big enough to host and comfortably sleep 15 people. Luckily that’s changing soon as my wife and I finally purchased a place in the city, and look forward to hosting our friends for years to come.
I haven't even considered an Airbnb in close to 8 years. Pay a cleaning fee and have to strip the bed linens, take out all trash, and tidy everything...on top of a moldy af bathroom, having to check all potential locations for the hidden cameras, and getting texts every 30 minutes telling (not asking, TELLING) me to leave a 5 start review. Fuck you
exactly.
This type of thing isn't normal.
You can choose not to rent a place that has a chore list.
Like a moldy bathroom is a health issue. If you report it the listing will be shut down.
Hidden cameras are the same, not really a thing.
Sounds a bit like you chose the cheapest listing and like to complain that it feels cheap.
Weird to blame the renter for being cheap on a litany of health, privacy, and labor related crimes at the behest of a wannabe landlord
Sure.
The thing is the same principle applies in any market. If you want to buy a car, and buy the cheapest you can find, its not going to be a good experience.
I don’t believe Toyota is selling Corollas with mold sewn between the seat cushions. But sure, keep blaming the poors.
Ooh, sick burn. Amazing.
If you buy the cheapest corolla you can find, it will have all sorts of things in the cushion seams.
You have to try pretty hard to find mould in an airbnb listing. People will mention that kind of thing in reviews.
If you choose the cheapest airbnb, or the cheapest hotel, it's going to be gross.
I dunno... I've never had an issue with my Hyundai, and was never told I had to keep it clean, while being charged a cleaning fee each month...
Sure, but you understand the absurdity of buying the cheapest car and then complaining about it.
renting would be different, it would be a semi-permanent, where you pay renting fees. but then you have the headache of going through rental laws/fees for your city.
Hotels don't rent out houses in the middle of nowhere for my friends and me to get trashed at for the weekend. They're really nice if you want to get out of the city and relax in someone else's house for a couple days.
Now, most Air Bnbs don't allow you to have a bunch of friends to get trashed over a weekend... It's in the listing rules.
Yeah, I exclusively use it for less populated areas where the hotels are sketchy at best. Its worked out well for me, but maybe I've gotten lucky.
So, in the long long ago, in the before time, Airbnb was a way to rent out your apartment or home for a week, while you were on vacation, or to rent out a spare room with minimal headaches. In fact, after Craigslist more or less died, it was THE way to do it.
Over time, this changed.
I paid $80 for a room in the middle of LA
That's kind of high for the middle of Louisiana. Just sayin.
Giving the year is extremely important context.
Literally a month ago
grats?
We've used airbnb twice because it was for a whole house and I have a severely disabled daughter who can get loud and physically disruptive. Those were the only family vacations that we've ever been able to take because hotels generally can't accommodate us. This isn't a common requirement, and if not for that special use case, I'd pick a hotel every time.
sometimes it might be useful for a large group visiting that needed a whole house rather than trying to get hotel/motel for each person a room, im guessing its convenience and simplicity for groups. not useful if you are 1-3 people.
I guess it depends on the region. Used Airbnb a lot in spring when I did an Interrail tour through central/eastern Europe. Often it was just the cheapest option. Sometimes hostels with 10+ beds in a room are cheaper (also used these quit often in my first Interrail tour trough other parts of the continent a couple of years back) but not always.
Then also the thing with having a kitchen which can safe you some more money. Especially for breakfast, it's crazy how hotels are pricing them.
Not trying to say that Airbnb is cheap(or isn't destroying the housing market), it's just that hotels are expensive. At least in the areas I travel.
When it first started it was good for traveling on a budget. But yeah then greedy assholes ruined it by trying to gouge every dollar they could out of it.
I think the hidden fees have been abandoned now. They were never a thing in Australia - the price is the price.
For groups of more than two people apartments and houses are usually significantly cheaper on AirBnB, and being fully self contained with a kitchen and laundry changes the calculation too.
how people get away with thinking a HOME is an investment is insane to me. Homes are for living in.
This is the same thing Xi Jinping said when he intentionally crashed the housing market.
Is that what you COMMUNISTS want, to destroy the wealth of hard working housing speculators?
Yes, in fact.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) stop. i can only get so hard.
I've often thought of, instead of buying my first home, to wait, save, and buy one of those homes that's been split up into two nice apartments? Then live in one, while renting out the other. I don't think I'd want to do Air BnB though... Rather just find a nice tenant that won't eff the place up, be the landlord I always wanted (free rent for December plus they get all the extra sweets I bake).
I was actually surprised, all the places I've rented, none gave discount during December. I figured it would be a thing people did, like Christmas bonuses at work.
No, landlords don't give discounts in december. That doesn't make any sense.
If they were better people, they would. Just another example of how slumlords are terrible people. Rich enough to own multiple houses yet can't share a sliver of wealth during the one time of year it's needed most? bah! humbug!
No they wouldn't.
You've just invented a bizarre test of how a good person ought to behave.
Why not donate that money to a refuge or something.
There's a reason why landlord's don't discount rent in December - because its daft.
found the landlord!
LOL.
Only on the fediverse would someone think that's some kind of insult.
I'm renting from someone like that right now. Works great, I get to keep a little garden, I do some home maintenance without having to go through all the home ownership stuff. And rent is cheap. No in-unit laundry, but I can't complain about that given the other advantages.
I've never heard of rent being discounted in December. Christmas bonuses aren't as common as they used to be, either.
Yeah I've never heard of it either, I guess I just kinda assumed a landlord with a great tenant would show their appreciation in some way, and the best way I could think of, is like a "half-off rent for Christmas" sort of thing.
Anyway, if I ever become a landlord, that's what I'm doing.
That's some real saturnalia spirit. Though I think more people's idea of a great landlord is one that gives you a discount on rent when times are tough rather than for any specific holiday. But you go off and make the world better how you want.
Yeah, I thought I had a good relationship with my landlord, because I'm a great tenant that fixes all my own shit and never bothers them for anything. During the height of COVID, I lost my business, and I asked him if he had any spare work I could do to try to earn some money (didn't even ask for leniency on rent!) and he never even replied to me.
I was like, "OK, I'm gonna have you fix all the shit now, I'm no longer doin' squat."
Every single one of these stupid middle man, gig work bull shit "disruptive" companies in a nutshell.
Air BnB, Door Dash, Uber, etc etc.
They want to sit in the middle scraping money from "gig workers" doing a "side hustle", while skirting all the regulation from the industry they are apeing.
The thing is that this hurts the few hosts who still use airbnb in the original somewhat harmless way, by inviting people to stay in their homes while they're on holiday or to use an extra room. It does not negatively affect the types of hosts who are actively ruining cities, as these hosts already hire cleaners and property managers.
Of course, the people this hurts should ideally move to somewhere less shit than airbnb. Personally I use homeexchange, but that only makes sense for people who don't need extra money. Fairbnb.coop seemed promising except that it has been offline for months.
That's what cleaning fees are for. These assholes pretend to charge a cleaning fee and then make guests clean after them. Cleaning fees exist for this sole reason, so the guest pays for the mess they do. And if the mess is too big, airbnb will protect the host anyway.
They are complaining because they can't keep being a hotel but treating guests as tennants.
Of course you can't have it both ways - either charge a cleaning fee or demand your guests to clean up after themselves. In an ideal world people would clean up after themselves.
Yeah, seam normal to leave stuff the way it was.
But don't expect me to clean up mess that isn't mine.
How? They can charge a cleaning fee still, they just actually have to do the cleaning.
Plus I'm sure airbnb will keep things reasonable if not in favor of the host. If you stay for a full week and use every dish and pot in a place without cleaning any I'm sure airbnb would allow an extra fee. If you make breakfast before you leave and put dishes in the sink now the host has to deal with it.
Pretty reasonable
yea, my bro one time airbnb a whole month, that would be a reasonable fee, because you are staying there long term.
Based on my own experience with homeexchange: I don't want to hire professional cleaners to come clean up my home after hosting guests. I don't want to clean up after my guests either. I allow them to stay in my home without a cleaning fee, and part of the social contract is that they clean up after themselves.
It's the exact same as when I allow my friends to stay in my home while I'm away. They clean up after themselves.
Cleaning up after staying in someone else's home is just obvious common decency. What has happened here is that airbnb no longer is a platform for letting people stay in your home, it's a platform for running hotels in buildings where people used to live. Some people are still however left on the platform inviting people into their homes without hiring dedicated cleaners, charging cleaning fees, or running a big operation. These people are fucked over by this.
My partner's grandmother used to lease out a few free rooms in her house using airbnb. She stopped partly because the mess some privileged assholes would leave behind would take her days to clean up.
If friends come over I don't expect them to vacuum, do the laundry and redo the bed.
They also don't expect the place to be spotless like a hotel when they arrive.
If they stay for a couple of nights or while I'm around, no. Sometimes I'm gone for weeks and I allow friends to use my home, at which point I absolutely expect them to at the very least vacuum.
Do you charge your friends for their stay? Do you charge your friends a cleaning fee, while still expecting all of that?
Obviously not?
However, I did at some point consider renting out my free room for a few months at a time. In the end I didn't have to do this as my partner moved in with me instead and we share the rent. If someone paid money to live with me in my home I would still, very much, expect them to clean after themselves. I also expect my partner to contribute to cleaning even though we split the rent.
Last time I checked Ainbnbs also didn't always charge a cleaning fee; it was up to the host to do so or not. I haven't used airbnb in years though, so it might have changed since then.
I must say I'm a bit horrified by the seeming reluctance of people in this thread to clean up after themselves. To me this is a minimum fucking standard of human decency, whether it's a public space, a friends' place, somebody else's home, a hotel room, a café, whatever. I can see how being charged a hefty cleaning fee fucks with willingness to tidy up, but these cleaning fees are so high precisely because of people who don't give a fuck and leave behind an absolute mess wherever they go. These people are the reason we cannot have nice things.
The thing is? Most AirBnB listings aren't someone's home. They are just an investment property.
With "most" being an important word. You still have normal people trying to get by, but they are being drowned out.
Airbnb started out as a service that made it easier for people to pay rent, and has transformed into the main reason why people cannot afford it. It is so far gone by now that there's nothing left to save, but in principle rules like this makes it harder for normal people to make ends meet by allowing people to stay in their guest room.
Last time I checked there were still normal people on airbnb. As there's no real alternative out there and people need the money I assume they are still around.
There's still alternatives, if you don't like Air BnB. Self managing your rentals is still there. Of course, instead of paying Air BnB you need to pay a marketer, probably the local tourism board, etc etc.
I get it, the service went down hill, though, for the people trying to just let out a room while they are away for a week. But the vast majority of Air BnB listings are not that, anymore.
Yeah. I would love to see a service pop up for short-term rentals where people can only rent out places where they actively live at least part time, but I agree that this is not what airbnb is any more. At this point airbnb is little more than a cancer in the housing market.
Hotels are superior anyways. Source: just called down to the front desk to extend my stay another few days, took 30 seconds
Airbnb hosts are like the used car salesmen of landlords.
I travel around Southeast Asia and China/Hong Kong and stay in guesthouses mostly.
I haven't dealt with an Airbnb host since one charged me for electric, lol.
LOL
Apartments in SEA always charge electricity seperately.
Its by far the biggest cost - much more than the cost of the building. If you walk in and turn the air con on, and leave it on all night, their costs will be much, much higher than they would be for a more economical guest.
Never had to pay electric at a guesthouse. No shit you would pay electric if you were renting....
Hotels and guest houses do not charge extra for electricity.
Serviced apartments generally do, even if you're only there for a few nights.
It's not the length of the stay but the style of accommodation.
If you rent an apartment on airBnB, or just because you saw the sign from the street, or because a travel agent arranged it for you, you'll pay extra for electricity. This isn't an AirBnB thing.
Accept the risks of them... not washing the dishes?
Independent contractors threatening to strike will never not be extremely, raucously hilarious.
If you know such an idiot, please laugh as hard as you can, right in their face.
EDIT:
Enjoy being foreclosed on, you collosally arrogant, absolute wastes of human life. Your pain is the rest of society healing, and you deserve all of it.
"Landlord strikes" lol Never will be UN-hilarious.
Woof lol, just layers deeper than mere "independent contractors", too, the strike threat is unbelievably funny.
These are people who are years downstream of even other downstream folks (the plastic-facade YouTuber hustlesphere influencer types who eventually
<???>enough popularity to move these folks into actionable FOMO lol).A "strike" 🤡
Them saying "I was squandering my inheritance, but then I wasn't and it was so easy, I was so smart!, and now they made it harder, so I'll have to suffer through just squandering it again and I'm mad that they did this to me!"
I had considered more fully explaining the entire onion of irony of this being a massive self report on the many ways in which these people are contemptible evil failures, but I settled on just directly insulting them.
But yes, yeah, what you say is true. The levels of delusional self caused shittiness, the different ways that ... threatening a 'strike', in this situation, reveals both how stupid and how evil one is...
Its comical. Like, 'The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber' levels of irony.
Yeah. The hosts are pissed they have to pay the labor costs of cleaning crews rather than just their mortgages.
That's not at all what the word "host" means.
It sounds more like "landlord".
Naw more like "parasite"
You two just said the same thing.
Yeah, thats what they said.
It's like landlord small man complex.
Landlords are far more productive and beneficial pieces of complete trash than the utter parasites that are AirBNB hosts could ever wish to achieve.
There's plenty of value in the base idea, I think. People deserve real vacations and there's no reason hotel chains and cabin rental agencies should be the only games in town.
The problem starts when you start running your cabin rental agency through AirBnB and pretending guests should pay the same rates while doing all the housekeeping.
I definitely don't agree that an entitled luxury service seller can be as bad as someone driving up the cost of necessities while providing nothing at all
Yeah, the premise is solid in principle, but I don't think anyone was prepared for how quickly or thoroughly people would go all in.
Ultimately, all rentals charge far in excess of the mortgage or base rate for the space just at cost. Which is fine. But then it became almost trivially easy to rent substandard spaces for more than they were worth, which didn't solve any problems, but rather inflated the cost of housing since rates might be so high, a space can sit empty 40% of the time.
Housing isn't as flexible a good as ubers and drivers.
Well, yeah, if the systems and incentives for the owner class weren't absolute shit and literally the only considerations economically and socially that anyone gave a fuck about then things could operate without being the absolute worst version of what they are for every part of life as a whole.
That’s not what happened, though.
You're right, there should be some kind of service for people to rent out unused rooms in their house for people to use short-term. Something that shuts out people who buy a whole ass house or groups of houses.
They are called "Bed and Breakfasts" or "Boarding houses".
I'm not trying to be shitty here. Bed and Breakfasts existed alongside boarding houses for a good long time before AirBnB.
The problem is AirBnB generally doesn't have these listings anymore. The incentives made it into a "Buy a home cheap, rent on AirBnB for exorbitant prices".
Maybe in the sense of parasitology?
Maybe don't let strangers stay in your home then? That's what hotels are for dummy.
I hired out my personal space and someone paid and used it. GASP, I didn’t mean for them to actually use it, I just wanted them to give me the money and clean.
Worse - many use the ability to require cleaning up after yourself with the threat of fines if not done at all to always charge guests exorbitant fees even when they clean, claiming impossible standards weren’t met - all to grift and stuff pockets in order to have guests pay their mortgages on homes they otherwise couldn’t afford to play speculative investment games on, and to end up with massive profits to pay themselves for work they largely didn’t do themselves. They’re scamming, they saw how corporate Americans and the ultra wealthy scam workers and wanted their own version of it. They’re pissed they have to become workers themselves.
alot of the corporate and rich landlords are buying up the houses to use airbnb in large numbers.
Wasn't it supposed to be that way at first? Renting an extra room in your house
Yes, in the same way that Uber pretended that their service was a way to find people to carpool with and not a taxi service
I remember lyft being branded as that more than uber
yeah, i think you're correct
yeah, at first. Now they're just hotels that don't want to declare themselves as hotels so they don't have duties.
Originally it was just for people visiting conventions to have a place to put their air mattress, which is where the Air in Airbnb comes from.
so initially it was just couchsurfing/hospitality but worse (no culture sharing aspect + it costs money)?
Damn, after reading your comment I thought airBnB came after the enshittification of couch surfing but no, they co-existed and society chose the one with money instead of culture sharing + local volunteer vetting + free accomodation.
We suck :p
Founders went to a tech convention and didn't feel like paying full price for a hotel if all they were gonna do was sleep there and spend the whole day at the con so they made a platform where people looking for exactly that could find places to literally put their air mattress (you had to supply your own mattress) during conventions and it kinda snowballed from there into "oh shit we can make money off this".
Isn't that what most people do at a hotel though?
The only time I've spent more time than just sleeping at the hotel was when we were there specifically to play d&d
There's the buffets/restaurants, spa arrangements and all sorts of room service that exist for a reason.
Sure but these are separate things you pay extra for. It's not part of the room. If you just plan on sleeping there, don't get the spa arrangement maybe?
From the article:
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 dumpster thing is shady, for sure, and they definitely shouldn't be charging a cleaning fee, but I don't think expecting people to wash their dishes or put all the dirty laundry together is super unreasonable. Like are people really out there staying in places and leaving a pile of dishes with crusted on food and their soiled towels just scattered around the place? Those are actually pretty reasonable requests. You're right about the trash though, that's sketchy. I'd definitely just leave it tied up by the door if there weren't sturdy outdoor garbage cans I could put it in. No way in hell am I driving it anywhere.
I've never had a hotel ask me to do that.
If you're going to pretend to be a hotel, then act like it.
When you go on vacation, do you expect to perform all the routine maintenance you do at home?
I don't. It's why I'm on vacation.
This means nothing to me seeing I've only stayed in an Airbnb twice in my life and thought a hotel was way better.
Hotels are fine when you are alone or a couple. When you have (young) kids an appartement or house is much better, where the kids get a room. Hotels have family rooms, but its usually an extra bed in the same small hotel room. Where you basically have to be silent when the kids go to bed and have zero time as a couple.
This is why suites are available at hotels. I typically just get Extended Stay suites for this very reason. They come with a kitchen, and service for 4. Housekeeping stops in daily, empties trash, takes dirty dishes away and replaces them with cleaning servingware, runs a vacuum, replaces towels if needed, etc etc.
I don't know if this is regional, since I grew up in a semi turisty country. But here hotels with complete suites have always been a thing. Family suites have full or partial kitchens and multiple rooms, a main room with a queen bed and one or several extra rooms with singles or bunkbeds, but it is still just a hotel or inn. And it is not a luxury option, it is just a possible option. Some vacation spots offer suites that can accommodate anything up to dozens of people in a single party.
Maybe it's because families used to be larger here or something. But it strikes me as weird this is not an option anywhere else that airbnb was viable.
Hotel suites are totally a thing here, and it is also not any more expensive usually than a AirBNB. It's just not a full blown house by yourself. A lot of them have free parking too.
I'll say heh staying in a love hotel in Korea was probably the most fun hotel. There's food, snacks, beer, and ... well a toy vending machine. Yes the TV had, idk a option to call for pink or blue--I didn't play around with that. There was all the regular stuff you'd expect. But the best part was there was two racing sims, two flight sims, other arcade stuff, a VR thing. And it was cheap.
As a neighbor of one of these, I had a guest try to confront me. I live in a narrow street and have lots of colonial walls that make drives sketchy. I can’t safely back out to leave my home if the guests street park…rather than for some reason use the completely functional driveway the building has. They do so anyway. I have them towed. One lady came out while I was sitting on the stoop because I had told my daughter I was calling the tow truck (not even loudly, she must have been creeping). She tried to shame me by saying “you just have to ask nicely” to which my response was “you just have to read” and pointed at the sign, and the yellow line reading “do not park.” She really wanted me to feel bad or something, which I didn’t, and I still do not. I have explained to the owner that I won’t be asking nicely to use my driveway in the home I pay for from the guests of a hotel, I will be documenting, and I will have them towed. Hasn’t happened in a while. Idk why this bitch thought she could talk to me like I was an npc in my own neighborhood.
I'm not sure what this has to do with hosts being upset they can't find guests for not doing dishes. Also, maybe you should have treated them like a person and asked them to move rather than potentially causing them to lose their car at worst and hundreds of dollars at best.
She should have read the sign for sure but that's still a dick move
If it was a neighbor, sure. It's not.
It's a constantly rotating series of customers of the person leeching off the housing crisis.
OP should not need to ask every time they need to use their driveway. The guests rotate so they would need to do it every time. The no parking sign serves that purpose much better. And OP isn't causing them to lose money or their car - they are doing it to themselves, by illegally blocking OP and violating the entirely reasonable rules.
Found the lady who parked in the wrong spot!
maybe they should read. it’s part of the process of getting a license.
Omg, Airbnb better fix this quick if all their hosts are furious at them. Or maybe the title of this article is highly, highly exaggerated.
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
Yep. That's why I stay in hotels and don't pay fees.
Not sure if you have stayed in US hotels lately, now they don't clean (except between people, COVID really took care of that) and more and more hotels are adding 'Destination Fees' that are supposed to provide benefits but don't. Oh, we charge you an extra $40 a night, and here is a free voucher for $15 in food from our cafe where prices are 5x.
The capitalism greed speed run lately is exhausting.
I travel pretty often. Most places ive been this year have someone in to grab the trash, make the beds, and swap the towels /replace hotel provided toiletries and coffee/tea every other day.
The hotel I just stayed in charged a fee for everything from parking to wifi.
Shit hotel
I do the same, hotels work better for all but the largest groups. But I have definitely noticed hotes getting more expensive, and a recent lawsuit against Expedia might explain why, that company contractually obligates hotels to raise their prices across the board for everyone, not just customers buying through Expedia-owned platforms.
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/how-expedia-rigs-travel-markets-and
Its almost like Adam Smith was right.
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but it's been a while since I traveled. I did not know it was already THAT bad.
Thanks for the link, good article.
You will get charged with something if the hosts complained and airbnb's arbitration is laughable.
I'm banned because my an Airbnb my ex rented with friends claimed they destroyed a $5k couch. I wasn't there so I don't know the true story, but my ex's friends were not crazy partiers so I don't see how they could have done it.
too late, people jump shipped back to hotels or another hosting services.
They won’t strike. $10,000 says they don’t strike.
They need airbnb to pay for their overpriced mortgages, so a strike means selling off their assets.
thousands of new houses hitting the market at once, driving down prices for people who are desperate to own a home for themselves?
oh dear, the horror. Please don't let that happen /s
Oh don’t you worry, billionaire hedge funds will snap those up first for rentals
Theyre actually also relatively (by their own standards) strapped for cash these days.
Yeah, this will happen, but the smarter ones will wait it out another year or two ish, for prices to crash further, before they switch from 'survive downturn' to 'exploit market bottom'.
Hrm. Either that or negotiate private sales at something like a 30% to 50% lower price, but for cash, and also in a way that somehow doesn't get publically recorded.... some kind of shell company / legal fiction shenanigans.
They'll want to be confident in future property tax hike and climate disaster / insurance rate hike projections before they do that though, and that just will take some time.
Totally agree. This is like the people who threatened to leave New York if they changed the property tax on second homes. It's a bluff.
I mean, I suppose they could create their own website, with black jack and dish washing fees.
But good luck convincing users to go to the actively user hostile (even more hostile) version of Airbnb.
In the early days I really didn’t mind loading the dishwasher and throwing a load of towels in the washer before I left. I’m nice and not a slob. Now so many owners farm it out to management companies, hired maintenance workers and cleaning services. On top of that, and probably because they are paying the cleaners by the hour, they want to hold your guest rating hostage to make you do the work. If they want to charge that much more than a hotel nowadays, I want to get hotel service.
I mean the owner will be passing the cost on to the renter regardless. People might be glad they can't be forced to do the work now, but they'll be paying someone to do it for them.
Maybe just pay a hotel instead of supporting this horrible arm of the real estate industry.
We always were... No such thing as a free lunch.
Perfect. They should get even more expensive than they are now.
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.
L'hôtel*
Disruption 😎
or hostels
Because everyone is in debt and cash strapped.
This is long overdue, and stuff like this is why I don't use Airbnb anymore.
When it started, rentals used to be generally cheaper than hotels and easier to deal with. Than people started buying houses for the express purpose of listing them on Airbnb. It became a profession. And things got stupid. I don't want to pay more than hotel prices in order to get a tiny cottage that doesn't come with any of the amenities a hotel room would.
The only time I even consider it these days is if I'm doing something with a bunch of people where we need a whole house and a hotel would be prohibitively expensive. Other than that I stay away.
Changes like this make me more interested in giving it another shot.
Airbnb is at time marker 4
Totally right there with you. My wife and i did a trip in 2018 to west coast usa, and we stayed in airbnb the whole time. Collections of tiny homes and garages and it was amazing. Each place was like $45 a night and perfect for what we were doing.
We havent used an airbnb in years now. Hotels give you so much more for your money now
That's exactly it. The value proposition isn't there.
You want to sell me a place for $30-50/night sure absolutely I'll take out the trash.
You want to sell me a place for the same cost as a hotel or even more, I expect hotel level service.
Even with multiple rooms at a hotel, it is often cheaper because larger Airbnb's get really expensive fast. The only issue with hotels is finding kitchen facilities so you aren't forced to eat out for every meal.
Correct, since those are your moneymaker. You better be responsible for your assets, and that means investing in them. There's no free meal.
I would rather book at a hotel then do Airbnb
The price incentive just isn't there anymore. Hotels offer far more value.
They only make sense when you have a lot of people you want under one roof, like a family reunion.
Today, that's not even the case. A lot of AirBnBers charge $100 for every guest over 2.
We used to rent airbnb for a while, but shit like what they just stopped pushed us back to hotels. Plus all of the layers of bullshit fees on top of all the weird rules.
I might reconsider because it was nice to have a whole house when the entire family comes.
Even then, once you get to about 4 beds it becomes way cheaper to just rent an actual event space.
And, the plan for sleeping...?
Reunions often involve travel.
How many people are you trying to fit? How many beds? As I said, it doesn't take many beds for Airbnb to start getting stupid expensive.
If you can share bedrooms you can share hotel rooms. Most hotels allow you to book group packages. Many hotels also have event spaces. There's also campgrounds, resorts, cabins, and so on.
I honestly believe a sizable chunk of Airbnb's business comes from people who haven't put much thought into it and just go with Airbnb as a default. That's probably the goal of their marketing.
You're leading with two questions, here... and it kind of looks like an attempt to frame this as though I'm the one making assumptions. But I want to backtrack to how we got here, real quick:
Yeah, sure, your commentary about sharing hotel rooms and amenities and group packages and blah blah might be relevant, but that's not what you said. You just said to get an event space. That doesn't have any information in it about where people are actually supposed to stay and sleep, which is what an Airbnb is for.
The comparison of Airbnb to Event Space doesn't make sense without all of that other stuff, at which point it all very much depends on all of these other factors like headcounts and group rates, so unless you're making a bunch of extra assumptions, you don't actually know which solution is cheaper.
But then you cannot cook your meals
Why not? Extended stays almost always have a full kitchen and service for 4.
I have never seen an hotel room with a kitchen. Which is the reason why I mostly use airbnbs. But maybe some do, just never heard about them.
You've not been to many hotels, especially recently. Most have a small kitchenette these days, and extended stay suites have a small, full kitchen.
The suites you're talking about sound more expensive than airbnbs
Not usually. Last trip I took, which was to Seattle, the Homewood Suites extended stay was about 80 bucks less per day.
I guess it's a balance. Some guests are inconsiderate slobs and some landlords are ridiculously demanding.
In the hospitality industry, you always assume your guests are slobs. This is why most hotel rooms have easily cleaned furniture, and daily housekeeping service.
Makes sense.
Personally I didn't mind cleaning up after myself a bit but I don't go on vacation to vacuum.
How does a guest not having to strip the bed create additional risk?
The can't charge you a 200$ fine if you forget to do it.
Rentseekers melt down at the smallest shit imagineable
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.
Cool, maybe don't allow 6 pm check in also. It's fucking ridiculous to arrive in a city and have to sit at some shitty cafe with your bags. If you want to act like a hotel and charge as much money as a hotel, run it the same way.
Most of Airbnb has been good but they are getting much more expensive overall. Last one I stayed at was a bad experience though. Long after it was booked and the first and final payments were made and it was non-refundable they let me know that we needed to pay extra for all the sheets and towels we wanted to use. Fortunately they wanted a cash payment and I was to leave it on the table when we left so I simply forgot to do so. I complained to Airbnb about it though. I did get a couple nasty notes from them about not paying which I also copied to Airbnb. It used to be a great deal for people who had an extra sleeping spot or bedroom to make a bit of cash and was a good deal for the traveller. It is now private hotels with hit and miss quality and too many last minute added on costs.
Private unregulated hotels! :D
I usually find it much cheaper to just get a hotel in most areas. The only benefit to airbnb is the increased privacy and space.
The amount of visible cameras in my last Air BnB made me lose all expectations of privacy. I saw the blinky red lights outside. I noticed a dim red glow form the infrared light of a camera inside. Done. I'm back in hotels for many of the reasons seen in this thread. Fuck it. Same price anyway
Yeah, this is a problem. I'm not doing anything strange in a rented house, but i do expect privacy.
I don’t have a problem with cleaning the place up, but if there’s a cleaning fee equivalent to 20% of the cost, we have a problem. Especially if I come in and reach for a vacuum the first time.
I avoid uber and Airbnb and similar services because they’re supposed to be part-time in their earlier marketing but the reality is they’re full time. Airbnb is really good for a larger party, though.
Even worse, hosts would demand that you run the dishwasher and launder the sheets, and then still charge a cleaning fee. On top of that. I knew someone who was paid $25 to clean Airbnbs per unit, while the hosts were charging a cleaning fee of 75.
Exactly my experience this summer; large house for 8 people but they expected us to do laundry and clean the kitchen. 20% cost additional for cleaning fee - but the place was a mess when we got there. Mold growing in the coffee machine, dirt on the floors.
I’m surprised they didn’t have us doing gardening.
That's pretty normal. Ever get work done on your car? You probably paid $60-80 an hour labor, but the mechanic only makes $20/hours
The mechanic shop is a business with overhead; they sell the service of the labourer and use the markup on that service to maintain the shop, advertise, and pay employees in downtime (well, that’s what they’re supposed to do)
The Airbnb host is hiring the cleaning service and shouldn’t be using that to profit; it’s simply a cost of doing business. Shops don’t add 20% to post prices when you order online.
That's not really the spirit of what the cleaning fee is supposed to be. I can see covering overhead of arranging for a cleaning service being legitimate. Using it as a profit center is wrong. Employing a mechanic as part of an auto service center is different because that is their primary profit center. A host is supposed to make money from the main lodging fee, not an inflated cleaning charge.
That's much like adding a profit margin to a shipping charge.
If the cleaning fee is always charged, then there's no good reason for it to be a separate line item. There may be bad reasons relating to platform fees or taxes.
I think a reasonable profit is okay, but 3x the basic cost is excessive.
Cleaning fees are something Uber has reasonably received much criticism for, and something I saw as a problem trying to use the platform myself. One thing is they for a long time did not include the cleaning fee in the pricing you'd see in a search... you had to read the description for each property to see what it was. That meant you might see one property for $200, and other for $100, which seemed like a relative bargain... but then turns out the $200 one had a $50 cleaning fee and the $100 one charged $175, for example. I think they finally changed that a few years back but it's hard to see how AirBnB could not have understood why that would be a problem in the first place.
A car repair business has many more expenses with specialist buildings, equipment purchase and maintenance, staff, insurance, and so on, than a typical landlord. Plus you don't have to pay rent on top of the service fee when they're fixing your car.
If the shop gives me a bill with a $75 "labor" item, but actually pays the mechanics $25, I'd also have a big problem with that
That's literally how that works though, so you likely have a big problem with all work being done. How do you think they pay rent for the shop space or keep the lights on? There is no "this goes to keep the lights on" surcharge. It's built into the pricing. A business generally cannot charge exactly what their employees make. It's not even a "capitalists shave money off the top" issue. I literally run my own business and I don't pay myself what I charge by the hour. Some of that goes into paying for software or hardware or general business overhead (accounting, website fees, etc).
I agree that in general some margin on labor can be expected to recoup capex. But ~70% is just too much, especially for the original example of a "cleaning fee" on top of the "everything else" charge that you already have to pay.
Actually when I still had a car and took it to my favourite shop, the itemized bill included parts, labor, and a "workshop charge" to pay their rent and stuff. Speaking to the mechanics they did actually get all the money in the "labor" item (minus payroll taxes). I liked that approach.
Oh, the Airbnb cleaning fee is a scam for sure. I thought you were taking issue just with the fact the mechanics are not paid the full labor amount. I don't work with cars so I'm not going to speculate on appropriate overhead or shop/mechanic price split, but I have never personally seen a bill itemized as you describe for basically any of the trades. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I've just not personally experienced it. Glad to see it working for that shop though.
Its hilarious
From a customer point of view, I’m willing to do (some) chores, or pay a cleaning fee, but not both.
I’ve seen some places that give you a laundry list of things to do and attempt to charge you $100+ for cleaning.
Yep. And it wouldn't surprise me if the "cleaning" they do is almost non existent.
Totally okay if I do a swiping if I feel like it. Not okay if I'm charged
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.
Outlier tbf, I've used it at least 10 times and rarely had any sort of issue.
Edit: saying that, none of these were in the US. It sounds worse there, anecdotally.
It’s unfortunate that was my first experience.
Adults do their own dishes.
Landlords maldong they have to do even a small bit of graft to earn their keep.
Maldong, indeed.
Boo hoo, if you don't like it don't rent out the space.
So Airbnb's will be more expensive
The only time I ever had an Air BnB host try to make me do laundry and shit, it was a Realtor friend I knew, and she let my (ex)wife and I visit the house for a few days. She didn't give us a discount or anything, but it was in-line with how much the other beach houses were renting for.
Anyway, she had this whole list of tasks we had to do before we left, and it was like do laundry, the dishes, change the sheets on the bed, vacuum, among other things... Yeah I'm a clean person, I always get back the full deposit on any rental I've ever had. I just did my usual of washing the dishes I used (I do that immediately after using them anyway) and tidying up anything we moved, and that was it. I remember her being upset we didn't do all the chores and there was (gasp!) some sand from the beach on the floor of the beach house... I was just like... I don't care.
Never had another Air BnB even ask. nothing but good reviews.
Anything that makes landlords upset makes me happy :)
When I click the link to read the article all I can see is
Airbnb Hosts Are Furious They Can No Longer Make Guests Do Their Chores
Some hosts are threatening to strike, while others are plotting ways around Airbnb’s new restrictions. Guests, meanwhile, are celebrating.
And that’s it. No story beyond that. Has links to other stories though. Glad the op copied the story here though. Just interesting the story doesn’t appear at the site
That's because it's paywalled, but in such a way that most adblockers fly right by it and get the content. For whatever reason, yours did not.
Try reader mode instead, and if that doesn't work for you, here's an archive link: https://archive.ph/Yd0jh
I was a cleaner when I was in college, in a few ways--and yes if blood came to mind, then yeah. Aside from that weird scenario, I didn't even want to think what happened but hey I'm also getting paid to get the walls painted.
Generally it was expected that people would leave a mess. And the bonus was whatever food or booze was left in the fridge or left behind.
I have no sympathy for these twats. If I had ever used airbnb, I would just fuck with your shit reading that. Your router would be factory reset at the least. And I would totally take 2 hour showers, no exceptions on that. And the AC would be on max; rip off whatever interface and connect the red and yellow wires with--what ever metal thing really to leave it on, if you leave the, likely, wifi controller they wouldn't even know if you kept the wifi on. Trip em up with flipping the main breaker also to give yourself a window to start or create more chaos.
I could go on, but I'm not advocating doing any of this, just stating examples.
DonaldGloverGood.gif
Haha.
I remember my landlords when I was a student had a massive go at my for leaving my room 'untidy'. I genuinely don't know what they meant. I got all my stuff out and hoovered the carpet. Visually it was bare bones again. There was probably dust and stuff but it's like they didn't expect they had to do any cleaning at all between tenants.
Were they slammed and are they imploding now?
Most of them already hire some cleaning service that's calculated into the price. It might go a little bit up now. Maybe tiny fraction of them will decide it's not worth it anymore and switch to long time renting.
And what are the guests celebrating? That they don't have to take out trash? Yeah, amazing win.
According to YouTube thumbnails, "IT'S OVER. 🤔"
I've had to do maintenance on cars I rented from Turo several times. In some cases I do think the hosts were negligent, but I'm willing to put up with a little extra fuss to rent fun cars cheap.
As long as I don't have to track down another proprietary Mercedes Benz wiper blade.
I can’t wait for the day a revolution starts and these people are fed to the guillotine
I'm not saying there aren't unreasonable demands at some airbnbs/vrbos/etc, but every time I hear people talk about this it's just things like dishes and trash, and maybe stripping the bed. Pretty much every vacation in my life that I have been on I have had to do these things. They aren't difficult and they don't take long. If you're staying somewhere for a while, you're probably doing the dishes anyways because you run out. I just don't get why people complain about these super minor things.
And just to reiterate what I said in the first sentence, I know some rentals take it way further than this and do have truly unreasonable demands. It's just that a lot of times when I hear people talk about this it's something simple like that. It takes like two minutes to strip a bed. It takes like five minutes to load and start a dishwasher (which you're probably already loading it as you go anyways, so less). Taking the trash out is usually easy too since you're leaving anyways, it's sort of on the way usually.
when the comparation is hotels those are outrageous demands
I have stayed in condos/cabins generally, not hotels. The idea of doing the dishes in a hotel doesn't even make sense, a hotel room doesn't even have a dishwasher or a even a kitchen. It's a totally different concept.
there are hotels with suites that have kitchens
Yes, and those are the exception, not the rule. Even apart from that though, you're sort of expected to be somewhat tidy in a hotel. You aren't meant to be a slob and just trash it. You should have trash in the receptacles and such. So in a suite with a kitchen, "rules" aside, I think most people would consider it polite to at least have dishes in the sink, and probably rinsed off. Like if all the dishes were covered in hard crusty food and all over the place, that would be considered rude. I don't see an issue with codifying expectations like that into rules, and I don't think that rinsing the dishes, loading the dishwasher, and starting it is honestly that difficult of a task. It's just things I would do anyways after eating. I don't want a bunch of nasty dishes hanging out in the sink.
You have?
I go on vacation, and the places I stay have housekeeping services do all of that.
Things like cabins in the mountains and condos at the beach don't have house keeping services that come in every day.
That sounds like a problem for the investor to solve. They certainly CAN have housekeeping coming daily, if the investor chooses to do so.
I mean, obviously. They can choose to do anything. They could choose to make it free too, if the investor chose to do so. It's just very different going to some cabin in the mountains versus a bunch of rooms in a hallway. And again, I'm only talking about the idea of small things like doing the dishes. I've seen some things I do consider unreasonable, but I don't think dishes are unreasonable. Asking me to wash the bed sheets and remake the beds, that's an example of something that I find unreasonable. Just wanting all the used sheets and towels in one pile, that's easy and doesn't take any time.
See, none of these would likely be an issue, if there wasn't also an additional $300 cleaning fee attached.
Would I do the dishes, even, if I knew there was a $300 cleaning fee? Nope. Same with stripping the beds. Have the cleaner that is supposed to come through after each turnover, and handle it. That's what that cleaning fee is for, isn't it?
Regardless, I don't care about the parasites having to figure out how to solve the issue. I'll sleep just fine. Is it more expensive because it's some tucked away cabin? Yep. But, like anyone who chooses to operated a business in such a location, that's a problem for them to solve, and I, again, do not care about their business problems.
Yes, with a $300 cleaning fee, that's exorbitant. I don't think that's justifiable for any amount of cleaning. I firmly believe all "fees" need to be transparently baked into the per night cost.
I agree with baking them all in. Makes it easy for the customer to see the real price.
This won't really make any difference to me because no matter where I stay, Hotel, motel, bnb, or air bnb, I always leave it in good shape and don't expect some else to clean up after me. I did stay at one air bnb though where we were asked to vacuum the place before we left, which seemed like too much, so I guess everyone has their limits.
What I like most about air bnbs is how much more quiet they are than hotels where, it seems, people feel entitled to be as loud as they want at all hours.
You're thinking too reasonably. This isn't about guests leaving a shit show and expecting it to be cleaned for free.It's about hosts expecting you to do all the prep for the next guests. You got asked to vacuum. I got asked to start laundry you can see an excerpt here of the article where an owner had the guests do all the dishes and bring the trash to an RV park. These kinds of chores will absolutely affect you if you were to come across one of these properties. These are slumlords making a business out being hands off from their investment properties, not empty nesters sparing a room and asking you to be respectful.
I leave them "clean" but I'm not stripping the bed washing beds or taking out the garbage.
I honestly don’t have a big issue with washing the dishes I’ve used, stripping the sheets off the bed, throwing all the used towels in the bathtub, and taking out the trash. But beyond that seems extreme, especially if they tack on a significant “cleaning fee”
I have mixed feelings about this.
Why?
Well on the one side dishes and garbage are like. common. dude. but like bedding if the stay is not extended. I mean its supposed to be like a hotel. Its like even in a hotel if you leave fast food stuff all around you are a trumpy trumphole.
Idk what this has to do with politics, a normal hotel housecleaning takes out your trash. Air BnB hosts should be having a cleaning service clean between every guest at the same level a hotel room would be cleaned, which is still a lot less house changing than the daily visit you’d get from housecleaning at a hotel.
yeah air bnb is sorta a different format. One of its appeal is not having strange people come by during your stay. I mean I think a lot of guests will be annoyed if a cleaning service came by every day.
I’m more upset with the guests. Why leave a hotel or Airbnb a motel or a private home as a chaos? It’s an insult to the people that work there and to the hosts. I’ve glanced into hotel rooms that were disgusting . It’s the same in cafes and bakeries, people get up from their tables and leave their mess behind for the next guests. People have no respect these days.
Is this bait?
You don't even have to click into the article to read what they're referring to. The post pulls the relevant quote.
Why is a guest responsible for taking trash offsite? Making sure trash is disposed of in the bin, sure, but to use your bakery example it'd be like expecting patrons to change the trash bags and take it out to the dumpster. No respectable business operates like that.
What's insulting is being charged a cleaning fee when you know that there is no cleaning being done between guests.
Airbnb is not saying you can leave a place in "chaos". They're saying you're not a paid employee and shouldn't be tasked with things employees would likely do.
The only thing I can see disagreeing with is the dishes thing, but presumably if you were to load and run the dishwasher before leaving the host could say you didn't put them away which is unreasonable in my opinion. You still can't just leave trash and dishes strewn about.
Dunno about where you live, but in my area it's pretty difficult to figure out which eateries have employees bus table and which ones expect customers to.
I'll err on the side of busing my own table, but I've had employees come out and tell me not to. So on the other hand, I don't assume that people who don't clean up their own tables do it out of rudeness. They may misunderstand the establishment's practices and/or come from a culture where it's rare for customers to do that themselves.
I mean I agree with not leaving any place behind in chaos / gross. It's disrespectful and makes you an unappealing person. That doesn't mean I want to do chores like taking out trash and doing laundry and dishes when busy traveling or on vacation though. I'm being charged for a cleanup to occur, I'd rather pay a small amount more to have the cleanup team spend an extra 25min doing those sorts of things. I'm not throwing garbage on the floor though. When I leave it looks like a responsible grown up spent some time here and didn't get around to taking the garbage out or doing the laundry yet.
I don't see the problem really.
Stay in hotels of you don't like it.