To think this AirBnB review was unfair?

I’m so sick of this with air bnbs. They want you to do hours of cleaning and strip beds before you leave.

Currently in a hotel and honestly it’s bliss. Every meal made, room cleaned every day with fresh towels. Beds made. Late check out. Room service.

Airbnb hosts will go out of business if they carry on with this crap. Hotel every time for me now.

Then book through the other platforms. AirBnB is poorly regulated and has allowed every scrubber with a spare room / shed / garage to also offer ‘holiday lets’.

it disrupted the market! Whoop! It’s the holiday equivalent of Uber and Deliveroo. The world was better before they existed. A vanishingly small number of tech bros got mega wealthy of the back of being those disrupters but all they are in reality is middle men. They were a solution in search of a gap in the market that didn’t actually exist.

I have stayed in over 50 Airbnbs in UK, France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Sweden and Italy. All been good and some great. Never received a bad review. In fact my reviews have all been very good and often say how tidy and clean we leave their place.

We don't clean for hours either when we leave but we make sure we clean up after ourselves every day if we are staying for more than one night like we would at home.

Having worked as a cleaner for both holiday cottages and a B&B I know just how disgusting far too many people are. I was far too often amazed at just how messy and dirty people could leave a place in such a short time. Some people are just lazy slobs and don't care.

Even on the rare occasion me and DH stay in a hotel we keep the room clean and tidy and usually say there is no need for housekeeping to go into the room to make our bed etc. We are quite capable of making our own bed

Wrong ! Not all hosts charge a cleaning fee so just choose the properties that don't. As I mentioned later in the thread every single Airbnb host is different and it's just a lazy cliched opinion to lump 'all' Airbnbs together. You do know that many of these Airbnb hosts also list on VRBO, booking.com and with independent holiday letting companies too but apparently those platforms are fine.

In future take photos as you leave

@Nenen Reading that host's reviews will give you a very good idea of what to expect also not every host charges a cleaning fee. I think it looks a bit negative and hosts should just wrap everything up in the overall price. Personally I am not too bothered about mess as everything gets cleaned from scratch every time and it's more important that the guest enjoys their stay than worrying about washing up.

I completely understand if it's not for you but having done this for 8 years I just sometimes feel the need to call out the generic Airbnb thing and the 'contributing to the housing crisis' thing.

It’s true every host is different, which is precisely the problem because it makes it impossible to know the standards of cleaning a particular host will expect and whether or not they will publicly chastise guests who ‘fail’ to meet their unpredictable demands (despite guests having paid a hefty cleaning charge in advance)!

How did you find it when you checked in - if there were things on the drainer then fine - if not then you should have put things away and left as you found it?

£80 per night for an 11 night stay in a large house in the south of France. No cleaning needed.
We would have struggled to find a hotel at that price in August.

I'm a regular Airbnb guest. I check reviews carefully, usually stay with Super hosts.

I've also often asked for a later checkout and it's always been possible.

Me too! A hotel all the way. Or I do stay in serviced apartments where there's daily cleaning.

@hairbearbunches But I have stayed in 20-30 Airbnbs over the last decade and have never stayed anywhere remotely approaching a 'shitpit.' Perhaps I have been lucky but I look very carefully through the reviews before booking and only use hosts who've been on the site for some time. We've stayed in some amazing properties.

To be honest, with the way some people behave these days, I don't really see a problem with guests being reviewed. As far as I can see it's not made public and people can only see them when you try and book their place? Again, perhaps I've been lucky but I've only had positive reviews and don't slave away cleaning for hours when we leave either.

But it isn’t a hotel and often properties are people’s homes. Perfectly reasonable rule, in my opinion.

I never quite understand why people think they're entitled to have cheap housing in areas where they grew up? There is housing, it's just not where you want it. Anything near the sea or area of natural beauty is going to command a premium.

The easiest way to get around this is not to use AirBnB.

A platform that allows a review on paying guests is bullshit. There are absolute shit pits on the platform and if you let the rest of the world know exactly what a shit pit you just stayed in, you run the risk of the 'host' calling into question your own cleanliness and suitability as a guest. WTAF?

If you use a reputable holiday company, they are not allowed to pass comment on whether you unloaded the dishwasher before you left, or left that last glass drip drying on the draining board. Or made up some other spurious crap to counter your less than glowing review of their less than decent property.

AFAIK with AirBnB you have to pay extra cleaning costs on top, which makes a mockery of the 'per night costs' once factored in. What is the cleaning for if you have to do it yourself? So they can forego the cleaner and pocket the cash instead?

AirBnB is up there with Amazon as a company the world would be better off without.

Except it doesn't

The rates are certainly not on par with hotels. Me and DH use Airbnb all the time here and abroad. Never had a problem.

We like to have a proper comfortable settee to sit on not have to sit on the bed in a hotel or, if you are lucky a chair which is not usually very comfortable. We like being able to make ourselves a tea or coffee as many times as we like and not be restricted by the hotel deciding how many teabags or coffee sachets in each room.

We also want to eat breakfast at a time we want not when the hotel dictates. With an Airbnb we can choose to have breakfast there or go out and eat it.

If we want to eat in the cottage/apartment/house in the evening we can whether it is cooking a proper meal, sticking a pizza in the oven or getting a takeaway.

We like have space as in a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, a bedroom and not just 1 room. Also most places have a garden or, in the case of an apartment, a balcony.

As we get all that for less than a hotel room (often quite a lot less) we will stick with Airbnb.

Why do threads about Airbnb always feature people saying this is why they use hotels as Airbnb isn't even cheap now?? I don't want to stay in a hotel - I want the option to eat in and for me and my teens to all have space from each other when needed. A hotel would give us a completely different type of holiday from what we want.

I have found cleaning requirements peaked in the covid era (understandably) and have now calmed down. The most recent places I've stayed have just asked for rubbish to be sorted and removed to outside bins and towels to all be in the bathroom. I always do a quick wipe of surfaces sweep the floor as well.

I'd be annoyed to get that review but also wouldn't leave stuff on the draining board. It's harsh and inaccurate to call it a mess though.

As an airbnb host we pay 3% as a fee to airbnb, then most of the fees come from the guest, so it varies but typically our guests pay 12%, this is built into the price so it doesn’t reduce the income a host receives.

This happened to us recently too. Won't be using air b&b again. It's hardly a holiday if you have to clean the place from top to bottom before you leave. Kitchen was wiped down, dishes washed in dish washer. Bins emptied. Sweeped the floor there, gave the bathroom a quick clean etc. Did they expect us to hoover the lounge and bedrooms too? and god knows what else?. Noone has given me a bad review before. Maybe they shouldn't let it out to families with children if they are that fussy.

However yet again Im really puzzled by this separation of airbnb to any other hosting site of accommodation

I'd never use a company, Airbnb or any other, that includes ratings for me as a guest, I don't need that type of pressure

I stopped using Air BnB after being told they take 30% fees off very booking.

This. We stayed in a villa in Italy where we were expected to wash and dry all the linen before our 10am checkout. 6 bedrooms worth of bed linen and towels, and that was with a €600 cleaning fee!