New Airbnb rules

For us, it's because it's "safe" for my DH who has cancer and is on lifelong chemotherapy, so immunocompromised and also needs a "relaxing" place to stay. So, he can't eat his meals in busy/crowded hotel restaurants, and wants a better breakfast than the stupidly basic "boxes" of crap you get offered in hotels that don't have restaurants like some Travelodges, nor is he interested in having to eat at the Burger King next door to the Travelodge which is often the only eatery close by! Also need to be able to eat in for lunch and evening meals if he's having a bad day and isn't fit to go out and search for a cafe/restaurant that isn't too crowded. On bad days, he needs to be able to just sit around in comfort and watch TV/read a book etc., which you can't do comfortably for hours in a tiny Travelodge room with a hard chair and small TV (and often poor lighting). Also nice to have our own garden/patio in Summer to sit out and relax.

Book 2 rooms then? No way am I doing any housework on holiday.

Yup, I agree. They also need to be taxed properly, far too many are getting away with not paying council tax nor business rates and still having bins emptied by domestic refuse lorries etc. They're businesses, they should suffer the same business costs/taxes as other businesses.

I don't care how much the cleaning fees are, no way am I leaving dishes in the sink. It's the absolute basic to wash up after yourself. Washing dishes is not the cleaner's job.

Because I don't want to "holiday" in 1 room with DH and 3 children, 2 of whom are teenagers so it's basically like 4 adults?? Try finding a hotel room for 5 in the first place, even when they were smaller!

Not that hard to understand!

That seems fair. I don’t mind putting a binbag in a wheelie bin on a drive, and as we only ever used Air b and b to stay in someone's on site annexe or similar, that's all it ever was. But I've read about people having to schlep down a lane with binbags, stuff like that, and that's taking the piss.

I will never stay at one.
But my husband and adult son love the extra space and the living room when they go away. My son won’t share a room with his snoring dad, so it works out cheaper than two separate hotel rooms.
I still won’t use an air BnB!

I agree with "guests are sometimes too scared to leave honest reviews too , in case they get a bad one back!" The last airbnb I stayed in was dirty throughout. I had to clean and wash up everything before I used it.

I gave them a low score for cleanliness and the host wrote endless DMs questioning me about it and saying she'd paid her cleaner for a deep clean just a week before my stay. If she had the cleaner had taken her money and sat in a chair with a book.

Yes I agree with this. I’ve stayed in damp smelling overpriced places and it’s put me off. I think guests are sometimes too scared to leave honest reviews too , in case they get a bad one back!

For us, it's because we don't want to eat out 3 times a day which massively adds to cost (and waistline!). We like to spread out and not just to spend time in one room. We enjoy having a terrace we can have a picky supper and a glass of wine on in the evenings. None of these things are possible in a hotel. Plus, it usually gives us a taste of local life. We stayed in an apartment in old historical center and were able to see what a traditional property looks like in the country we were visiting. The host left us a bottle of home-made wine which, again, wouldn't be something we'd be able to try in a restaurant.

We stay in them (or a holiday cottage from another company) because we have a few food allergies in the family so when we go away we prefer self catering. Plus with young children it’s nice to have the space rather than a hotel room - we once stayed in a premier inn for one night with both DC and with the single beds they put in there was literally no space between the beds.

But I’ve actually never stayed in one that has had cleaning rules that I’ve felt to be excessive. Some of the places do sound awful but we’ve never had a problem.

I'm an early riser. My DH likes a lie in. An apartment enables me to get up and have breakfast without disturbing him

We don't like to eat out every night. Prefer to cook in the apartment

We have an Airbnb.

We ask people to put the dishwasher on and that's it. No-one ever leaves dirty washing up in the sink. If they did the cleaners would wash up I suppose but it never happens.

I wouldn't stay in an Airbnb in a city because they tend to be priced like hotels but ours sleeps 10 people in the countryside and it's much cheaper than a hotel.

I’m a host and to be honest, I prefer guests NOT to strip beds - it’s easier to see if there are any stains or marks that need to be pre treated before I send it to the laundry. (And a pre-stripped bed sometimes means an unpleasant surprise in the bundle…)

We don’t ask guests to follow a long check out list - they’re on holiday! - and most are considerate enough to leave the place tidy, so the cleaner can clean. This has probably come about because some hosts leave insane checklists, and Airbnb is desperate to retain market share. But the way it’s been presented feels unnecessarily fighty, presumably for reasons of press coverage.

I stay in AirBnB a lot and have never been asked to clean. I also ran AirBnB for 5 years and never asked of my guests to do the same. My cleaners never fed back of any massive issues left behind so I assume most guests would do what I do - wash up and take rubbish out. I wouldn't dream of not doing it when staying somewhere.

I sort of hope it's the beginning of the end for airbnb. Standards of accommodation have been dropping away since covid and prices have gone up madly. I gave up when I was finding that places aren't that clean, you often have to wash up badly washed stuff before you can use it, shabby old sofas covered in cheap throws, sitting under an overhead light as there are no lamps and a list of chores to do before 10am on your last morning.

If everyone with an airbnb put it back into the housing market it would solve a lot of problems, especially in areas where young people are struggling to find homes and communities and services are suffering as a result.

Guests should do their own washing up

And I generally strip the beds to be helpful, but object to being told to do it

Some hosts were taking advantage, charging a cleaning fee AND expecting guests to clean the house themselves

I joined an Air BnB host page on Facebook and the hosts are not happy at all

I have never, ever been able to understand why people stay in them instead of hotels. How is it a holiday if you’re cleaning the bloody house. I am unable to understand how they are so popular. Premier Inn is cheaper and requires nothing from guests.

We have properties we rent out as airbnbs and don’t ask for anything to be done. If guests have washed the sheets or put the dishwasher on, our cleaner always does it again anyway as we’ve had people wash sheets with no detergent or put the dishwasher on with no tablet in

I have never stayed in an air bnb but they are basically holiday cottages aren’t they. I remember when it was more about sofa surfing or being a guest in someone’s house. They have further decimated local housing stock in the idyllic area I grew up in along with second homes.

I manage 3 Airbnbs. I don’t actually ask people to do anything when they leave (and I don’t want people to strip beds as when they do it’s usually because they are trying to hide a stain that I need to pre treat). However I do hope they would start the dishwasher before they go as the cycle might not be finished by the time the cleaners leave otherwise. Over 90% of the time they do at the moment. I am concerned that the publicity round these new rules gives guests the idea that they can just leave whatever mess they want and hosts will no longer to be able to give them a bad review on it (they are changing the review categories). Airbnb has gone too far with this I think

This has been why I avoid air bnb. It was a system that made sense when it first started - you were paying a low price to stay at someone's house and part of that deal was to help the owner by tidying up as if you were a house guest. It ceases to work (and why i now use hotels or rental agents) when you are paying both hotel level costs per night plus a cleaner fee. AND you still run the risk of the owner complaining if they feel you haven't done what they expected! Its why Ive been avoiding AirBNB for past 10 years.

For emptying the bins, the new rule is that they can’t require you to take rubbish “offsite” - apparently some places were asking people to take rubbish home with them.

I’d assume they can still ask you to empty the bins and put it in an outside bin at the house.

*I'd be interested to hear from owners:

Why do you want us to strip the beds?
Why do you want us to empty the bins?

Surely both of those are bog standard elements of cleaning. You wouldn't do either in a hotel so why in a holiday let?*

The thing is, every airbnb is different. That's sort of the point (well, it used to be). I have been running 4 apartments on Airbnb for 15 years. I take a 10€ cleaning fee per apartment, per stay, to cover my costs. I do not expect guests to clean anything or strip any beds - basically if they put their rubbish in the correct bins (clearly labeled) and wash their own dishes, it's awesome. I will be cleaning everything else anyway.

I have also been a guest at various airbnbs over the years, and I have never done more than pick up the rubbish and wash the dishes - basically left it tidy and "ready to clean" which is what I like as a host - and I have never had any issues.

I fully understand there will be batshit crazy hosts out there (as indeed there are crazy guests) because the whole organization has got so huge and charmless compared to how it started out... But I do think the vast majority are not like that, and there is a lot of anti Airbnb propaganda that makes it sound a lot more dramatic than it really is, most of the time.

I do not stay in airbnbs anymore. They are always dirty, always insane rules and I am not stripping beds while paying £200 a night + booking fee + cleaning fee.