Host requests for Airbnb places.

[madaboutpurple]

I saw some information on the net that Airbnb hosts are not allowed to ask guests to do the jobs that they often ask to be done anymore. My point of view has always been I am on holiday, the place will be getting a cleaner in before the next guests arrive so I will do a few things but I am not there due to being a paying guest to do some of the demands owners ask.

That's one of the easier questions to answer! I had a family arrive one Saturday and I was showing them around the apartment. I opened the bedroom door to find their two children, aged 12 and 14, leaping around on the bed having a stand-up pillow fight. These boys were big for their age and one of them proceded to stand on a chair and dive onto the bed, landing in the middle to the sound of the wooden bed breaking and collapsing underneath him.

"They were just letting off steam," said the father, seemingly unfazed by what had just happened. "We've driven for six hours to get here, boys will be boys ..."

"Well, as there is now nowhere for them to sleep you'll all have to get back into the car and find somewhere else to stay."

Putting the bins out for the bin men - do Airbnb properties have their rubbish collected with the regular household waste? Or do they have to pay a private company to do so?
@IdleGossip holiday lets have to have to pay to have their waste removed. Some smaller properties may use the council waste collection services as they are considerably cheaper than the independent companies, but don’t offer the same level of service, hence guests being expected to put bins out etc. The company I use happily takes the bins from where they live, but sometimes don’t put them back, which truly annoys me as I’m paying £££.

As a host one of the specific questions I am asked during the review stage is ‘how clean did X leave your place?’ Separate to that they also ask how well did they follow your rules. So there are marks for both categories.

I have to say that in my experience most people leave the house in a pretty good state, without specifically being asked.

Gone back to hotels for this reason. Then they rate you! Flipping cheek!

We leave the place clean and tidy, but I don’t do a big clean as such. So everything is washed up, dishwasher on, surfaces wiped, towels all chucked in bath etc I reluctantly strip beds if I have to.

I noticed that the French cottages have more far more demands and requirements than the British ones. .

People saying "i'll just use hotels" - valid choice, but you're comparing apples and oranges.

I like Airbnbs and similar flats/houses because you don't just get a room and a bathroom, you get a kitchen, and usually a separate sitting area, potentially a garden, facilities lilke a washing machine, private pool or hottub if you want that.

I run an Airbnb and most people leave it immaculate. We are dog friendly so I think they hoover and remove bedding to hide the fact their dog has slept in the bed all week 😂.

When I’m a guest myself the only thing that bothers me is a list of dog rules at the accommodation if they weren’t stated on the listing. At a place recently the living space was fully open plan and they asked for no dogs on sofas - how do you stop them hopping on at night? Don’t worry we always take a couple of large sheets for the sofa. If there’s a kitchen door they sleep in the kitchen. They also said no dogs toileting in the garden because they find people don’t pick it up. Ie don’t let your dogs in the garden. Weird.

That's our experience too.

I don't really understand the don't go on holiday to clean comments, I'm not cleaning. Just putting things away. I put towels in the bath in a hotel and put rubbish in the bins too. Is that unusual?

The idea that people would use a holiday let and leave cups and plates around and expect someone to do the washing up at the end of their stay surprises me. And i'm a slattern in every day life.

When we did self catering holidays when i was a child, we had to take our own bedding (UK)

Guests are not being asked to clean the place - they are being asked to keep the property reasonably tidy and treat it with respect. Wipe up spills and "accidents", take out the rubbish when the kitchen bin is full so that the place doesn't stink or attract flies, put pizza boxes and empty bottles and cans into the containers provided (rather than under the bed or behind the sofa), wash up after meals etc.

I've read the new Airbnb rules and think that they have chosn a few unfortunate examples of what they consider are "excessive" demands - i.e. washing up, stripping beds and taking out bins. Perhaps there are cultural differences between the USA and Europe, and judging by some of the comments here between the UK and some parts of Europe. None of these seem to be excessive, and if people don't want to do the basics in a self-catering property then I agree, an apartment or house rented through Airbnb or VRBO etc. is not the property for them. There are hotels, full-service apartments and apartment-hotels that better match their needs and expectations.

When I ran a rental apartment I would prefer that the guests did not strip the beds, as it made it easier to identify the linen that needed extra stain treatment - the laundry that I used required "extra stained" linen to be sorted separately. Likewise for towels, which were easier to sort if they were hanging up in the bathroom rather than piled up in the bath. I definately didn't want people to follow the new Airbnb advice to pile used dishes into the sink - ideally they should be in the dishwasher (there's no need to wait for the cycle to finish, but at least turn it on before you leave) and if not, then placed next to the sink, or even left on the table. There's nothing worse than finding a sink full of plates, cups, glasses and pans all sloshing around in putrid cold water.

It’s common in Airbnb places that they expect customers to strip the beds, put bedding in the machine, and put on a wash before leaving. That way then the cleaners just move the sheets to the dryer when they arrive and then put them away just before going.

I wasn’t talking about our personal clothes etc.

In 20 years as both a host and guest I've never experienced this. Few domestic washing machines would have the capacity to take the bedding from 4 beds and the towels from 4 guests in one load. In my property there was a commercial-sized machine, and even that could only take the linen from 2 beds.

Ok? Not all Airbnb’s are for 4 guests. We’ve certainly been told to do that as part of the checkout process in the past, and I’ve heard other people complain about being expected to start laundry loads - sometimes for the bedding, sometimes for towels or tea towels and tablecloths.

Airbnb have introduced the new rules exactly because so many guests have got pissed off with unreasonable host expectations and have stopped using them.

I've only been asked once to sort the laundry into commercial bags for pickup (sheets in one kind of bag, towels in another kind) and that was annoying and onerous as they also expected a clean kitchen, empty dishwasher etc

I think we spent a good hour the morning we left stripping beds, collecting rubbish into separate containers, traipsing half a mile to the big bins, wiping surfaces, faffing with linens, another bin trip, sweeping the floor

I made a mental note never to stay there again. I hadn't paid for it but if I had I would want a refund of the cleaning fee, we basically did it ourselves!

Ah OK. Never seen this myself so I’m not sure quite how ‘common’ it is but others have so it must happen sometimes. Maybe the trick is to be wary of places that have a tumble dryer! Mostly we get a washer and a drying rack. Also a lot of the places we’ve stayed for a main holiday abroad, the owners have lived on the property or next door so maybe that gives a better service .

Well, if the prices go up in response to this, we will stay elsewhere.
AirBNB are already pricey for what they are.
Dont mind taking bins out or doing the dishes but if I shouldnt have to pay as much as I would at a hotel if Im going to do this.

I know that some hosts are ott with their rules and demands, but I hope this doesn’t encourage slovenly guests to behave even worse.

We once turned up at an airb&b which hadn’t been cleaned yet. It was disgusting. Takeaways all over the coffee table, leftovers just sitting there on plates. Bathrooms - yeeeeuurg. The place stank. How could guests not even put things in the bin? We sat outside in the car until dh had negotiated a complete refund for the week.

I’m not a cleaner. I’m not taking your bins out for you. They can do that when they clean the place.

Yes just seen a segment about this on This Morning. I agree, I treat it like a hotel. I'm a paying guest and I will be respectful and leave it in a good condition but I'm not there to pay to do chores. In a hotel the cleaning fee is included in the price of your room, but an air b&b you specifically have to pay extra and yet do more work? I've never stripped the beds, I didn't think this was expected. If cleaners need longer between bookings, then make check in a bit later so we can arrive to a nice accomodation but not feel pressured that if we haven't stripped the beds, we're deemed as a bad guest. I'm pleased with the new rules (and frankly, surprised it wasn't like this before)!

Yep. I’ll do washing up for dishes I’ve used and put all the rubbish into one bag, but I’m not schlepping it down to the bin room when I’m on a time crunch to get to the airport.

At the last AirBNB I stayed at there was a note saying to put everything in the bins outside. So we tied our fish and chip boxes/paper into a bin bag and did just that.

The bins were shared with neighbours and it quickly became apparent the AirBNB host had had some kind of falling out with the other people in the block. We came back from a day out to find that some miserable toad had taken our bag from the bin and emptied it all over our door mat, where the seagulls had picked at it, shredded it and spread it around.

I spend part of my evening sweeping up and mopping down.

Absolutely, it can tarnish what could be a lovely and relaxing holiday doing the bins, rushing around sorting it all out before you have to leave (even more challenging if you add early check out and children to the equation). Surely that's part of the cleaning service we pay for, that we do have the privilege that the place gets sorted when we leave. I wouldn't ask a guest at home to do it, let alone a paying one 😅

I would find this so off-putting as a guest, turning up to all the crockery still in the dishwasher. Obviously depends on the price point of the accommodation but I would not be happy with this at all, why can’t you just get the cleaner to load the dishwasher when they arrive and empty before leaving, if they are taking less time to clean than it takes to run a load of dishes they are not cleaning properly.

I would leave things tidy, but I agree that if you are paying for cleaning, why am I ALSO cleaning? DH and I were given a very poor review once in an Airbnb in Edinburgh:

Claimed we'd put filthy glasses back in the cupboard- we didn't use any
Claimed we'd moved the furniture around- we didn't
Claimed we left the bedroom messy- I had to use the spare duvet because it was freezing and left this on the bed. No food/mess left in the room, and they never asked us to strip the beds
We'd taken the bins out as requested, swept the kitchen floor and left the bathrooms towels on the side. I've never use Airbnb since.

"Airbnb have introduced the new rules exactly because so many guests have got pissed off with unreasonable host expectations and have stopped using them."

In my opinion it is airbnb that have changed their business model away from the original concept of being a platform for people to rent out their spare room, annex or holiday home and towards something resembling a hotel/apartment-hotel booking platform, in competition with VRBO or Booking.com (and others) where most of the properties advertised are commercial properties. (Owners Direct and Holiday Rentals in the UK went through a similar change years ago when they were taken over by HomeAway and later Experian/VRBO and the original concept of booking directly with the owners was replaced by American corporate thinking and processes).

Certainly where I have my apartment, most of the properties listed are now commercial rentals, and I agree that if people are staying in a hotel-style apartment complex where the service level and price is of hotel standard, then the guests should not be expected to do things that they would not expect to do in a hotel.

It will be interesting to see how these new rules are received in the European markets such as France, Austria and Scandinavia where it is absolutely expected that guests keep the property clean and tidy and where there have always been expectations about taking out rubbish, washing up and so on. There are also legal issues - in some countries, if the host provides laundry and cleaning services they will be classified as a "commercial" business and will be required to meet certain regulations, obtain certificates, undertake health and safety and hygiene training and pay enhanced rates of tax or VAT. For this reason in many European countries it is common for guests to bring their own linen and to do a basic clean.

To all the AirBNB hosts on here, these are the things most commonly missing from AirBNBs. If you have them then that's great, but if not then the addition of them would make life much nicer for your guests.

Scissors in the kitchen.
A wooden spoon.
A tray.
Lamps. It's grim sitting under the big light in the evening or to read in bed.
Recycling bins. The number of times I've gone home with a bag of recycling.

Also, having spend too many nights staying on cheap, old, metal bed frames I actively avoid accommodation with them now. Every time you turn over the clattering and squeaking wakes you up.

I would say to AirBNB hosts - stay in your place a few nights and live there. See if you can make scrambled egg in that knackered old frying pan without a wooden spoon. See if you can sleep in that bed without thinking you're sleeping in a blacksmith's workshop. Do the curtains keep the light out? Can you shower without soaking the entire room. Is that duvet like a thin dry wafer? Do you want to keep your clothes in that cupboard that smells musty?