Air B n B guests no longer need to clean up after themselves

[lonelylou09]

Wondering what everyone's thoughts are on the upcoming changes to Air BnB bookings where owners will no longer be able to ask guests to strip beds, remove rubbish or even wash up after themselves.
I'm a cleaner and I'm worried this will mean I can no longer do changeovers properly.
I currently do a 5 bed 3 bathroom that sleeps 10 and it takes me the whole check out time (5 hours) to turn the property over. That's with guests having to strip beds, remove rubbish to correct outside bins and at the very least load up the dishwasher and put it on.
If I have to add this on to It could easily add on an hour which means check out or in times would have to be adjusted and people already moan or turn up 2 or 3 hours early or leave an hour late.
So I'm guessing I'm asking what peoples thoughts are if you use air B and b. Do you do these things if asked and would continue too if you can't be asked to? Or do you think this isn't your place to do it? Does it make a difference if there is a cleaning fee charged separately?
My view is it's not a hotel ..its self catering and you should leave it as you found it. I always put a lot of effort into trying to ensure when the guests arrive it feels like no one was there before then and it's theirs for the week.
If I stay anywhere...even a hotel I'll strip the bed and set the bins ready to make it easier for the cleaner.
But although most guests are great you do get some that you just wonder what Thier own home is like.

Are the bins on your property or not?

Then surely its only 1 sack full in the bin inside. When they leave just chuck it in the boot and take it back to your own home.

If you have chosen to operate a business no where near your own home then that's on you. Sell up? Move closer? I don't really have that much sympathy.

Like most places in the uk, we have wheelie bins in the garden that require to be put out on the kerb on set days (3 weekly for landfill so we can’t afford to miss this collection). It is 20m to the wheelie bin and then you open the gate and put it on the street for collection. Airbnb will not let me add that to my house rules (eg going outside the front door). Is that hard to understand?

That's the thing. I get guests wanting to get in earlier or leave later, but then cleaning time is genuinely sacrificed. I want my house to be perfectly clean for them and that just simply takes time.

I've been renting for 8+ years and have received one singular cleanliness complaint which was totally valid as my previous cleaner decided to just not show up and not tell me, hence why I now spend all my Saturdays overseeing and helping my new cleaner. I'd prefer to wait until 4pm but come into a perfectly clean property, than go in early and feel that things aren't quite clean enough!

lol, thats wins! my last one was strio the beds, sweep the floor, put x in x bin y in y bin etc, there were about 20 'bins' for used towels, various recycling etc. Nope b&bs or hotels for me now!

Ok cool. I think it’s pretty lazy as a guest not to be able to walk across a tiny front garden to put a bin bag in a wheelie bin. I have a family of 6 and 3 weekly bin collections at home so no, I can’t accommodate guest’s rubbish. It seems this part of the policy will be revoked luckily.

I find the washing up one odd - I would have thought guests should wash up the dishes themselves or at least put them in the dishwasher and run it. Most of the other things I think should come under the cleaning fee.

I've never used an Air BB because of the cleaning thing. They are not cheaper when compared with a hotel which don't have the cleaning nonsense.

I think it’s lazy as a host tbh. Perhaps you are in the wrong game.

You are not the cleaner, why would you worry about guests moaning about check in and check out times if you were!! You are an Airbnb owner who doesn’t want to do more work or pay a cleaner to work longer.

My 12 years of hosting and 5* across the board reviews would suggest not.

Will happily empty the bins, towels in the bath, wipe over the kitchen surfaces and pop the dishwasher on before we leave however I hate stripping the beds, possibly because I’d rather live in ignorance about what we’ve just slept on. We used Airbnb a lot when DD was tiny and there was not one place where the floors had been cleaned to a decent standard before we arrived, evidenced by immediately filthy knees & socks from crawling around.

Air BnB hosts have lost the plot. The new rules could be a bit far but hopefully brings it back in line with reasonable expectations.

@ommadon I don't know what NDR means. The UK legislation states that holiday lets have to use commercial collection regardless of how many nights/business rate/council tax status.

www.iow.gov.uk/article/1359/Holiday-lets-and-B-B

As others have said, it may be that 2 cleaners are needed.
I imagine most people will continue to load the dishwasher and stick it on, I wouldn't object to a request to do this as we would be doing it multiple times during a stay anyway.
I do think stripping beds is asking too much, especially if checkout is 10am or earlier, and I have seen hosts asking for even more (e.g. vacuuming and mopping floors, kitchen surfaces cleaned).
It's a self catering holiday, your final morning is for making and eating breakfast and getting your belongings out - not doing the cleaning.

10 of us stayed in a large house like you describe OP. We were given 1 dishwasher tablet for a 10day stay!

Another place provided 1, single, sachet of washing up detergent for a week long stay. I don't want to be buying cleaning products during my holiday!

I honestly don't know how they can fix it. So many hosts have gone absolutely batshit crazy and that should be monitored, but blanket policies don't work when you have so much variety on your website. A rule for a 1 bedroom studio in central London doesn't make any sense for a 5 bedroom villa with a private pool in the South of France and vice versa.

I think AirBnb owners need to realise they’re running a business, (hopefully) making a profit and stop expecting guests to help them out with that. It’s laughable to say it’s ‘disrespectful’ to leave washing up or that people are ‘disgusting’. You’re in business to make money, we have no personal relationship and you’re supplying a service, you’re not my friend.

I don’t expect to run a hoover around a Travellodge or pop in to do the dishes at a Wetherspoons. If you can’t make money by charging a decent rate, including the cleaning, then you haven’t got a business. Sell up and put the money in the bank.

Exactly. I think some hobbyists may be getting a dose of reality.

Pay a second cleaner and put your prices up to cover it if need be. Even before these changes you should have had contingency for messy guests.

As a matter of interest, one Airbnb I rented asked for the rubbish to be taken away as they didn’t want to pay for commercial rubbish collection , only domestic. I think that a lot of the ‘dispose of the rubbish off site’ is as a result of that.

This for me too. I always leave the place tidy, any rubbish in the bin, etc, but I don’t see why I should do more if there’s a cleaning fee.

I agree, some people thought it was a quick earner! Some of the Air B&B tales on here are awful.

You haven't cooked your own food at Wetherspoons though, so there's no comparison. You've paid for a meal which includes a ( usually) 65% markup on the raw ingredients which covers the cost of the chef, bar staff and washer upper. There is also the economy of scale in a restaurant.

Are seriously saying you shouldn't have to wash up in a holiday let because you don't have to wash up in a restaurant? And that you don't wash up in a holiday let? If so, no wonder some hosts used to put it in their rules.

That’s interesting. I’ve never seen any commercial waste set ups and we’ve stayed in loads of airbnbs, cotttages.com, booking.com etc properties.

I expect it would cost more which is why the owners don’t do it.