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Airbnb hosts are furious they can no longer make guests do their chores (www.wired.com)
submitted 3 days ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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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.”

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[–] 33 points 2 days ago* (3 children)

From the article:

In a Facebook group for Airbnb hosts, one person posted what they claimed was a screenshot of their failed attempt to edit their property’s “Requests” section. They tried to ask guests to wash and air-dry dishes, put dirty towels in the laundry room, and take trash to a dumpster at an RV park they could find using a map on the refrigerator.

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.

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  • [–] -3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago

    I don't think expecting people to wash their dishes or put all the dirty laundry together is super unreasonable

    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.

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