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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[–] 1 point 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

I don't understand the appeal of these stupid things. Chores while on vacation/travelling? lol

If I wanted to experience being in a home covered in bodily fluid and filled with hidden cameras then I would just... stay home for vacation.

If I wanted to be forced to be a maid while doing it then I would visit a BDSM dungeon.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Strike? Against whom, yourself? You're the boss.
    This must be murica, hereabouts no guest will do any cleaning.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago

    They're technically independent contractors with some of their own capital. What makes them different than an Uber driver or a truck owner-operator is the amount of capital required to do their job is a lot higher and they generally don't need to do as much labor.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago

    cry baby cry

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  • As hosts, we have a responsibility to protect our investments

    Yes, you get it! It's not my job to take care of your house dumbasses!!

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  • [–] 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    What the fuck do hotels do?!?! Fuck landlords of all types. Entitled twats. Fuck right off. Glad I never use these. Just do a fucking hotel. An actual business. Not these craigslist-ass half-assed supplementing someone else's overpriced mortgage and bad financial decisions.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 day ago

    Hotels, motels, boarding houses, albergues, inns, resorts, serviced apartments, and actual freaking B&B...

    All of those are good for the economy to varying degrees; the smaller the business and the less corporate they are. Airbnb is just corporate leeching without any benefits.

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  • [–] 19 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    What's the problem? Hosts can still charge cleaning fees but they can't force guests to do chores.

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  • [–] 28 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Yeah, but they were doing both.

    Now they can't have a cake and eat it too.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Exactly. If the hosts were able to both make guests clean up after themselves and charge a cleaning fee then the cleaning fee was just a money grab.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    I rented an airbnb, my one and only time, where the host had an insane list of chores. For context: This was during the pandemic and it was me and my two best friends who just wanted to get out of NYC for the night to get some fresh air. I cooked at home and packed dinner, so we didn't use the kitchen. We didn't drink. We had a quiet movie night, enjoyed the trees and each others company and then went to sleep.

    The next morning, I personally wiped the counters, wiped the fridge, took out the trash, stripped the beds, refluffed the couch, swept the fireplace.. the works. I literally woke up 2 hours early to get all this cleaning done. They had a cleaning fee on top of all these chores, which I felt was odd, but it was a new experience for me so I went with it. I am big on rules and respect so i sincerely cleaned to the best of my ability.

    After I posted a positive review of their home, they put up a review of me within seconds claiming I trashed the place. They were vying for an additional charge for me leaving the place messy. They said their cleaning lady called to complain about how I trashed the house. I messaged asking what they were talking about, absolutely confused,, and they gave me a list of how I trashed their house.

    1. There were crumbs on the counter. I know I wiped it, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe i missed something.
    2. They said one of the blankets was a little damp. After asking the other girls, I think my friend briefly sat on the bed after she took a shower. I had stripped the bed so this was a blanket in the hamper they were complaining about that should have been going to be washed. I didn't notice anything damp when I stripped her bed, but we were trying to rationalize the complaint while we were all talking about it after.
    3. The back of one of the couches had a smudge on it. It was allegedly charcoal from the fireplace. I didn't see a smudge, it was just me and two girls and none of us touched the back of the couch. I don't know where this came from. You can't see the back of the couch in any of the photos I took, and I can't 100% guarantee nothing happened but none of us had any reason to touch the back of the couch and I was the only one to sweep the fireplace (which was full of ash from the previous people but it was on their 'house rules' to leave it clean and I was worried we'd be charged so I swept it)

    They hosts wanted to charge me a $500 additional cleaning fee for the "trashed" house. I had after pictures of the condition i left it in and nothing came of it, so I think Airbnb said they didn't have a case, but I never used airbnb again.

    It cost more than a hotel would have in the area. Such a scam.

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  • [–] 21 points 2 days ago

    "striking" would imply they were performing any work in the first place lmao

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Who's taking the trash out now dumbasses? Not me. You deal with the insane rules of your strata. Not my problem boo. (I also think AirBnB is an evil model and wouldn't use the app but....I could not resist)

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  • [–] 24 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    I’m not going to do anything at an Airbnb that I wouldn’t do at an actual bend and breakfast or normal hotel room.

    These owners are making money off of me. I’m not doing their damn chores for them. “Protecting your investments“ does not include taking out the fucking trash and stripping the bed.

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

    They tried to run hotels without running hotels and are surprised maintenance and cleanup is on them, not guests? Wow, I am shocked

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  • [–] 26 points 2 days ago

    A different self-described host declared that going forward, the kitchens in their rentals will be “stripped down to only bare essentials.”

    You think your Airbnb kitchen is currently well equipped?! 😂

    I actually travel with a mini sharpener to make Airbnb knives usable.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 days ago

    I remember renting vacation houses and cabins a few times before AirBnB got big from smaller companies. That was way better because it worked more like a hotel where they actually had cleaning staff and other staff. It was much nicer stopping by an office, checking in with an actual human who is professional and courteous and getting a key, as opposed to dealing with shitty tech bros and slum lords both trying to get maximum profit while doing the bare minimum.

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  • [–] 26 points 2 days ago

    Fuck these parasites, I'll continue to not use Airbnb.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 day ago

    "Strike" would imply you work lmao

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  • [–] 401 points 3 days ago (64 children)

    “As hosts, we have a responsibility to protect our investments, our homes, and, in many cases, our personal living spaces,”

    As hosts, you can go fuck yourselves after what you did with the house market.

    “The problem is that Airbnb increasingly expects hosts to accept the risks while limiting our ability to protect ourselves.”

    No, the problem is that you expect all the good from the hotel market without all the bad from the hotel market. Because let's be honest, you're not renting your house or your room for one night eventually, you're trying to live off this, and that makes you a hotel.

    No sympathy for these assholes that only deserve the worst after fucking so many cities and towns.

    Some hosts are threatening to strike

    Oh please... don't threaten us with a good time. Please do, strike indefinitely. My only hope is that you start losing money and go broke because that's what you deserve for making a business off the house market.

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  • [–] 90 points 3 days ago* (30 children)

    I don't even understand why people use Airbnb.

    Every time I've looked at Airbnb, a hotel was cheaper and easier. Hotels certainly have some hidden fees, but nothing like airbnb has.

    Oh look, this house is 60 dollars a night. That could work for my two night stay.. oh wait, now that I've clicked the listing, it has a 400 dollar cleaning fee. I've worked in cleaning. cleaning a house does not cost 400 dollars, and thats assuming you have professional cleaners coming in to clean it, which we both know you don't. You expect the guest to do all the cleaning, and you come in, spend 30 minutes doing the bare minimum touchup, and want 400 dollars for it.

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    [–] 48 points 2 days ago (6 children)

    All AirBnBs do is buy up affordable housing and convert it into passive income. It's one of the main reasons we have this major housing crisis today

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    [–] 31 points 2 days ago (10 children)

    They're lucky they still exist. Fuck airbnb

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    [–] 117 points 2 days ago (13 children)

    As hosts, we have a responsibility to protect our investments

    That's not at all what the word "host" means.

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    [–] 192 points 3 days ago (14 children)

    in many cases, our personal living spaces,

    Maybe don't let strangers stay in your home then? That's what hotels are for dummy.

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    [–] 57 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

    Independent contractors threatening to strike will never not be extremely, raucously hilarious.

    If you know such an idiot, please laugh as hard as you can, right in their face.

    EDIT:

    Enjoy being foreclosed on, you collosally arrogant, absolute wastes of human life. Your pain is the rest of society healing, and you deserve all of it.

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    [–] 38 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    Airbnb hosts are like the used car salesmen of landlords.

    I travel around Southeast Asia and China/Hong Kong and stay in guesthouses mostly.

    I haven't dealt with an Airbnb host since one charged me for electric, lol.

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    [–] 44 points 2 days ago

    Yeah. The hosts are pissed they have to pay the labor costs of cleaning crews rather than just their mortgages.

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  • [–] 21 points 2 days ago

    Hotels are superior anyways. Source: just called down to the front desk to extend my stay another few days, took 30 seconds

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  • [–] 25 points 2 days ago

    Accept the risks of them... not washing the dishes?

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  • [–] 124 points 3 days ago (5 children)

    As a neighbor of one of these, I had a guest try to confront me. I live in a narrow street and have lots of colonial walls that make drives sketchy. I can’t safely back out to leave my home if the guests street park…rather than for some reason use the completely functional driveway the building has. They do so anyway. I have them towed. One lady came out while I was sitting on the stoop because I had told my daughter I was calling the tow truck (not even loudly, she must have been creeping). She tried to shame me by saying “you just have to ask nicely” to which my response was “you just have to read” and pointed at the sign, and the yellow line reading “do not park.” She really wanted me to feel bad or something, which I didn’t, and I still do not. I have explained to the owner that I won’t be asking nicely to use my driveway in the home I pay for from the guests of a hotel, I will be documenting, and I will have them towed. Hasn’t happened in a while. Idk why this bitch thought she could talk to me like I was an npc in my own neighborhood.

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    [–] 118 points 3 days ago (5 children)

    They won’t strike. $10,000 says they don’t strike.

    They need airbnb to pay for their overpriced mortgages, so a strike means selling off their assets.

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    [–] 103 points 3 days ago (9 children)

    If I was a customer forced to pay a $50-100 "cleaning fee" I wouldn't clean absolutely anything, that's what the fee is supposed to be

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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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    [–] 64 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    In the early days I really didn’t mind loading the dishwasher and throwing a load of towels in the washer before I left. I’m nice and not a slob. Now so many owners farm it out to management companies, hired maintenance workers and cleaning services. On top of that, and probably because they are paying the cleaners by the hour, they want to hold your guest rating hostage to make you do the work. If they want to charge that much more than a hotel nowadays, I want to get hotel service.

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    [–] 79 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    Tech is being used to speed run the history of every industry with themselves inserted in the middle to collect fees.

    Maybe instead of striking they can form some sort of collective entity of their own. Some sort of group providing lodging for travelers. If they get big enough someday they might even have upscale luxury services such as cleaning. I believe the French have a fancy word for this: le hôtel.

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