Airbnb hosts collapse after new rules mean they can’t force guests to clean everything for them

The reign of tyrannical Airbnb hosts is over.

On Wednesday, Airbnb unveiled a new policy update that prevents hosts from requiring guests to do a certain amount of cleaning before they leave.

Starting on or after November 20, hosts will no longer be able to ask guests to perform tasks that “would typically be done by a cleaner,” the company said, such as removing beds, washing and putting away dishes, or removing trash from the property.

Customers have been asking for these changes for years. You’ve probably heard – or experienced – the horror stories of hosts who impose detailed check-out instructions and impose arbitrary cleaning fees. People yearn for the old-fashioned hotel hospitality, to which Airbnb was initially intended to be the cheaper and easier alternative.

But the hosts, a bit like a threatened aristocracy, do not accept the changes well. As soon as the news spread, Airbnb message boards turned into ground zero for a landlord meltdown like you’ve never seen before.

“Can’t we come together and create our own post-Airbnb platform? » asked a Reddit post. A similar post in a Facebook group for Airbnb hosts also raised the idea of ​​collective action and called for a strike, as Wired spotted.

Taking a more malicious route, one threatened to increase his cleaning fees in response. “I will increase the fee to cover the additional cleaning product that now has to wash dishes…and remove trash and recyclables,” they wrote.

One likened Airbnb to “an abusive partner,” before another expanded on the dramatic analogy: “They keep hurting you, but you’re not sure you can find something better, so stay.”

On the Airbnb community forum, one host angrily declared that “guests have free reign to be lazy while hosts bear the risk.”

“Guests can definitely be expected to wash their dishes or put them in the dishwasher and remove their dirty sheets,” the host seethed, as quoted by TechCrunch. “In exchange, they benefit from a personal connection and a unique environment that a hotel simply cannot offer.”

Many hosts were on board with the changes, however. The one who claimed to be a great host posted a thread with a strong message: “any host who complains should leave AirBnB.”

“I can’t imagine asking a guest to take down the bed, take out the trash, do the dishes, or start the laundry,” another host agreed. “To me, it’s crazy.”

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