r/technology • • 8h ago

Society New Airbnb rules ban hosts from making guests wash dishes, do laundry & other checkout chores

https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/new-airbnb-rules-ban-hosts-from-making-guests-wash-dishes-do-laundry-other-checkout-chores-3420832/
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118

u/Hacym 8h ago

Good. 

Your $150 cleaning fee can cover that shit. 

28

u/DeltaUltra 8h ago

I used to live in a downtown apartment that was amazing. 

I would do Airbnb a weekend or two, sometimes three and it pay half my rent on a slow month and would often match my paychecks from my day job plus my entire rent on a good month.

The cleaning fee was $50, but I just slipped the other $100 it cost into the rate of the place. People would be very stoked that I wasn't gouging them on the cleaning fee. 

Another weird anomaly, I originally charged $119 a night and would never get any bookings. My cousin who's a landscaper said, "Triple your rate and you won't have that problem." 

So, I raised my rate to nearly $400 a night and my place would be booked up for six months in advance. It was mind blowing. 

Airbnb always encouraged me to raise my rate. I would raise it insanely ($839 a night) just so I could get a weekend at home. AND PEOPLE WOULD STILL BOOK IT. I was like wtf mate?!

I had Olympic athletes, NBA stars, famous actors and rich college parents staying. 

My place was in a good location, not the nicest of places, but not horrible by any standards. My listing had a perfect 5 star rating. 

Then my landlord saw my listing and made me take it down. It was an insane 3 years. 

I had hired people to clean the apartment for $150 for two hours. The cleaning fee was $50. My instructions on check-in were, "Don't worry about cleaning anything. Thats all included and we would rather clean stuff our way." 

19

u/Hacym 7h ago

Sounds like you ran it as a business knowing that part of the cost of doing business is maintenance. 

10

u/Haunting-Vanilla1624 6h ago

Then my landlord saw my listing and made me take it down.

"Hey, you're not allowed to do the exact same thing I'm doing with empty units!"

6

u/Orleanian 5h ago

This, but unironically.

There are a lot of liability issues with running an unlicensed hotel, and it's pretty reasonable for a landlord to deny that setup.

2

u/BeotchLasanga 6h ago

Or you know, I just opt to use hotels where I don't have to pay a goddamn cent extra on top of what it costs me for my booking.

Airbnbs were okay like pre-pandemic but have very clearly gone to shit, and this new policy doesn't really change anything for me.

2

u/rolfraikou 3h ago

The first time I looked at Airbnb, most places were actually cheaper than what most of them charge as cleaning fees now. I do get why they started to charge a bit more than that. But there shouldn't be fees at all. It should be a flat rate for assumed required services. And a rental must be cleaned between guests anyway, so it should just be lumped in. As hotels do. No special cleaning fees at hotels unless you mess something up totally.

1

u/PiccoloAwkward465 1h ago

$150 should cover an entire day of cleaning if needed.

1

u/IslandThyme78 7h ago

This just means that the cleaning fees will increase. The cleaning crews charge based on time spent during the turnover. Every task that shifts to them is more time, more cost.

1

u/Hacym 6h ago

That doesn’t make logical sense but OK