r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • 7h 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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u/sivvus 7h ago edited 6h ago

Yeah; but at least they’re getting a bit of a reality check.

Edit: linked OP removed their post less than 2 hours after they posted it, but the comments are still great.

The TL/DR was the OP having a hissy fit because they think of their customers as “guests” and say that guests treat the host well, go out of their way to be obliging and should be grateful to be there in the first place. But now they don’t even wash up… the horror!

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u/GoonWithhTheWind 7h ago edited 6h ago

“When you're in someone else's home, cleaning up after yourself is a basic courtesy. I have cleaners who make the house spotless between guests, but their job isn't to do the dishes for my guests.”

Like bruh, we’re not guests, we’re paying customers. You don’t force your guests in your personal home to pay. Also, it is your cleaners job. If it’s not, pay them more so that they do it lmao

Edit: they deleted the post, crine

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u/rudebii 6h ago

I don't charge guests staying at my home.

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u/unsuitableasf 6h ago

Me neither. The 3.99 hospitality fee is simply so I don’t sit on my phone the whole time

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u/ser_darkstar 7m ago

I also don't make them do the dishes??? Who does that? 

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u/rolfraikou 2h ago

Also, when I'm a guest at a friend's, I actually get the satisfaction of "no-no, you're doing this, I will do that!"

Like, if Airbnb involved having the owner actually participate in the event and was actually some kind of host that also did things, which would be weird, maybe cleaning rules would make more sense.

My friends don't force me to do everything.

They are personally doing some of it too, in real time.

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u/hoax1337 3h ago

Uhhh... Am I weird for always doing the dishes when I rent a holiday apartment? It kinda did feel like basic courtesy to me. Same with taking out the trash.

Laundry definitely seems excessive, though.

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u/GoonWithhTheWind 3h ago

You’re fine if you’re doing it under no obligation. But when it’s a requirements, that’s irking. Imagine a restaurant requiring you to stack up all your dirty dishes and silverware after your done. It’s a nice thing I do, but if I was told to do, then that restaurant can F off

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u/Notorious-ly 3h ago

I guess it's a "courtesy," but you're paying these people. You're the customer and you don't owe them anything. My courtesy is not intentionally leaving it in complete and utter disarray. I'd expect to treat it the same way I'd treat a hotel - I'm not going to go out of my way to make the employees' life harder, but I'm also not going to do all their work for them.

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u/Somanylyingliars 58m ago

I've seen the way some of my co workers have left their room. Food on tables, cups everywhere, overflowing trash. Sometimes trash on the floor. Wet towels draped everywhere. Come on, dude, do you live in a barn? These hotel workers have a tough life we don't need to make harder. So bad I refuse to stay in any BnB w the swines.

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u/Notorious-ly 5m ago

Yeah, I went on a work trip one time and a coworker's room looked like my spring break condo - just totally trashed. I at least make sure trash and towels and stuff are neatly organized as they can be. Luckily my wife is the same, so we're always sure to get our own room/place.

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u/dk133333 3h ago

I never understood this. I ask my renters / customers to not trash my house. I like... live there part of the year... but its expected that they get hotel like cleaning on me. Its baked in. I cant stand some bnb hosts who charge out the nose, have a cleaning fee AND want you to make the place spotless before you go. F that

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u/Lightningpaper 7h ago

I love all the comments roasting him haha

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u/sivvus 7h ago

Yeah, his whole soapbox about them being guests instead of customers got knocked out REALLY fast.

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u/tslojr 1h ago

It's what happens when someone doesn't understand the difference between "guest" colloquially and "guests" in relation to the hospitality industry.

Kind of makes me think they shouldn't be in the hospitality industry.

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u/SixPack1776 6h ago

Roasted so hard that OP deleted the post.

What a thin skinned coward.

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u/firewoodrack 6h ago

"I removed my listing today. I rent a spare room in the house I live and Airbnb told me I can't ask guests to clean the dishes. I can't live in a dirty kitchen. Is like asking one roommate to clean everybody's dishes."

Give me a FUCKING break lmao

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u/JoeBethersontonFargo 6h ago

The responses were gold though. They were all like ???Get a roommate then? A customer is not a roommate.

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u/Vecna_Is_My_Co-Pilot 2h ago

This used to be a thing you'd hear about all the time, people renting out a room, having a boarder.

Do you just not hear about these because it's not above board and harder to get away with now?

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u/scroogemcbutts 6h ago

Aww I was really enjoying that post before they realized what they said was so deeply unpopular. Sadly I don't think it will sink in based on some of the replies I saw

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u/PossibleVariety7927 6h ago

They sound so insufferable. "They aren't guests, they are customers."

Just wreaks of rent seeking landlord bullshit.

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u/Micalas 6h ago

This is so fucking funny

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u/damiana8 5h ago

Damn I wish I could read the original post lol

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u/PowerZox 7h ago

The thing about not having contact info for the guests does seem ridiculous ngl. Its not Uber Eats they should be able to call the guests and vice versa

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u/colako 7h ago

No, its make perfect sense to avoid them doing micro-management

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u/apocalypsebuddy 7h ago

I once had a host berate me and give me a bad review for not responding to all of her check in messages during the stay.

It was my last Airbnb experience, I’ve done hotels ever since and never going back

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u/PowerZox 7h ago

You're renting a room not buying a sandwich. You wouldn't bat an eye at giving your phone number to an hotel receptionist but because its an app its different?

I get that an AirBnB host is not as professional as an hotel management but this also goes both way, from their perspective they're way less shielded from the guests' actions than a hotel is and might want some level of reassurance rather than relying on a shitty third party app.

Plus phone numbers and emails are like the most surface level way of communication, Gen Z's (I am one) fear of phone calls is weird.

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u/codyzon2 7h ago

But a receptionist isn't going to harass me, and they're not going to potentially use my number in dubious ways. They wouldn't be invested at all in my stay or whether or not I tidied the room, because they would just be working a job just like everyone else at the hotel, trying to provide the best service they can. That's the problem, these Airbnb hosts don't understand that they're actually supposed to be operating like a business, it may be a home they own but just like a hotel owner you aren't supposed to be harassing your guests and making it untenable.

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u/Countcordarrelle 7h ago

Make a call function in the host app that spoofs the numbers. Your concerns are taken care of and the customers privacy is upheld. It’s a simple tool Airbnb can have on their app.

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u/vodka7tall 7h ago

There are plenty of ways to contact guests that don't require their phone number. I no longer use AirBnB because it sucks, but when I did, the last thing I would want was the host calling me because they felt the need to harass me about not washing the dishes or some shit. Send a message through the platform and leave me to enjoy my vacation. You don't need to be calling me, ever.

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u/PowerZox 6h ago

As per the post they are removing every contact info of the guest so the sole way would be the in-app text messages for which neither party necessarily has notifications enabled. That does seem like a stupid change IMO

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u/vodka7tall 6h ago

It seems like a perfectly reasonable change if AirBnb wants to have full access to all communication between guests and hosts on their platform. This is for the protection of everyone using the service, and the service itself.

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u/masterwolfe 4h ago

Isn't that how uber works?

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u/Undeity 7h ago edited 6h ago

Airbnb is doing that more for their own sake. Like, you can't share your phone number even if you want to; the chat will censor it.

They want to make sure they have all interactions on record for liability purposes. Plus, it makes it more difficult for hosts and guests to cut them out of future transactions.

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u/schu2470 6h ago

Plus, it makes it more difficult for hosts and guests to cut them out of future transactions.

This is exactly what my wife and I do when we want to repeat visit an area and stay with the same host. Text them directly, arrange terms off app, and pay directly. We save money, the host makes more money, and there's no middle man. Why would I let an app get a cut on future visits and stays when they've already done their job - putting renters in contact with hosts.

Don't get me wrong, if it's a sketchy host or we can't come to agreeable terms we'll go back to the app and find a different place to stay but we've gone off-app a dozen or more times and haven't been burned yet.

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u/sloanesquared 4h ago

Every house I’ve stayed in leaves contact info in the guest book. They also leave instructions (usually with a discount code) for booking directly if they want to offer that. I’ve never had a host try to contact me for a personal phone number in the app. That is weird and I definitely wouldn’t give it. This really doesn’t prevent anything except the host overstepping the customer’s privacy.