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/
26k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

658

u/puppylust 6h ago

Even worse, some of the latest horror stories include a host fabricating evidence of damages with ai tools.

The amount of research you need to do to feel confident the host is legit and the place matches the pictures isn't worth it most of the time. Maybe I'll do it for a remote cabin, but for most trips a hotel or established rental company is better in every way.

270

u/Astrochops 5h ago

I recently had some friends book an Airbnb near me and the photos showed this gorgeous property and surrounding gardens, but when they got there they were confined to a granny flat and the rest of the property was off limits to them. What a scam.

165

u/aurortonks 5h ago

There's a known group of hosts in the area I'm in that post really amazing properties at very desirable locations. The prices are always reasonable, but not super cheap so there's no suspicion. However, once you've made it to the area and are going to check in, they suddenly have a 'maintenance emergency' and need to move you to another of their properties, not always nearby either. One that's way less nice, in a shitty or dangerous neighborhood, and has not been cleaned or maintained to acceptable rental levels.

48

u/innermongoose69 4h ago

These are on Booking.com too. Happened to me two years ago with a vacation apartment in Germany. Just hours before arrival I got a message that the booked apartment wasn’t yet available and they had to put us in another one across town.

Then we were able to go to the original one a couple days later and it was a dump. Cracked window glass, reeked of cigarette smoke bad enough to trigger asthma, and the wifi was too slow to watch a single Netflix episode. We ended up getting another place and requesting a refund. To Booking’s credit, they did mediate with the host and we agreed to a half refund. We decided to take that deal and cut our losses instead of keep fighting.

Sometimes I look at the reviews for that place just to see if they’re still pulling the same crap. One review from this summer showed the exact same cracked window in a picture. They haven’t even fixed it.

0

u/blankest 7m ago

Ah yes. Travel to a foreign country...to watch fucking Netflix. JFC.

45

u/improbablywronghere 4h ago

Just happened to my in laws in San Francisco

18

u/lefthandedchurro 4h ago

Oh dang. I had this happen to me like 3 years ago and I guess I got had. They said a flood happened and the unit had to be switched to some random place further away. I felt bad for the owners!!

5

u/bunnyguts 3h ago

We had one of these but it was in reverse.

We turned up to the dodgiest of all apartment buildings in a scary neighbourhood and they saw my little family with little kids and moved us down the road to the slightly less dodgy, well secured, more central location.

1

u/Max_Thunder 1h ago

How do they avoid it being reflected in their reviews?

I usually book Airbnbs when in Caribbeans, many countries have few hotels and most people rent apartments and I prefer vetted hosts over random people on Facebook groups.

3

u/Yoroyo 3h ago

I have been bamboozled by a newly renovated Airbnb that was in a horribly scary neighborhood. Now I always look at the Google map street view cause it’s never represented correctly.

1

u/jaywalkingly 6m ago edited 2m ago

I worked for Airbnb to handle issues like this. If it's within a month your friends should file with the phone line for a partial refund.

Caveat: they at least need photos or it's going to be a hassle; if the host confirmed the changes in the in app message thread this ticket would be a slam dunk for me.

AND push them to review. Reviews are the best way to both punish bad hosts and help others avoid them.

Edit: Also Airbnb has a tool to see what the reservation looked like when it was booked, JIC the host changed it afterwards.

70

u/fury420 5h ago

Good news, AirBnB is also trying to clamp down on this kind of BS as part of these new rule changes.

...For example, hosts are generally not allowed to:

Ask guests to complete tasks that require significant effort or time, or would typically be performed by a cleaner, including stripping the bed, taking trash offsite, or washing and putting away dishes.

Restrict access to any feature that’s advertised as part of the listing. Any fees for an advertised part of the listing must be included in the price shown to guests at the time of booking. Hosts may include information about fees for optional add-ons, like breakfast service, in their requests.

Impose fines or other penalties on guests. AirCover provides protection for hosts in the rare event that their place or belongings are damaged by a guest during an Airbnb stay.

10

u/claudekennilol 5h ago

Is "AirCover" an extra insurance policy you can buy on top of the booking or something?

3

u/hockeycross 3h ago

No it is AirBnB’s insurance for hosts. Home owner insurance does not cover minor damage and such a lot of the time.

1

u/fury420 2h ago

No, it's the existing insurance that AirBnB provides hosts, using the existing service fee.

7

u/PsychoticMessiah 4h ago

I’m ok with stripping the bed or putting towels in the tub. I feel like stripping the bed almost forces them to change the sheets.

17

u/CallItDanzig 3h ago

Well I'm not. Im not stripping the bed at a hotel.

My favorite ive seen once to be fair is vacuuming and mopping the floors. As you can imagine I did not do it and nothing happened. Motherfuckers.

9

u/Phatferd 2h ago

90% of the time you rent an AirBNB is for a vacation. I'm not doing house chores while on vacation.

6

u/SuperPotatoThrow 4h ago

Its just so much easier with hotels, the cost savings isn't worth it, which is going to be fairly marginal to begin with.

The last company I worked for made a rule a year ago banning Airbnbs for all circumstances regardless of where or what it is just because of the bullshit that comes with it. Even if multiple people are involved in travel with a single job. No one has time to sit there and spend hours on end doing extensive research on one owner.

5

u/LicketySplitz 5h ago

I’ve seen the same thing with Uber drivers using AI to make it look like they trashed/vomited on the backseats.

9

u/anakhizer 5h ago

Is this only in the US? As I've stayed in plenty of BNBs in EU and never had a single issue.

21

u/puppylust 5h ago

It would not surprise me that the US has more scams and fraud but I don't know any statistics

2

u/StrCmdMan 1h ago

Had a host give us a one star before because we said the place had zero locks on any doors in a high crime downtown area. We stayed there seven nights hardly slept. Everything else was booked.

His mother came by and said “it is fine” then proceeded to fuss us.

2

u/tacobasket 1h ago

“Maybe” for a remote cabin is right. I went to a cabin in southeast Oklahoma for a pandemic retreat with my husband and they hadn’t had the hot tub cleaned (a main draw of the cabin and this was in the height of COVID soooo) and then they had the audacity to give me a bad review when we left, accusing me of bringing a dog when we just have a shedding dog and some hair had been dropped from our clothes onto the floor while we were there for 4 days.

Not to mention there was a wasp infestation inside that I was kind enough to leave off my review (regret now that I was being too delicate).

1

u/grilled_pc 2h ago

So you’re saying you have to take a billion photos of things like you would when moving into a rental home? But instead its just for a 1 - 2 night stay? Fuck that right off. It aint worth it just to cover your ass and save maybe a hundred bucks IF THAT.