What started as an alternative to staying in hotels has turned into a war on consumers.
The biggest enemy, however, isn’t even the company itself. It’s the contractors, or “hosts.”
Over time, Airbnb prices have seemed to only skyrocket further past affordability for vacation goers, locking out those who want the intimate experience of staying in an apartment or home.
With the rising cost of Airbnb services, it’s no wonder customers have taken to complain about other aspects of the company’s business practices, specifically in how hosts can treat their guests.
When a guest chooses to book an Airbnb, the property owner renting out the space will typically have policies regarding what a guest can and can’t do while staying in their home. Sounds reasonable enough in practice, right?
Unfortunately, this dynamic has bred a level of standards set by some hosts that are near impossible for a guest to meet. In the past, guests have taken to online platforms to point out absurd requests made by these offending hosts.
Airbnb has made a recent change to how hosts are expected to approach cleaning responsibilities. According to an Oct. 23 article by USA Today, guests are now exempt from having to perform certain cleaning duties such as putting bedsheets in laundry and dishwashing.
Many consumers are delighted with the change, arguing that requiring guests to participate in this type of work is unpaid labor, especially when guests already pay a cleaning fee at checkout. Some hosts and others in support of Airbnb host guidelines have disapproved of the new policy outline.
“its [sic] just bonkers the new policy @airbnb is trying to put in place,” content creator Matt Williams said in an Oct. 23 post on X. “Putting the dishes in the dishwasher, taking out the trash, pulling the sheets off the bed … they are just standard things any normal person would do when staying at a house. Why wouldn’t a host be allowed to say that?”
California-based writer Philip Walford replied to Williams’ complaint, stating, “You’re in the hospitality business, not the paying-off-my-mortgage-without-consequences-or-inconvenience business.”
In an age where gas is consistently averaging above $3.30 and the Texas minimum wage sits at an unlivable $7.25, vacation culture has changed drastically. Many people either can’t afford to travel somewhere, don’t want to or both.
Regardless of whether traveling for work or pleasure, customers should not have to worry themselves with leaving a property in pristine condition upon their departure, and hosts should certainly refrain from review-bombing said customers if they happen to miss a step in the long list of a host’s unreasonable demands.
