Airbnb hosts can no longer require certain cleaning tasks from guests

Thanks for the heads-up! We’ve been happy to separate and deposit recycling items, but the instructions have often been confusing or contradictory.

Dishwashing prior to checkout, and other cleaning tasks have also often been inconsistent or unclear, so this should help resolve that.

The article is behind a paywall, so I couldn't read it, but I have seen this written up in other places. One situation I saw mentioned was a woman whose host said she had to wash and dry the sheets on the bed before she checked out, even though the guest had to leave for the airport at 5:30 AM. That's entirely unreasonable.

I guess I have been fortunate in that I have stayed in 50+ Air BnBs in the last twelve years and never been tasked with anything onerous, or at least, nothing that I wouldn't do at home, in a hotel, or staying with a friend or relative.

I wouldn't leave dirty dishes lying around in any of those places, so I am certainly not leaving them behind in an Air BnB for someone else to deal with. I don't mind loading things into a dishwasher and starting it before I leave, or if no dishwasher, washing by hand and leaving to dry. It's not like I'm having a banquet in my apartment, so washing up only takes a few minutes. If I'm really pressed for time, I don't have coffee/breakfast before I check out so I don't have to wash up.

I always gather and pile used towels in the bathroom so they can be picked up easily by the cleaning crew. I recycle at home so I am always happy when instructions are provided for recycling at an Air BnB and I gladly do it.

Most of my stays have indicated where the trash should go, if full, without explicit instructions to take it out before leaving. If the trash is full, I'm taking it out, even if I don't "have to."

Even in a hotel, we put our trash in the trash can, put the remote back where we found it and gather coffee cups and towels. At someone's house where I'm told "don't do a thing, I'll take care of it" I'm not going to leave it looking like the Rolling Stones just spent the night there.

Maybe my good fortune is the result of my obsessive Air BnB review reading. I stay at places where the property and hosts are highly rated. Often the checkout instructions are in the listing under 'house rules' so I can see what they are before I book. Any mention of micromanaging or excessive rules, that's a pass for me. I'm considerate, the hosts are reasonable and appreciative, and it's all good.

Hopefully all self-catering facilities will follow suit. We don’t use Airbnb but whether through Booking.com or direct booking we had the full range of “departure chore” experiences on our latest Switzerland and Italy trip.

• in Wengen all they asked (Interhome run apt) was for us to take out the trash, they gave us a sack for mixed recycling and they would do it. They also,supplied ample trash bags, which is not the case everywhere.

• In Pontresina, we were told to just leave the keys and have a nice day!

• in Engleberg we had to strip the beds (that drives me CRAZY!) and put everything in the shower stall with the towels and we had to do the recycling which luckily was on the property, a large “resort” complex. And we needed to start the dishwasher, which was not a hardship.

• In Ortisei, we just took the trash to a location a few step for the apartment

One improvement I would like to see is the provision of enough dishwasher pods and toilet tissue for the duration of the stay. I am tired of buying a 4 pack of toilet tissue when we need one more roll to get through a 7-10 day stay.

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kayla, it's not a paywall, although I think you do need an account to see it. Here is a link to an article that anyone should be able to read, although it's all over the news this morning, so it shouldn't be hard to find something on it. https://abcnews.com/GMA/Travel/airbnbs-new-rules-limit-cleaning-chores-guests/story?id=137456832

Cyn, I know, it's the lack of consistency and the fact that it's not disclosed. That's one rule that I'm really in favor of. If they want certain things to be done, needs to be disclosed before booking. They can't throw it in at the last minute, like many do.

Laurel, I agree about things like toilet paper. That drives me crazy.

Mardee--thank you for this! We have never had to do much at the Airbnb's that we have stayed at, but have had a few that had us take the trash to the street on trash day. The last one, the instructions were not clear on where it was (in an alley) and the cans were not marked well. I don't mind emptying trash, but do think the host should be the one to make sure the cans are properly marked and taken to the appropriate area each week. As it turned out, it was obvious that the cans had not been taken out the week prior.

mikliz, that's the problem—the inconsistencies and lack of specific directions. I don't stay that often at Airbnbs, as I prefer hotels, but the times I have, it drove me crazy when I was given incomplete information or it was just messed up. I just don't understand what took them so long to change the rules. It's obviously been a huge issue for guests for years now.

I’ve stayed in nearly 40 vacation apartments over the years.
Mostly through booking.com.
I gave up on AirB and B a few years back after dealing with an unreasonable hostess in Ortigia.
I always wash my dishes, pile up my used towels, and tie up the garbage and recycling bags before I leave, but I draw the line at combing the streets for the appropriate trash bins and doing any laundry or cleaning.
I think leaving a place reasonably tidy is just common courtesy, but if there is a cleaning fee I’m not doing the rest of the work!
I also leave hotel rooms tidy when I leave.
Being a housekeeper/chambermaid is an admirable but difficult job and if I can make it a tiny bit easier for them , I do.

Lets put it this way, I am not staying anywhere where I have to rely on the previous guest to wash and remake bedding, clean the bathroom, and other basic tasks...because you can imagine how that goes.

I keep things neat when I stay at an apartment, wash my dishes, and generally leave it close to the way it was when I arrived, except bedding and towels.

But that also means if I need dishes when I arrive, we wash them before use, we sanitize eating/prep/cooking surfaces.

Well, I hope to goodness, Paul, that the host takes care of the cleaning if there’s no requirement that the guests do so. Although I will say that I can pretty much tell if a place is clean or not when I’m in it. And I’m certainly not going to sanitize everything. That’s way too much trouble.

And that is why I mostly stay at hotels. One reason I go on vacation is because I don’t want to have to stay at home and do all the routine things that you normally do at home, including clean and cook. So I’m certainly not going to pay for a place and then have to do the cooking and cleaning at my vacation place. 😊

Thanks for the article, Mardee. I'm with you, it's about time they made this change. Doing a bunch of housework AND paying a high cleaning fee is just silly.

I also tend towards hotels most of the time, for the reasons you share, unless we are traveling with a group and want a place to gather.

I quit using Airbnb quite a while ago. In most cities that I go to there are professional rental agencies that you can work with. they do a much better job making sure the places are clean meet standards, etc. there are also apartment hotels where you can have a kitchen, etc. if you want it once again they’re cleaned they made safety standards, etc. There’s no need to play Russian roulette with an Airbnb on my vacation so I don’t.

As a former host, I got an email about this from AirBnB with a link to the new policy, which includes this language:
"All house rules and requests must...[b]e reasonable. 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." emphasis mine
I appreciate AirBnB calling these requirements "unreasonable" because they are. As a host, I charged a cleaning fee, so I didn't ask my guest to do anything but lock the door on their way out. I provided information about trash, recycling, etc., and I provided bin liners and cleaning supplies for their use. I found that most guests did far more than lock the door, and I can only remember 1 or 2 complaints from the cleaners about the state of the apartment after checkout.
I continue to stay in AirBnBs and other self-catering accommodation for a variety of reasons, and like everyone, I have had some challenging experiences. Indeed, I just got home from a trip to Chicago, and I've been doing a lot of thinking about whether and how to review the apartment I stayed in.

I have stayed mostly in rentals for over 30 years (and even before that, stayed many times in private condo rentals in Hawai'i, including as a teen, with my family, 50 years ago). I've been fortunate to have never stayed in a place where I thought the requests were onerous. In most cases, they were things I would have done, anyway (e.g., dishes). My experiences have echoed kayla.p's, and, even in hotels, I leave things pretty much as I found them, except for the beds. (I will gather used towels and put them in the tub, as is often requested.)

I don't mind stripping the beds, especially in a place with multiple bedrooms when we haven't used them all (so it's absolutely clear which ones were used). I don't even mind starting one load of towels before we leave (i.e. putting it in the washer and starting it). This has been a common request at the condo rentals we've used in a beach town we regularly visit in summer. I wouldn't want to be asked to do more than that, especially if I have an early departure, but it's something I'd be inclined to do anyway (as long as I knew someone would be along to deal with the wet towels.)

Air BnB is a relative newcomer in the vacation rental market, and they've certainly brought the concept into the mainstream, but the concept is far from novel, and it is a good one (or used to be). Leaving a place tidy, which I would do regardless, is a small trade-off for the additional space and privacy, the ability to store and reheat some meals, and easy access to laundry facilities.

Shrug. Definitely those who are put out by doing a couple of basic tasks are probably not cut out for private rentals and should stick to hotels, but I see a rental as a relationship between the owner and myself, and I like for it to be a positive, respectful relationship. Fortunately, for me, it has very much been so, 99% of the time.

Air BnB may say owners can no longer require these things, but I will continue to leave the places I stay as I found them, as much as possible. That's how I was brought up.

BB, I have no problem washing the dishes I used and picking up trash from the floor, and so on. And like you, I even keep hotel roomms as clean as I can, with the exception of the beds.

But I've heard some stories on the forum here from people who have paid a rather large cleaning fee and then still had to do things like take the trash outside, sweep the floors, and, in general, do cleaning tasks that they'd already paid to have someone else do. And to top it off, the cleaning requirements were not disclosed on the listing, but only once they got there.

That, to me, is not acceptable and I can understand why people get annoyed by it.

"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." emphasis mine."

If you are renting for a week or more, surely you don't expect (or want) the host to pop in every day or two to wash your dirty dishes and take out your garbage?

Gunderson, It's my understanding that hosts are allowed to ask guests to do some of these items, but they must be disclosed on the listing page. In other words, you have to know about it before you book the place. And that's been the biggest issue, I believe.

So I could see a host asking guests to use the dishwasher for dirty dishes or wash them during a longer stay or something like that. I would imagine most people will do that anyway. No one likes dirty dishes hanging around.

Honestly, I don't think stuff like that is a real issue. But some of the examples that I read about on this forum, where hosts required guests to sweep the floor, vacuum rugs, strip beds, and so on, were tasks I don't think any guest should have to do unless they want to. If they're fine with it, then of course, it's not an issue.

I've heard some stories on the forum here from people who have paid a rather large cleaning fee and then still had to do things like take the trash outside, sweep the floors, and, in general, do cleaning tasks that they'd already paid to have someone else do. And to top it off, the cleaning requirements were not disclosed on the listing, but only once they got there.

That's definitely not acceptable, but I'd say that's far from the norm, in my experience.

However, here is what we did at the last apartment we rented. (Note that we were NOT asked to; we chose to, and we definitely wouldn't have done it if we had had something else scheduled that day.) This apartment was the owners' home, which is more and more common these days, as rules for short-term rentals have changed in many places. So, often the owner rents out their place while they are travelling. (This was the case for the places I rented recently in Berlin, Paris, Iceland, and Toronto.)

Anyway, the building was having all the intercoms replaced, and the owner had likely forgotten that was happening. (She is on the older side--older than I.) Her intercom was situated in a large board of some kind of pressed, hard wood. There was a cutout for the intercom, and the rest of the board was hung with a few dozen family pictures, all in frames with glass. My husband and I carefully took down all the pictures. I took a photo of the board first, so that I could put all the pictures back where they'd been. We helped the maintenance guy unscrew and take down the board. After he replaced the intercom, we discovered that the new intercom was a different size, so we'd be unable to put the board and pictures back. The owner would first need to get a new hole cut in the board to fit the new intercom. So, we took all the pictures and the board and stacked them carefully out of the way in the spare bedroom (used as an office), in case there were other renters coming after us. We didn't want to leave the pictures where they'd be in the way or risk being damaged. Of course, we messaged the owner throughout all of this, so she'd know what was going on. She did not ask us to do what we did, but we treat other people's homes as if they were our own.

We didn't mind. Again, it was a "free" morning for us anyway, and the weather was miserable. Of course, we'd never need to do such a thing in a hotel, but I felt it was such a privilege to stay in such a lovely and well-located home, and it was just part of the experience.

People on these forums often go on about experiencing a place "like a local." Well, when one stays in apartments, especially when they are locals' homes, that is exactly what one does. I can understand why some people prefer hotels and see staying in one as a luxury or a break from routine, so I can understand why rentals aren't for everyone. As for me, I enjoy the experience, and learning how locals do things, such as recycling, is part of that.

Anyone think that some Airbnb hosts will raise their cleaning fees if they can no longer ask the guests to do some of the chores?

Maybe. But they run a risk of pricing themselves out. I don't usually stay in Airbnbs unless there aren't too many other options, and price is a big consideration for me. If I saw a huge cleaning fee tacked on, I'd just pass it by.

I have to chime in here. I am not an Airbnb customer, I just generally do not like the company and prefer to steer clear of it.

But reading this thread caused me to have a bit of an internal monologue and ask myself: Why am I so automatically offended by the Airbnb model when I’ve never even stayed in one? And worse, was I being a hypocrite? Because I recently stayed at BizStay Delft, where they also charged a service fee, itemized separate from the room rate, for bedding, towels, kitchen linens, and final cleaning. For checkout, I was asked to take my trash out, leave towels by the washing machine, clean my dishes, and leave the place tidy.

Yet, I didn't find BizStay objectionable at all. I thought it was completely reasonable.

I try to be a "leave no trace" traveler. I’m certainly not going to turn any accommodation into a dump, and keeping things neat is just common courtesy and respecting someone else's property. Look back at this post as I began my travels and before I got to the Netherlands - https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/england/yeah-it-s-a-me-problem

So where is the line? Why does Airbnb feel offensive while BizStay felt fine?

It comes down to a professional, clean environment where doing the chore feels like a natural extension of respect rather than a burden. Taking the trash out didn't mean combing the street or hunting through the alley for unmarked municipal bins. It just meant walking it out to a very clean, tidy, large receptacle in their private courtyard garden.

More importantly, the math made sense. Even with the fee, my total bill was cheaper than the other traditional hotels in Delft. I got more high-quality space for less money. At BizStay, the front-desk staff appeared to double as the cleaning crew, so the separate fee likely just covers their standard operational setup (I do wonder if there's an accounting or tax reason for listing the service fee separate from the room rate). It made me realize that I don't mind tidying up out of respect for the staff and property. What is patently out of line is when a host charges you a premium fee, and then expects you to do the actual house cleaning for them.