Airbnb moves to reduce rules/requests

[kookaburra75]

There's a good article in The Times by one of their writers who has let several properties through AirBnB over the years, and disagrees with hosts setting rules etc. My trials as an Airbnb host (and why I worry when guests strip the bed) You might be able to get a guest link to read it.

There are several classic quotes in it:

• "If anything, my place never looks so immaculate as when guests have just departed. My cleaner and I do our best to whip my ancient cottage into shape (catching spiders, bleaching loos, trying to find dog turds in the garden, using masking tape to get labrador hair off the sheets) but we can’t compete with a mother of three on holiday unable to resist running a vacuum cleaner over the place."
• "Some hosts are so finicky they complain about Airbnb guests leaving a TV remote out of place. I’m pretty laid-back, although I do get tested. Once an American woman complained the hedges leading up to the cottage made her feel “claustrophobic”. I’ve also had guests relocate my furniture. One group found my creative taste so “offensive” they removed my Charlie Hebdo print and a naked portrait from my bedroom wall."
• "Personally, I am far more wary of guests cleaning too much. Once I came home to find every glass in the house twinkling and all the beds remade, suggesting the couple who’d booked had invited over a few friends. The 15 empty bottles of wine in the recycling gave them away."
• "Sometimes, though, people leave good stuff behind. I’ve had guests leave Boden jumpers, bottles of cider and packets of biscuits (you’re grateful for anything when you’re this remote). My friend Guy, though, had an embarrassing misstep, and found wine and chocolates had been left for him. As he was carrying the loot to the car his guests returned and he realised they hadn’t actually checked out."

MrsK is a repeat offender for moving chairs and lamps in hotel rooms and AirBnBs, so I can identify with dot point 2.

 

[moa999]

Think it really depends on the property.

For a single AirBNB things like putting sheets in the wash and on, can really assist in being able to flip the property. It's not like a hotel where you've got a production line and another room that can be cleaned.

One particular property i know on the South Coast of NSW, about 1.5hrs from Sydney where the Sydney owners who mostly self-use or have return guests and just use AirBNB for the down times. Having been unable to find consistent local help they generally flip the property themselves.
If in a decent state a clean takes 2-3 hrs, so they would be waiting around if they had to wash and dry all the linens, which likely means upping their cleaning charge, which probably drives away guests.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

Think it really depends on the property.

For a single AirBNB things like putting sheets in the wash and on, can really assist in being able to flip the property. It's not like a hotel where you've got a production line and another room that can be cleaned.

One particular property i know on the South Coast of NSW, about 1.5hrs from Sydney where the Sydney owners who mostly self-use or have return guests and just use AirBNB for the down times. Having been unable to find consistent local help they generally flip the property themselves.
If in a decent state a clean takes 2-3 hrs, so they would be waiting around if they had to wash and dry all the linens, which likely means upping their cleaning charge, which probably drives away guests.

Actually starting the laundry can be unhelpful.
The wash cycle could take longer than the cleaning.
And the sheets are unlikely to dry between checkout and check in.
So the wet, half washed sheets can actually become a problem the host has to manage.
I don't know anyone who only owns one set of sheets.
I can't imagine an AIrBNB host trying to get by with only one.
They would have fresh sheets: often there is a locked cupboard specifically for this purpose.
And many, if not most, hosts do their laundry off site.

 

[Jacques Vert]

Actually starting the laundry can be unhelpful.
The wash cycle could take longer than the cleaning.
And the sheets are unlikely to dry between checkout and check in.
So the wet, half washed sheets can actually become a problem the host has to manage.
I don't know anyone who only owns one set of sheets.
I can't imagine an AIrBNB host trying to get by with only one.
They would have fresh sheets: often there is a locked cupboard specifically for this purpose.
And many, if not most, hosts do their laundry off site.

For our BnB we have 5 sets of linen. Why five? We have lots of one-night stays due to our location half way between Sydney and Brisbane. During periods of wet weather washing, drying and ironing sheets in time for the next guests can become quite the challenge.

 

[bobbyjo]

Maybe part of the problem for some hosts is that they somehow believe the people staying in their home are ‘guests’… as per the nomenclature on the airbnb website?

Whereas in reality the people staying there are customers. Paying customers.

Totally agree, if people are going to compete in the hospitality market (sometimes at higher prices than a hotel or motel they need to provide a similar service & facilities. I have never had a hotel ask me to perform any of the tasks required by some Airbnb places.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

Aren’t cleaning fees standard?

Not always and not any more, hence this thread.

 

[bobbyjo]

Things like the survey I got sent, wanting to know why I dint use airbnb and preferred hotels.

Some of the options for not using airbnb included cleaning fees, rules, etc.

Must have been some strong feedback, hence the changes.

Commercial decision here to favour customers for the benefit of the airbnb platform, over the hosts.

The hotel industry has taken quite a hit from these often grotty, dirty & untidy holes whose owners think they are beyond the rules of hospitality, I avoid them like the plague & direct book almost every hotel or pub I stay at.

 

[offshore171]

This news from Air BNB has kept the meme creators busy this week.

 

[AuSammy]

https://loyaltylobby.com/2026/10/31/rant-entire-residential-apartment-buildings-being-converted-to-air-bnbs-hotels/

 

[Beer_budget]

https://loyaltylobby.com/2026/10/31/rant-entire-residential-apartment-buildings-being-converted-to-air-bnbs-hotels/

It's almost worse when it's half the owners without coordination, like several buildings in Canberra. Lockboxes on the street, lockboxes in the mail room, random people coming and going with no monitoring and oversight. Airbnbs are popular for hosting parties, and when you live downstairs from one that gets old really fast (though that's not exclusively an apartment conversion issue, the 16 bed Airbnb behind my mum in law's rural block is also a PITA, on long weekends especially).

Short stay "guests" are also much more inclined to help themselves to your parking space in my experience. I am glad to be living in a building that not only doesn't allow it but has a full time building manager on site who would definitely catch you if you tried it.

 

[dajop]

Interesting to read all the responses to the thread, and some slightly disparate views.

TBH, I think a lot of the concerns and issues around Airbnbs could be solved if they had different categories/brands of properties. In each category the expectations and both hosts and guests are different, and it may go someway to resolving concerns about "chores" and cleaning fees if aligned to the category. If you book a hotel through the Accor website, you get anything from an Ibis Budget to a Novotel to a 25hours to a Pullman to a Raffles, or Banyan Tree . You're still booking through the same website - but you generally know what to expect with each category.

When people talk about Airbnb'ing it could refer to many different things, as indeed evidenced by this thread. In my mind there are various types of Airbnb's:

1) Pseudo-hotel rooms - studio apartments (with our without kitchenettes) tapping into the hotel market, which is where Airbnb seems to be focussing on.
2) Apartments (1, 2 or 3BR perhaps) - some competing in the serviced apartment space, others in the holiday letting space.
3) Holiday homes, larger properties, more likely to be coastal/mountains, or rural, traditionally served by real estate agents or booking agencies
4) Traditional B&B's
5) Individual rooms in someone's house or apartment - shared with the host - but not set up like a B&B
6) Individual rooms - not shared with the host - but strangers (other guests)
7) Unique accommodation (treehouses, a used train carriage, and old aircraft, glamping tents etc).

Some of these have well established "norms" - such as traditional B&B's and holiday homes, which existed long before Airbnb did and will do so long after they're gone.

Others seem to be problematic - particularly 1) where guests are expecting hotel like experience, so don't want to do dishes or put out the rubbish, and worked well when they charged a lot less than comparable hotels, has become an issues since charging as much as or more than hotels.

 

[dajop]

My final comment - some friends recently hired a very large and expensive holiday house on the NSW central coast and no linens or towels were provided - they had to hire them from a local agency then make the beds etc and of course strip the beds and pack up the linen and towels to return to the agency.

And if anyone is interested - I have a long list of bugbears about holiday rentals. So here goes: mismatched dishes, cutlery, poor quality wine glasses, pots and frypans that even a charity shop would refuse, poor quality linen and pillows, and the list goes on.

On the linen - that is pretty poor . Linen isn't cheap to deal with, but even if the guests have to pay extra, hosts and cleaners should at least be able to ensure that it is there for arrival and can be collected after departure. Airbnb also should have a better backend to make it 100% clear and allow people to book these services at time of booking.

On the other items - I tend to agree, with a caveat on the wine glasses. We have plain white Maxwell Williams dinners sets - not expensive but easy to keep clean and replace, and have a stock of spares of these and other items (including frypans) in the storage cupboard we put out when needed. TBH though we don't have expensive wine glasses - they are the one thing we go through the most, almost every stay or two a wine glass or two disappears (presumably broken).