Posted by babelfish 3 hours ago
There's also quite a big perception bias towards guests when it comes to discourse about Airbnbs. As a host I have to deal with so many unbelievably disgusting and disrespectful people renting my places on a regular basis, but nobody is ever talking about that. Social media would have you believe all guests are victimized angels and hosts are greedy and evil. I would love to see some of these people host and find out what it's really like. If you've worked in retail or hospitality you know.
Airbnb has actually gotten extremely sensitive about this perception the last couple years. They've changed a lot of policies to bend over backwards for guests to avoid the PR. Anyone guest you see complaining online about a recent experience should be taken with a _large_ grain of salt because Airbnb very rarely sides with hosts anymore and it likely means the guest did something very egregious to get penalized.
Nothing about this is ragebait. Clean after yourself was the norm, cleaning fees often a full days cost or more, and I had bookings that I never checked into make claims about stains or damage!
Most hosts were bad by hotel standards. I will never use one on my own volition.
That use case is absolutely better suited to hotels btw. I’ve stayed in many cheap Airbnbs while traveling myself and didn’t have that experience myself.
That's only _part_ of what I experienced though. I stopped using the service by my own volition. They have changed some rules since, but those fees and rules were not the tipping point. The decline in service, misadvertising of spaces, poor customer service and general decline in value stop me from continuing to use AirBnB.
I've been forced into an AirBnB recently, and it was the same nonsense. I could not pull into the driveway because the curb was incorrectly built. Host argued with me that it was fine, drove over and couldn't get their OWN car into it. Then they claimed they hadn't been to the property "in months" and "since the work was done"????? They told me I could park at a nearby grocery store and walk over, but they wouldn't be refunding me. AirBnB sided with them. I logged everything with photos (including the hosts car unable to get into the driveway), screenshots and had my company file a chargeback.
Doesn't even make it into my top 50 worst experiences. Total joke.
Turn it off and come back to a sauna that will take 3 hours to cool down. I'm not doing that.
For me personally I only ever use Airbnb's now for big trips with at least 3-4 bedrooms needed. These types of Airbnbs usually have more professional management in any case. But otherwise I think Airbnb just offers a poor value:
1. For a long time Airbnbs skirted hotel taxes and other fees. Those days are long gone, so I often find Airbnbs to be just as expensive or more than hotels when you factor in cleaning and other fees.
2. Like this article points out, quality control and rules can be all over the map, and people are sick of it. With a hotel you usually know what you're getting, with an Airbnb it's always a crapshoot.
3. A huge benefit with a hotel is that if something goes wrong you can almost always be moved to another room, sometimes a different hotel. With Airbnb, while they may help you rebook it's much more fraught and you don't know what the next place will be.
So for me I use hotels for most stays now, though I am curious about house swapping for longer overseas trips. I have friends that have raved about it so it just seems like a better option.
Most guests of AirBNB like clean homes, and usually tidy up pretty well themselves. Maybe there's a way to incentivize those who choose to, or want to and offer a discount if they want it.
My maid service will not wash dishes. They need me to clear the sink every time before they arrive. It's often a point of contention, because I leave dirty dishes quite often, and I simply forget what needs to be done. I don't have a problem with doing it for them, I just forget.
But I believe that the reason they will not wash my dishes is because of food safety. In a commercial kitchen, even the dishwasher needs to hold a Food Handler's card or certificate. The sanitizing of dishes and utensils is serious business. If they're not clean enough to eat from, you could be passing foodborne illness.
I would never want to stay at a place that didn't professionally wash its dishes. I've never stayed with AirBNB and I plan to keep it that way. Thankfully, the hotel industry is still a quite viable business, and hotels have staff, insurance, and regulation on their side, even now. I recently had a "staycation" in a 98-year-old classic hotel, and it was so wonderful, worry-free, and pleasant, and cost-effective. I am thankful that they are still operating like that.
Yes, if it were an add-on service, they would ask me for permission and then go ahead and charge me for the service. That is something they do with cleaning the oven and such other things. They simply will not wash dishes at all, period, full stop.
It's got to the point now, where if I forgot and left dishes in the sink, I will take them out and hide them somewhere, like the fridge, before the team arrives at my door. And then, hopefully I do not forget to retrieve them and properly clean them immediately.
When we had little kids we used disposable plates because we didn’t want to break the plates in the house. I don’t do Airbnb but disposable plates might be one way if you needed to stay in a short term rental.
We wash the dishes (and sheets, if there is a dryer) when we arrive, and descale the electric kettle and the coffee machine. I guess I'm crazy too.