Hacker News Reader

Comment by Mistletoe | Hacker News Reader

I can’t speak for others but I avoid Airbnb at all costs now. Hosts expecting people to be out at 10 am, check in at 4 pm and clean the place like a maid? No thank you. Cleaning fee? No thank you. It was ruined by unchecked greed, it really isn’t that complicated. I vacation to feel special and hotels make me feel special instead of like some second class citizen/servant staying in someone’s house.

View on HN

Amen.

Anecdotally, I have mostly stopped using AirBnB because I find hotels to be better now for most situations.

AirBnB hosts who fit the original archetype, people who are renting out their own homes for some extra money, tend to be great. But the ones who use it as a source of real estate revenue tend to be awful.

Where I live (British Columbia) the legislature just banned short term rentals except for in your primary residence which seems to be a pretty good compromise which most people were ok with outside of slumlords trying to operate 10 airbnbs as a source of income.

> But the ones who use it as a source of real estate revenue tend to be awful.

The worst are the ones who have to AirBnB the place because they otherwise couldn't pay the mortgage when they bought it.

Yup, turning home into hotels should never have been allowed. Homes are for people not profit machines.

Renting out a room in a place u live in is all AirBnB should've been for.

Hotels are way better stays in most cases.

You aren’t being made a servant when you’re asked to clean after yourself. If you want a hotel then go to one.

The cleaning and cleaning fee issue came to a head and went off a cliff after Covid. To maintain their business, AirBNB wanted to guarantee guests that places had been disinfected. Hosts didn't want to pay for that out of their end, so fees were added.

I moved cross country and around for a time in that period and I ended up staying in many many airbnb's. I was asked to clean up after myself, and I was paying a hefty cleaning fee, and ... and I would walk barefoot in my AirBNB for 5 minutes and get filthy feet, so the place wasn't ever actually being cleaned at all.

I switched to hotels, which were a complete bargain during Covid anyway. Also, if you're living free-n-easy, extending your hotel stay is generally easy; extending your airbnb because you are liking the location, if it's a nice airbnb, nope, somebody else rented it for the weekend.

Also, the whole "5 star rating system" (and this goes way beyond airbnb) where the host gets punished for ratings imperfection, puts a lot of pressure on calling out a grubby but really nice host elderly couple. These rating systems should always be on a curve, 5 out of 10 means average and most of what you are offered is 5 out of 10, pay more to get more, or something.

I remember some the earlier days of airbnb which were days of innocence, friendliness, and unique experiences.

Ehhh. I’ve seen some pretty egregious cleaning instructions. Obviously it’s wildly subjective, but there’s a line.

I’m totally happy to take out the trash on my way out, or strip the linens and leave them in the laundry area!

Scrubbing toilets and showers, or hand-washing all the dishes I used (both real requirements I have personally seen)? And then charging a multi-hundred dollar cleaning fee? Yeaaaaah, that’s a little ridiculous.

When you pay a several hundred dollar “cleaning fee”, it tends to make you feel a little put out when you read instructions asking you to empty all the trash cans, strip the beds, do the dishes etc…

If something is being presented as the equivalent of a B&B, charged a cleaning fee, and being asked to do a full cleaning--yes, I think that's ridiculous. AirBnB isn't presented as couchsurfing or spending a weekend at a relative's house.

Go on any Airbnb host forum(Reddit, Facebook, TikTok, pick your poison), search “cleaning” or “cleaning fee” then come back to this comment.

Those people extort with cleaning fees, and laugh about it

Reply on news.ycombinator.com