Airbnb has revised its rules to reduce the tasks a host can expect a guest to do at the end of their stay — and washing dishes has been wiped off the to-do list.
Airbnb, which connects guests with more than 5 million hosts worldwide, has advised hosts to choose from seven standard house rules that will be displayed prominently on the listing page.
Hosts can set ground rules for maximum occupancy, quiet hours and pets, as well as specify key return procedures and whether guests can host events or arrange commercial photo shoots.
The policy update, applicable to all reservations booked on or after November 20, is designed to streamline the Airbnb experience after a series of customer complaints about unclear house rules and laborious host requirements.
“House rules help guests understand what hosts expect, but our community has told us they can be confusing, onerous and difficult to manage,” an Airbnb spokesperson told CNN on Thursday.
“So we’ve redesigned them to make them easier to discover and clearer to define, alongside a new policy that keeps requests reasonable, with no surprises,” they added.
Hosts are free to detail more specific requests and policies they have selected from Airbnb’s standard list, but these requests should be considered reasonable.
Tasks requiring “significant effort or time” that would typically be done by a cleaner are prohibited at the request of customers, including dismantling beds and removing trash cans.
Although Hosts are no longer free to ask Guests to wash and put away dishes, they can request that used dishes be placed in the sink when they check out.
Host-imposed fines are also prohibited, and guests are expected to work with hosts to find a solution if a more serious issue, such as property damage, arises.
Transparency appears to be key to the new policy, as hosts must be upfront about their house rules at the time of booking and cannot add caveats later.
Hosts also cannot require guests to enter into a separate contract than the one they signed through Airbnb when booking, except in limited circumstances.
“Personally, I think it’s fantastic,” Minnesota mom Ellen, known online as Tall Mom Running, said in a social media video.
She said that during a previous Airbnb stay, she was given a list of things to do the day before leaving the property and threatened with a fine if they were not completed.
“It was an hour of work,” she laughed, adding: “An hour of cleaning… No thanks, I don’t want to do that on vacation.”
But not everyone is as excited about the policy change.
“It’s not a question of duty, it’s a question of good manners,” Rossana Imbrogno, whose property in Rome has been adorned with the title of “guest favorite” on the site, said in a comment on social media.
“I clean and strip the bed and throw away the trash even if I stay in a hotel,” the “superhost” added.
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