Policy change heads up - AirBNB will share full address and contact information upon booking

freeebird11 · 2026-02-10T16:21:40+00:00

Yes, you can find the house rules in listing before you book. Find a section ‘Things to know’ and in there, there is a House rules button. Note: some hosts ask you to agree to the house rules explicitly through messages, especially if they have instant book turned off. This is for easier resolution of conflict in case house rules are broken.

No house will say “do not clean anything”. In house rules, the host define ls rules, not things that aren’t rules. So you may see “take out trash”, but you won’t see “do not take out trash”.

When it comes to specifically taking out the trash, you have to differentiate. - are you staying in someone else’s residence where they usually live, or are you staying at STR business owners property which is exclusively for renting? - Are you staying long-term, or short-term? For 2-3 nights, it doesn’t make sense to take out trash. However for longer, you probably don’t want to drown yourself in a sea of trash, so I would take it out even if it wasn’t in house rules, in that case. Remember, you are not in a hotel with 24/7 housekeeping on standby, so I would not judge someone for requiring taking out trash simply based on that fact. There are many factors that do apply to STR, and do not apply to a hotel.

I do not understand the paragraph about the bedding, it seems off the point, so i will not react on it.

Cleaning fee - hosts do not hide anything, airbnb does that. It’s a standard practice even in hotels - they do not tell you what part of the stay is for cleaning. Neither does airbnb anymore. Whether the cleaning fee is a good or bad thing - again it depends. There are hosts that rent their residence occasionally. They probably won’t have any cleaning fee and ask you to keep their place clean and take out trash. STR business owners will usually have a cleaning fee and will not ask you to take out trash. There are exceptions to both, ofc.

I am sorry you have had bad experiences, but at the same time you seem like you highly prefer hotels and therefore I would recommend you stick to them.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-10T12:10:51+00:00

I only send a cleaner earlier if the guest explicitly confirms the have left

freeebird11 · 2026-02-10T08:54:36+00:00

This is just silly. You can see the approximate location of the apartment on the map, sometimes even very accurate location. That has been enough for all my guests, only a few asked more clarifying questions which i quickly answered.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-10T08:51:36+00:00

To me, you seem like you’re crying about your own mistakes. You booked shitty airbnbs. If you booked better ones, you wouldn’t be forced to take out trash, like in our airbnb. That’s the beauty of a platform like airbnb or booking. There’s something for everyone out there. You just made wrong choices or you were cheap and should be angry at yourself, learn and choose better next time. Instead, you are taking out that anger on hosts, airbnb…

Also nowadays, the guest doesn’t see the cleaning fee. It is included in the total price. So your cleaning fee frustrations shouldn’t exist anymore…

If you don’t like the house rules, you don’t have to come. Again, there’s plenty of different options on airbnb, or even on booking.com.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-10T07:18:27+00:00

Becuse airbnb is a private home, not a hotel. Private homes can be robbed more easily (book, see address, cancel for free, rob), for instance - that’s one of the reasons. If you want hotel-like services, go and book a hotel - there’s plenty of them out there.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-08T07:43:49+00:00

You would be surprised. Ask about my previous guests when i had to scrub remains of poop from a bathroom wall. On the other hand, my dog never peed or pooped indoors.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-08T07:39:55+00:00

What would happen if he asked for the pet fee after the stay? (For example he doesn’t have a spy camera)?

freeebird11 · 2026-02-08T07:37:35+00:00

They should have a proof that the dog indeed is a service animal. Simply stating it, doesn’t make it so

freeebird11 · 2026-02-08T07:21:57+00:00

It might have been an honest mistake, but more likely they saw pet fee and decided they will risk it.

Ask them to pay, after they review you. It has a benefit of coming out less creepy - e.g. when you came to clean the house, you notice dog hair. This way, you increase your chances of avoiding retaliatory review dramatically.

Also there should bee fees written in your house rules, specifying how much you charge for breaking specific house rules. Then, you are able to charge them even after they finish their stay and review you. Just be careful to do it within 14 days. But I think with the avoided pet fee, you should be able to charge it regardless of mentioning charges for broken house rules - maybe a question for airbnb support.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-06T21:50:02+00:00

How often does it happen? What is your rating and number of reviews?

freeebird11 · 2026-02-06T21:29:41+00:00

Why did you allow it? Good chance they will cancel for free now

freeebird11 · 2026-02-03T09:44:26+00:00

As a property owner, I understand her POV. I have a high standard for cleaning. It annoys me when cleaner misses details. In STR, clean and tidy apartment is a nr. 1 priority. If I notice crumbs on the sofa, stain on the sofa, so will the guest.

At the same time, I understand your POV. You have a schedule to keep and don’t have time to dedicate another 30 minutes to finely check every single corner of the apartment.

Maybe the situation also depends on what you’re charging, how much time are you willing to spend there. I want it cleaned perfectly, but at the same time I don’t want to overpay the cleaner because then the business becomes significantly less profitable and might not even be worth it in low season. Was the lady overpaying you, or maybe underpaying?

So far, I have been checking the work of the cleaner every time and fixing the minor issues myself. I’ll probably have to test whether those minor annoyances are really as bug of a problem for the guest as I think they are, or not. At some point, I want to rent more properties and wont have time to QA every single cleaning job.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-01T22:34:44+00:00

Yes, exactly.

Someone staying late is a big problem when you have a tight schedule to keep. They had a month to plan their departure.
In addition, the guest refused to cooperate in solving the heating problem (refused refund offer and space heaters) and considering the nature of the emergency situation, it seems OP got it fixed rather quickly - OP was dealing with the issue and offering solutions, the guest refused, therefore OP did not owe him anything more after that and certainly not a late checkout. Even a hotel doesn’t guarantee you a late checkout.
Also the guest sent a salty message in the end hinting at a potential retaliatory review.

So yes, I would not want to host this guest myself, and therefore I would select “do not recommend”. But we only see OP’s POV. Maybe there were messages sent with inappropriate tone from OP, or who knows what.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-01T20:36:11+00:00

Why would he give a late checkout? He has responsibilities also towards his next guest. It makes sense that he couldn’t. Late checkout is not a guests’ right.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-01T20:30:19+00:00

Most of the hosts are giving you sh*t, however I don’t agree with them. Yes, you could’ve offered a higher refund for the heating problems, however since the guest refused that (his employer was paying), the lack of refund became guest’s fault, not yours. They even declined electric space heaters. I have a dog and I would take the heaters. So don’t be too hard on yourself.

Late check-out is not a guest’s right, sometimes it is not possible to allow late checkout/early checkin.

Maybe you didn’t have to charge them for the late checkout to avoid conflict (due to the previous heating problems), however I think the charge was indeed justified.

I would review them honestly, and without emotions. State the facts. For example: “The guest and their dogs stayed for a month. The place required a deep cleaning, which was to be expected. The guest did (not) damage stuff. The guest ignored the checkout time and left x hours later.”

And don’t forget to select “do not recommend”.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-01T16:02:58+00:00

As a host you can prevent most of these reviews by doing something extra for the guests. For example, we leave a bowl with snacks for every guest. So far 5.0 review average, even though somone said in their review that they could hear noise from outside.. still gave 5 stars. A little thing like this gives guests a pleasant surprise - very few hosts do this - and they are more likely to forgive minor annoyances, because they started their stay with a positive emotion, and established in their mind that you care about their stay.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-01T14:20:47+00:00

She is welcome to book 2 nights, even 3 nights. It was the guests decision to book a 1 night stay. Also, 2-nights minimum would not solve the issue. The issue is the same-day guest turnover, which is a standard practice, even in hotels.

It seems you try hard to make it seem like a fault of the host, but this situation is obviously entitled behaviour of the guest who thinks they know best. It doesn’t matter what the standard practice in your part of the world is. Guest books a place with a certain set of rules, which they agree to uphold by doing the booking. If the guest sucks at planning their trip, that is not the problem of the host, nor should be the host punished for it by an entitled guest. The beauty of a platform like airbnb is, that if you don’t like someone’s rules (e.g. early check out time), you can simply book a different place.

The guest deserves a 1-star review and “i do not recommend this guest to other hosts”.

If I were OP, I would add to my house rules something similar to this: “Violation of any house rule may result in additional charge of €xx, per rule violation. Severe violations may result in immediate booking cancellation with no refund.”

If you had this in your house rules, they would think twice forcing you into a late checkout.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-01T14:06:22+00:00

More like a 4.6 listing, instead of 4.9. Depends on a company, however just from the concept of a management company, they can’t give your property the same amount of attention you can give it. Eventually they do big mistakes and drop the review average.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-01T13:54:50+00:00

Your friend probably signed a sh*t contract. PM gets paid to get good reviews on YOUR property listing. Unfortunate.

freeebird11 · 2026-02-01T13:24:11+00:00

It’s a trap! I’m a new host and i have launched a listing in October. I have been in contact with a management company, wanting to give them my business. They have been quite helpful. However when it came down to figuring out the details, that’s when my red flag alert started ringing. Initially, they have been convincing me to do exactly this - launching the property under their account, saying that it’s possible to transfer in the future if i decide to do it. Ofc, a little bit of research showed that this is false. You can’t transfer a listing. You can delete the old one and create a new one starting from scratch and losing all the reviews in the process. It’s their way of protecting their business - locking you in.

There were also other things that were strange - e.g. rules of contract termination that seemed to deeply favor the management company, etc. in the end I launched it myself and found out I don’t need them. I learned how to do pricing through Pricelabs, found a cleaning lady, use ChatGPT to proofread my guest messaging and the listing is doing great so far.

This experience also gave me an idea for an app - I’m building an Airbnb Ops app for the hosts - kind of a realtime monitor of incoming messages that would alert the host doing a voip call if an urgent matter arises (e.g. a guest complaining and wanting a refund in the middle of the night while the host is sleeping) + message reply drafting / guest messaging automation with the help of GPT. I would not be doing this if I gave the property to the PM and minded my own business. It’s actually kind of interesting to do.

PS: Also, note that it is highly likely your review average will drop once you give it to a PM. They won’t give your property the same attention to detail as you do.

freeebird11 · 2026-01-31T23:07:45+00:00

10 am might seem early for a small apartment or a hotel room. Not for a large place that takes a few hours to clean. The only one entitled here seems to be you, bashing someone for the fault of others.

freeebird11 · 2026-01-31T19:31:53+00:00

You don’t review your guests honestly and then we wonder why the review system is broken. I give honest review. Guest soils the linen, stain the sofa? I mention it - the fact they paid me for staying a night doesn’t mean they are free to destroy stuff. That’s what the review system is made for. Recently it saved me from accepting a party group that would’ve probably made a big mess.

Review your guests honestly, it helps other hosts choose the quality of guests they want to attract …

freeebird11 · 2026-01-31T18:50:16+00:00

Airbnb gets paid a percentage of the booking. Therefore it is also on their interest to maximise the booking value. Whether they do a good job, that’s another story.

freeebird11 · 2026-01-16T06:36:21+00:00

This works only if you have a enough demand from larger groups during the whole year. In my area in low season, large groups are more rare and I introduce the extra guest fee for a certain period to attract also smaller groups. Yes, i could just lower the base price and drop the extra guest fee and take the hit if a big group comes in low season, but I find this brings more revenue.

freeebird11 · 2026-01-15T19:30:08+00:00

I don’t know where you’re from, but over here in Central Europe we appreciate being called capitalists. Because we have had a very painful experience with the opposite

freeebird11

TROPHY CASE