I've stayed at dozens of AirBnBs and I've never had an onerous list of chores or a noticeably high cleaning fee, so these complaints always baffle me a little. Are people reading the listing thoroughly? Are they choosing a place with lots of ratings and reading all of the reviews? I've definitely had some bad AirBnbs over the years despite my careful selection process, but my complains are usually about noise or a lack of supplies (extra towels and blankets for example).
I literally lived in airbnbs for three years traveling across the whole of the contiguous United States and never once had this either. I did have them ask to put the trash can outside at some of them and most want you to remove your food from the fridge / freezer but that is about it.
Just checked my account, we stayed at 167 places in the last 5 years.
Same here. 16 stays so far (most long-term, 1+ months), so not much, but all with zero issues. Hosts usually ask to do the most basic stuff - check that everything is closed and turned off, sometimes take the trash out, and possibly collect the used towels and drop them in the bathroom. Stuff I'd do anyway without being asked.
I remember having a request to run a washing machine once - and sure thing I did. It's just a push of a button, not like I'm doing laundry by hand, and if a couple minutes of my time (that otherwise would be spent circling around the place and quadruple-checking if I packed everything I've brought with me) saves someone half an hour then I'm happy for a quick and meaningful distraction. As for the dishes and kitchen utensils - some hosts ask, some don't, but I wouldn't leave them dirty either way, that's just common sense and basic respect to the property.
Don't remember seeing any outrageous cleaning fees - although I haven't really bothered to check the fee structure, all I care about is the grand total and whenever it fits my budget - the rest is simply irrelevant to me. Airbnb used to suck about not showing the total amount right away (which led to this cleaning fee fiasco), but I believe it's long fixed.
Then, I typically spend about a week's worth of evenings carefully going over the listings, multiple times. Airbnb's search is mostly a joke, one can only find a decent place by setting only the most basic filters then methodically going through the listings checking if they're accurate, have a decent number of photos (listing descriptions are useless, have to actually see the kitchen, shower and "dedicated workspace"), favorable reviews, no obvious red flags, checking surroundings on the maps and so on.
Either way, for the long-term stays a good Airbnb house or apartment beats a hotel (YMMV). And ever for the shorter-term (1-2 week) stays I always checked the hotels and always ended up picking an Airbnb because it was a more attractive option.
> Then, I typically spend about a week's worth of evenings carefully going over the listings, multiple times.
This is the key. You're valuing your time at nothing. Which is fine, if it works for you.
It doesn't work for me. I want to do a quick search, using the basic parameters, and to be able to trust my search without going full CSI.
Increasingly, with Airbnb (also booking.com, also eBay, and now even Amazon), the results of a quick search cannot be trusted. In the case of Airbnb, hotels offer a "more reliable" alternative for the busy person.
If you know a service that has a working search over finer details (like a fridge size or having an ergonomic chair or path to a grocery store), and wide availability - please tell me. I’d probably ditch Aribnb instantly, I have no loyalty to it or anything.
It’s not good at all, but I’m not aware about any alternatives that can provide equally good results.
Having a good stay that I will enjoy is what I value of my time against. If I’m going to spend 2 months somewhere, I think spending a week isn’t worse than hating something every day for those two months.
I used to feel the same way, but over the past few months have started experiencing it quite a bit. I think it started in more touristy areas I didn't tend to go to, and now is spreading all over the platform.
It's a terrible experience. last 2 trips I've gone on I've ended up in hotels because all of the airbnb's had cleaning fees close to the nightly rate and an actual chore list for check out.
