Guy Mocks Airbnb Hosts Who Set Absurd Rules And Demands For Guests, Goes Viral With 1.2M Views

You know Airbnb, right? That short-term accommodation service that was supposed to be the financially-reasonable alternative to hotels?

Well, times are a-changing and so is how things are run on this platform.

Folks online have been critiquing Airbnb—more specifically, a certain segment of hosts—for the peculiar business choices that they have made with their accommodations that patrons are calling shenanigans on. That is, chores and cleaning fees.

This inevitably prompted a good bit of satire on TikTok that went viral and here we are talking about it.

More Info: TikTok

Jet Cessant, an entrepreneur and content creator, has recently come out with a video taking a jab at some of the rules that hosts like to impose on their temporary tenants.

The plot of the video follows Jet seemingly freshly coming into an Airbnb during one of his travels and stumbling upon a letter left by his host. In it, the host details all of the rules that the temporary inhabitant of the apartment will have to abide by. And while you would think the rules in and of themselves are reasonable, the extent to which they are pushed is not.

Quiet hours start at 5 PM, so no music or snoring? Mind the noise detectors? Mind the cameras in all the private spaces? Do the laundry, take out the trash, and mop the floors? Erm... what did this host go though to lead to these rules? The video is appropriately captioned “all those fees for so many rules. It's a scam!”

All exaggerations aside, there is some truth to the words said (read?) in Jet’s video. Bored Panda got in touch with Jet for an interview, and he did share his extensive experience of staying at Airbnbs.

“I have stayed at a lot of Airbnbs over the past few years and some of them have had inconvenient chore lists such as taking the trash out to an alley a few blocks away or quiet hours starting at 7 PM,” elaborated Jet. “Most recently, my Airbnb asked that guests do the laundry. These might be minor tasks, but things you don’t have to worry about at a hotel, and when I’m on vacation, I don’t feel like paying a cleaning fee to do chores.”

Besides this, in a recent trend, folks online have been roasting Airbnb for more or less the same level of ridiculousness when it comes to some host rules. The thing many pointed out, Jet included, is the idea of having to do certain chores all the while also having to pay a cleaning fee. What?

“If you are paying a $200+ cleaning fee, I don’t think you should be expected to do anything you wouldn’t do at a hotel,” said Jet. In theory, this is in place to urge people to stay longer and with more people per location, but many do still raise the question of how messy can anyone be to justify a cleaning bill like that?

Other commenters said that it’s time everyone went back to using hotels again. At least then you won’t be charged a cleaning fee that’s more than the actual accommodation. And yet others shared some of their Airbnb mishaps, like that one time with the Wi-Fi fee, or another one that had “feed the cats” as a chore. Well, all right, this one’s nice, but still, people want to vacation—not do chores.

It is important to note that these rules come from some hosts, and not Airbnb itself. In their Resource Center, Airbnb suggests creating house rules to manage guest expectations and whatnot. They even provide tips on how to create house rules. They do include the idea of chores and provide the example of taking out the trash.

Also, Airbnb isn’t specific on whether it imposes cleaning services or cleaning fees upon its hosts. However, it is common practice among them to choose to include it all because the apartment has to be cleaned either way—whether by themselves or by a cleaning crew and it costs money either way. Airbnb points out that the average cleaning fee for smaller rentals is around $65, whereas bigger places can be around $105.

Typically, the fee is an extra service cost that’s added to the total, but some hosts prompt for a more expensive per night rate without a surprise cleaning fee on top. They do however provide guidelines for what a cleaning service should include. Taking out the trash isn’t in it though.

So, why are people in an uproar about chores in the first place? Entrepreneur Colby Howard took it to Twitter to explain what it really means to be an Airbnb host. Most folks don’t really know what they’re getting into when they choose to be an Airbnb host. And then after all the cleaning and the maintenance and the subsequent bad reviews when something tiny is unaccounted for, among other things, hosts start to take shortcuts. That’s where the chores and other factors come into play.

And then they forget that Airbnb really stands for bed and breakfast—it is a service, one that should provide vacation comfort and one that will demand an investment. No “passive income” without loads of work. And nobody really wants to work hard.

So, is it worth going back to hotels if this is how most Airbnbs are going to be from here on out? It depends. Jet explained that there are upsides that make the service well worth it:

“I have stayed at really nice Airbnbs and if you are with a large group, I think it’s absolutely worth it if you all want to stay in the same house. Some Airbnbs have amenities such as private pools that you just can’t get at any hotel. But if you are traveling solo or with a partner, I would just stay in a hotel.”

Whatever the case may be, Jet’s video went viral, garnering around 1.2 million views with nearly 135,000 likes (hearts?) and thousands of comments. In fact, you can check it out here, or somewhere in the article. Scrolling will get you there. You can also check out his channel, Instagram and Korean-inspired drinkable jelly snack startup.

But before you check out and depart to your next article, we leave you with a very short, yet very important piece of advice from Jet on what people ought to consider before renting Airbnbs: “Read the reviews! Every single one!”

So, do that, and also leave some of your reviews of Airbnbs that did your head in (or the ones you enjoyed a lot) the comment section below!