Under updated guidelines reported by the BBC, hosts can set seven standard house rules and add other requests only if they are considered reasonable. Airbnb says guests should not generally be asked to do jobs that require significant effort or time, or that would typically be performed by a cleaner, including stripping beds, washing and putting away dishes, or taking trash offsite.
That gives some overdue shape to a long-running annoyance of short-term rentals: the point where “house rules” drift into unpaid turnover work. Airbnb is not abolishing host demands so much as drawing a line around them.
The policy applies to reservations booked on or after 20 November. Airbnb told the BBC it had heard from its community that house rules could be confusing, onerous and hard to manage, and said it had redesigned them to make them easier to discover and clearer to set, with “no surprises.”
There is still room for exceptions. Airbnb said guests can, for example, be asked to limit shower time where local drought-related water restrictions apply.
Some of the more consequential changes are less about the sink and more about the booking flow. Property rules will be displayed more prominently and will appear in reservation reminders. Separate contracts will be allowed only in limited circumstances, including where required by law or homeowners association rules.
Airbnb also said hosts will not be able to impose fines. If a host request does not follow platform policy, it can be flagged, and the owner can appeal.
The company’s move follows years of guest complaints about onerous checkout instructions, especially when cleaning fees are already part of the stay. Airbnb has not ended the argument over what guests owe a host before leaving. It has, however, put some familiar items from the departure list in the cleaner’s column instead.
Alex de Valletta 
Dua Mifsud 
Marcus Azzopardi