Woman Calls Out Airbnb That Asks Guests To Do Laundry Despite $125 Cleaning Fee

Mason Joseph Zimmer
woman pointing and smiling
TikTok | @melworeit

Every now and then, we'll hear a story of some wildly misleading or bizarre Airbnb and be amazed that it's been able to attain the glowing ratings it has.

After all, if it hadn't, it would be a lot harder for for renters to turn up without knowing what's wrong with it.

But sometimes, the devil is in the details and a questionable Airbnb tells us more about what people are willing to accept from an otherwise great place than it necessarily does about the quality of the listing.

So while some people may not have questioned one inconsistency that a woman recently noticed while planning her vacation, she's made it clear that it's not something she's taking lying down.

Be advised that the video featured in this article contains explicit language.

On February 6, a woman named Melissa said that she came across a subtly peculiar Airbnb while planning a mini-vacation with her husband by the end of the month.

woman pointing
TikTok | @melworeit

And as she explained in the full video, she found a place that both looked good and was in her price range, but one detail about it seemed to turn her off entirely.

In her words, "Where do Airbnb owners get the audacity?"

At first, it was a little hard to get a sense of what's bothering her as she started discussing conditions that she was OK with.

woman smiling
TikTok | @melworeit

But as we'll see, these conditions snowballed once she put them all together.

For instance, the listing charges a $125 cleaning fee, which was both not unusual for most Airbnbs and something she was fine with.

And indeed, she was fine with some of the cleaning duties that the Airbnb's owner expected of guests.

woman pointing to clause in Airbnb description
TikTok | @melworeit

These included removing trash and stripping the bed of its linens. However, she had more of a problem with their requests to start the dishwasher and to do a load of laundry.

For her, the problem wasn't so much what they were asking her to do as it was the expectation that she'd do them while also paying full price for the cleaning fee.

bundle of cash in hand burning
Unsplash | Jp Valery

As she saw it, it's hard to justify paying $229 plus a $129 cleaning fee to stay somewhere if you're expected to do housework to boot.

As Melissa put it, "I know it's like one load of laundry, it'll take me two minutes to do, but the principle of it really bothers me."

hotel room with large bed
Unsplash | Vojtech Bruzek

In response, some commenters suggested that she should just stay at a hotel if she doesn't want to wash her own towels or dishes.

However, others figured that these people were more right than they realized because Airbnbs charge about as much a a decent hotel does nowadays.

With that in mind, the majority of commenters saw it as pretty revealing that the owners didn't discount the cleaning fee at all despite the fact that they expect to the guest to do some of the work.

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