New requirement to provide linens and towels

[Nicole-And-John0]

We have been Airbnb hosts for less than a year and until this new requirement have had guests provide their own linens and towels. 

We have many guests who booked for the summer prior to this new requirement and I wonder if we need to change our policy for these guests or strictly for the guests who book after this officially comes into effect (July I believe). The additional costs to provide linens cannot be added to the existing bookings ... or can it? 

Feeling a bit unsure how to proceed.

Any thoughts would be welcome!

Nicole

[Mark1642]

Most of our guests FLY in with luggage & rent a car & drive to our place.  We usually do the same when we travel.  If you've not flown lately, you don't GET that carrying your own LINENS & essentials in your luggage ADDS to the already LIMITED, continuously dwindling maximum weight requirements for checked baggage on airlines.  I simply will NOT stay at a place that does not provide clean linens...especially if we are having to schlep luggage to actually get to a place.  I agree that changing linens/bedding for just a one night stay is a lot of work & waste of resources.  So...we UPPED our minimum stay to 2 nights.  Never had any problems since.  We were getting a LOT of one nighters before that.  Two nights minimum works well for us & we have no problems staying booked.  I suspect if we didn't offer linens/toilet paper/shampoo/soap, et cetera (basic essentials), we wouldn't get nearly as many bookings.  I build all of those expenses into our nightly price...'cost of doing business'.  I also don't charge 'cleaning fees'.  It is my experience that people do NOT like to see the word, 'FEES', i.e., 'RESORT FEES', 'CLEANING FEES', 'PARKING FEES', 'ATM FEES', et al.  So we don't stay at places that charge 'cleaning fees'.  For cryin' out loud.  BUILD that in to your 'nightly fee'.  I just have to laugh at some of the ridiculous 'cleaning fees' some hosts charge.  It's an obvious 'extra cash' route for a lot of hosts.  I think it was one of their 'dumbest' ideas to date.  I suppose the whole 'bring your own linens, essentials' thing is more a 'cultural' thing than anything else.  We traveled to Scandinavia last year for 3 weeks.  Drove all over Norway, Sweden & Denmark (after flying from Los Angeles).  Several places required us to provide our own linens OR pay a 'FEE' to have them provided.  Because of some of the remote locations, I reluctantly booked a couple of these places & just paid the 'FEE' to have them provided & figured this is part of the Scandinavian 'culture'.  But we've traveled all over the world including our own country, the USA & this was the first place we had encountered such a thing.  One place in Denmark even charged for electricity & water & buried that important information in their 'house rules', which I, unfortunately, did not read before I booked!  If you're doing a road trip & have a giant car, carrying your own 'essentials' ain't a big deal.  But again, if you're schlepping luggage through an airline, which I suspect most people do when they travel, this is a HUGE deal.  Just my 'professional' opinion.

[Maria3073]

I find it really frustrating to supply fresh laundered bed linens and towels to guests only to have them destroyed. Blood stains seem to be a common issue. As is hair color. Glue. Gum. Makeup. And the list goes on. Charging a security deposit doesn’t seem doable for different reasons I’ve read about. It seems to me that there should be a mandatory hold on everyone's credit card in the same way a hotel does that allows the host some level of protection.  It’s really not fair to hosts. And then if you give guests a hard time about something like this, what is the likelihood of them leaving a good review?? Broken chairs, stained sofas, broken furniture... clogged toilets.... how is any of that fair to a host? 

[Sarah977]

@Maria3073  You need to learn how to get various stains out of linens. Blood stains come out easily by soaking in cold water and pouring hydrogen peroxide on. The linens aren't "destroyed" because they have bloodstains. Hair color, gum and some glue can also be removed. Many hosts provide black "Make-up" washcloths. Hot water wash sets stains in so they never come out. 

I guess I've been lucky- I've never had guests break or irretrievably stain something. 

But I agree that Airbnb should hold a actual damage deposit.

[Bertil22]

I guess that bringing linen is declining in favour of linen being provided. Still, I think that there are three reasons to allow both alternatives:

1. Budget travelling is an important adventure to many young people. Prices have already gone up because almost all booking is indirect. Now they will increase even more if the major booking services forbid to offer rooms without linen.
2. Budget travelling again: Not all people can afford the prices of all inclusive living. Shall it be impossible for them to travel, or shall they have to borrow to make a trip during the vacation?
3. Our society experiences problems related to wasteful ingredients of our way of living, ingredients that we have become so used to, that they we do not even reflect over the excessive use of resourcs that lie behind them. Laundering linen every day is an embarrasing waste of water and energy, if it can be avoided.