Carbon Monoxide Detectors for "Work Collection"

[Mark858]

Latest missive from AirBNB
"For the safety of business travelers worldwide, we’ve added carbon monoxide detectors and smoke detectors as required amenities in the Work Collection.

Once you include these amenities, you can update your listing and it will automatically be added to the Work Collection."

Smoke detectors - of course, we all have them, but Carbon Monoxide detectors?  Why oh why make this a compulsary requirement, there is utterly no logic to it. There must be many thousands of motel type studio rooms around the world like ours, where they have no gas inside, no kitchen, external entrance for self check-in, and no possible source of CO buildup. 
Whoever came up with this hair-brained idea must think that all circumstances are like their own experience, eg gas heating, multi unit, shared entrance and the like.
I know over winter, 2/3rds of our guests are traveling for conferences, seminars, workshops or sales. They drive up the drive, take the key from the lock-box, open the ranch slider door, and throw their case on the bed, type int he wife password - unless they are returning, in which case they were connected before they closed their car door. Deal done.

What force a blanket insistence on an utterly irrelevant requirement.

[Ben551]

Totally agree this is bonkers.

But hey @Mark858 , I managed to bag one on AliExpress for NZD $8 including shipping to NZ 🙂   I don't have gas in my Airbnb but I figured... for $8 it will go away...

[Fran2]

Hmmmmmm. Wonder how good it is? Probably the same ones that are being sold for $40 elsewhere! At least you can say honestly you have one!

[Ben551]

@Fran2  yep, I can tick the box and say I have one.  With no gas it doesn't bloody matter if it works tbh... and I've bought special coffees that cost more lol.  It probably is the same one that costs 40 bucks elsewhere though.  That's why ordering direct from China is the way to go sometimes 🙂

[Mark858]

Meanwhile, we may all lose bookings because of a stupid policy which has no relevance to us.

The WORST thing is that there was no advance notification.
Had they said "from 1st April all Work Collection listings must have CO detectors installed and working" We could have saved some grief.

I would still like to know why apply it specifically to Work Collection.

I guess that means the same listing when let to holidaymakers is not a risk......
Either they relate to a safety issue or they don't.

There is one further issue. If someone is like my wife who is driven crazy by glowing lights, and has to go cover over every power indicator like TV, DVD, and so on, this will be  a problem. My CO detector is ceiling mounted and has a bright blue LED.
I wonder how long it will be until a guest marks us down in rating for the annoying blue light that kept them awake.

[Catherine607]

Agreed, I host an all electric self contained cottage in Devon which work guests have thoroughly enjoyed. This new Airbnb policy is ludicrous, they would do better to ensure that hosts describe all energy sources, if oil/gas/solid fuel are listed then the CO detector is an absolute requirement, if all electric there's no need to add more electronic gadgetry and work host status remains intact.  I am not going to get an detector that I don't need, and I am very tempted to tick the box and explain to any guest that asks ( probably no-one will bother) why they can't see one......

[Sarah977]

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@Catherine607 wrote:

Agreed, I host an all electric self contained cottage in Devon which work guests have thoroughly enjoyed. This new Airbnb policy is ludicrous, they would do better to ensure that hosts describe all energy sources, if oil/gas/solid fuel are listed then the CO detector is an absolute requirement, if all electric there's no need to add more electronic gadgetry and work host status remains intact.  I am not going to get an detector that I don't need, and I am very tempted to tick the box and explain to any guest that asks ( probably no-one will bother) why they can't see one......

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I actually started another thread on this when they first plastered those detectors on our listings with a big black line across them, as if hosts who don't have these things are negligent and don't care about safety. 

I do use propane for cooking and hot water, but no, just because one has those fuel sources doesn't mean they should be an absolute requirement, nor should they prominently dislplay that we don't have one.

My hot water heater, as well as the propane cylinder that fuels it, are OUTSIDE, i.e. there is no way there could be any CO danger from it anywhere in the house. The cook stove has it's own propane cylinder, also outside, and as I live in the tropics, my my many kitchen windows, as well as the 5 foot wide french doors are ALWAYS open, therefore there is zero possiblilty of carbon monoxide buildup even if the stove wasn't functioning properly. And my guest room is in a completely different wing of the house with no connection to the kitchen, so even if the kitychen was FULL of carbon monoxide, it wouldn't affect the guest bedroom at all. And it's easy to see if the flame isn't the right color that indicates proper burning.

Airbnb's policies on this are ill-thought out and absurd.

[Pietari0]

Completely agree with the previous posters. Our apartment is also all-electric and thus no carbon monoxide detector is required.

[Lilly28]

You think that you are going to loose bookings from work travellers? Well, I do not think so unless Airbnb prohibits work travellers to book a residence without these detectors. 

There are much more things that a work traveller looks for before booking - location, comfortable bed, restaurants nearby, easy fuction of the amenities, ect. I also received this worning, I thought first that it is because I do not allow self-check-in... I wonder why all the time hosts  have to panic for trifles, there are much more important things we must turn our attention to.

[Beth80]

I doubt it will effect my bookings at all. My main issue is with the way it was handled. Did they give a thought to those of us who don't need this? Why just the work collection and not straight across the board? Do other guests not have a right to this safety figure? Could they not have given us a warning that things would go into effect at a certain time. This is suppose to be a world class, professional company yet it keeps doing things such as this.

[Mark858]

Lilly you miss the point. Many business travellers simply apply the "Work Collection"  filter, - so they know they have certain benefits built into every booking option such as wifi, desk to work, self-check-in and so on.
Every previously compliant listing for "Work Collection" which did not have a carbon monoxide filter is now excluded from the listing. They will not even see our property, so obviously they cannot choose to book it.

So if you do not have self-check-in, you will no longer appear in "Work Collection" filtered searches.

[Neil194]

I agree that the way to handle the issue is for airbnb to flag "all electric" as Work Collection compliant.

Ann

[Jeff565]

I'll just add that the building code in virtually every state only requires CO detectors "when there are appliances using combustible fuel..or there is an attached garage". If you are all electric, as many of us are, there is ZERO value in having one.

[Ann72]

I have one, and I had it checked, and my listing was STILL removed from the Work Collection - because I had no carbon monoxide detector.

I unchecked it and checked it, and then was told that I had to have a flexible or moderate cancellation policy to be eligible.  I had recently changed it to strict, so that's probably the real reason it was removed from the Work Collection - not the lack of a carbon monoxide detector.

Erg.

[Terry297]

Well - they did not think this requirement through! My condo is an all electric unit in an all electric building in an all electric condo complex. The 181 units in the complex dont even have fireplaces. I have an electric heat pump for heating and cooling; an electric cooktop; an electric oven;and no fireplace. Carbon Monoxide detectors are used to detect leaks and incompletely burned fuels that are not available to my condo. This is ridiculous. 

[Sarah977]

@Terry297 No, CO detectors don't detect gas leaks at all. They only detect carbon monoxide fumes, which as you say, arise from improper burning. But gas leaks, which are potentially more dangerous, as they can cause an explosion, are not registered by a CO detector.