Do you allow guest to do laundry at your property?

[Farwa-and-Raza0]

Since laundry room is right infront of our guest suite, we use to allow our guests to do laundry. However, it was such a pain to find articles of clothings forgotten in the washer stinking, forgotton lighters in the dryer or sand from the beach, and not to mention loads and loads of lint. We had one guest stay one night with us who did 6 loads of laundry!

I still have people constantly asking if they can use the laundry (even though its clearly written in the house rules NO LAUNDRY). Please help

[Emily487]

This won't be everyone's cup of tea...but once in a while I will offer to do one load for them at my house. I live just down the street, I am a stay at home mom so my life is just one huge pile of unfolded laundry anyway, and I wash the AirBnB linens at home already so one load of clothes won't break my back. That, and I have a high gross out tolerance so it doesn't freak me out. I only offer this to people who are staying more than 3 nights, have been open and friendly through our messaging, or who have kids. They just put the clothes in a little hamper and set it on the front porch. I wash, dry, and return it folded for them as soon as I can and I am careful to ask them not to mention it in a review.  If I don't have the time or energy I just don't offer it up. 

[Helen56]

I rent out one bedroom in my house and have laundry listed as an amenity.  It's my my garage in the basement (3 level condo), so if they ask to do laundry I give them a basket and put it in myself.  I then hang it on an airer to dry in their room over night.  I haven't had any complaints, but they feel uncomfortable with me putting it through so don't usually ask again.

People from Singapore and Japan tend to to laundry every night - it's just in their culture.  They don't own many clothes and find it odd that Americans and English people only wash a load of whites once a week, then a load of colours....    I teach ESL and have found this out from my students.  One assignment I gave them was to prepare a talk about advice for people from their country visiting the USA (should, must, ought to....)  The common advice for the Japanese students was "You should bring a lot of clothes because your host family will only let you wash them once a week"  I was so surprised!  But if fitted with my experience hosting guests from that part of the world.  These students told me that they had to buy extra clothes when they were here.

[Jan209]

interesting. I had a Chinese man do this too...he asked me ahead of time said he would juts need to wash his daughters uniforms every day. JUts a small load.  I said it would cost $20 extra which was pretty generous since staying 11 days.  BUt he washed everything! Coats, pants, everything! Who needs to wash overcoats on a 11 day trip. I suspect his next Host said no washing so he thought he'd wash everything here. I had to remind him re $20 fee, too. I couldn't read his review as in CHinese but he only gave me 4 stars for value for money.  And usually I get 5 stars for value for money.   Ah well.  IT's all learning as one Host said.    And another said "Expect the unexpected!" haha. TRue.

[Victoria567]

Hi @Jan209

Count yourself fortunate as my culturarly diverse guests drained my entire hot water tank and 2 enormous reservoir tanks of cold water, causing us to have no water at all for over 24 hours ....topped off with a plumbing bill if £200.

The cherry on the cake! Using the hairdrier to dry this industrial sized amount of laundry well into the night despite my pleas for them to stop......Me no understand Eeeenglish.

I now understand the diverse cultures through raw experiences such as this, hence my decision to offer a laundry fee PER EACH load of washing, ditto the electric tumble drier.

I have now added into my to do list to ASK for payment BEFOREHAND from the guests using my laundry facilities after the unfortunate experience of 2 very entitled young women this month who refused to pay up for my laundry facilities......these were our entitled ladies from across the pond who I thought should  have known better?

But hey ho, there we go,.......the entitled guest spans the globe irrespective of culture or education.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

I state in my listing description and house rules that for any guest staying longer than 1 week, I allow 1 load of laundry per week at no additional cost. I also explain that hosts handle all laundry for bedding and towels. Guests only need to worry about their own clothes so 1 load per week in my 16kg top load washer should be more than sufficient for a single guest. I make it very clear that the washer MUST be at least 1/3 full to do a load. I had a problem with a prior guest doing tiny loads of 6~8 items (counting each sock separately) every 2~3 days at full load setting. Our water bill nearly doubled during his stay and nothing we said would get him to change his ways. It was frustrating and we really hated the wastefulness and ignorant attitude of that particular guest. 

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

FYI, my problem guest was from France. 

[Anita1244]

sounds like we had the same guest

[Von3]

We allow our guests to do laundry, no major abuse so far, maybe because no one wants to make the hike down the stairs. It makes me cry a bit inside when I see them washing 5 things though.

[Dave984]

we are new to AirBnB.  We do not have a washer/dryer in the space we are offering.  We do plan to have long term guests.  Would any of you recommend / not recommend offering to do laundry for an additional fee?

[Julieta9]

I find this topic interesting because if the guests were at a hotel, they would not desire to wash clothes. But as many have written, they feel they should because they are paying.

I had one guest book just to use the wash and dryer. She is a nanny and spent her weekends off to wash at my home. I stopped her from booking.

I had another guest that washed twice in one week and stated he does not like to take dirty clothes home. He was charged $5.00.

Now I have a guest that washed clothes the very night he arrived. I hope he read there is a $5.00 fee for subsequent washes.

The laundromat really is cheaper than my electricity and water. And the last guest used hot water to wash all dark clothes after asking if his gf can come over. Ahh, no sir. If you want visitors you should have booked a full apartment.. 🙄

[Mary-Lou28]

Yes I agree. Guests seem to have ridiculously high expectations about things. When we've stayed in hotels we have tiny rooms, no garden, no kitchen and no laundry.  Guests want to pay very little for these things.  We left laundry liquid out that was stolen. AirBnB doesn't support hosts for small claims either. We are contemplating renting instead.