In my earlier article, found here https://globalhostingblogs.com/2026/10/24/airbnb-says-your-house-our-rules-and-clarifies-that-hosts-do-not-run-their-own-homes/ I addressed Airbnb’s new absurd policy changes which have a particularly absurd impact upon in-home hosts.

Long story short, as explained in that article, Airbnb is now saying that no Airbnb host in the world can require any Airbnb guest to clean up after themselves, not only at checkout, but at any time during their stay.

Quite ironically, even though many hosts entered into the STR business because they were tired of the tyranny and multiplying unconstitutional ordinances and laws passed by corrupt and criminal governments, which gave tenants more and more “rights”, while depriving property owners of their fundamental property rights, we now see a very similar trend with Airbnb’s tyranny. So it’s a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire.

At the present time, only about 11 to 16% of hosts worldwide, are in-home hosts, renting out guest rooms in their own home.

If Airbnb cared at all for hosts, they could easily have crafted their new policy to exempt in home hosts in such shared common areas situations, from the new policy which forbids any host from requiring guests to clean up after themselves. But Airbnb does not care about hosts, and so they have not done that, as explained by this host who contacted Airbnb specifically to ask that question.

One can see the screenshots of the chat she had with an Airbnb customer service rep, here: https://globalhosting.freeforums.net/thread/6768/airbnb-says-house-rules-clarifies

So the upshot is, that hosts may NOT require guests to clean up after themselves at any time during their stay: not only just at checkout, but throughout the stay, even when using common areas which are shared with the host and other Airbnb guests. You can REQUEST that they do this, but not REQUIRE it.

Now the first thing to say about this, is that I have been an Airbnb in home host for 14 years, and during this time, I’ve had unreasonable guests, and I’ve had very unreasonable guests, but I’ve never yet, in over 1300 guests, had a single guest so unreasonable that they felt they should not have to clean up after themselves in shared areas. So the irony is that Airbnb, now with its absurd policies, is showing itself more unreasonable than the most unreasonable guest I’ve ever had in 14 years of hosting experience. And that’s saying something!

Because my guests, even though they’ve been unreasonable about other things, have at least all been reasonable in this regard, my inclination is to think that they will continue to be so. Eg I continue to believe that ordinary, courteous guests will not let themselves be made into disrespectful jackasses, just because Airbnb is inviting them to be.

However, it is quite possible that some guests will take up this invitation to jackassery, because, well, perhaps they would love to exploit the opportunity to bully a host, if perhaps they have an anti-authoritarian streak, or an anti-landlord or property owner streak. As well, as hosts have seen in many other ways, if a guest is upset at a host for something, really anything — it could be that they booked a no smoking property and are upset that when they started to smoke, you told them they can’t do that — if such a guest is upset, they often look for ways to retaliate. And Airbnb has just armed all guests with new ammunition to use in their infantile desire to retaliate against someone who dares suggest they should be responsible for their own behavior.

A Plan To Retain Some Autonomy

So in the spirit of hoping to provide some means to hosts whereby they can “disarm” such enemies within — guests in your home who dart about seeking to find ways to punish you, get you in trouble, or perhaps retaliate for things their Mommy or Daddy did to them so long ago — I want to suggest a certain strategy.

This strategy will only work as explained for in home hosts, but certain varieties of it could work for those doing entire place listings.

So this plan involves making some changes as regards common areas of the house, which is where the new prohibition on requiring guests to clean up, would potentially create problems.

Airbnb policy requires that anyone renting a private room in their home, must also provide use of a full bathroom to guests.

However, note that hosts do NOT have to allow kitchen privileges, meaning guests may be prohibited from using your kitchen, and also if you have more than one bathroom, guests need not be permitted to use additional bathrooms, provided that the one they can use, is a full bathroom.

So this is where you can make your move for autonomy.

Most in home hosts, in order to offer the most attractive situation to guests, will say that rental of a private room includes use of one or more bathrooms, the kitchen, living room, dining room, and outdoor areas.

But you don’t have to include all of that. And in fact, whatever is NOT specifically included in the rental, is beyond Airbnb’s ability to control. So, if you make it clear that Airbnb guests, when they book a stay, are renting only the private room and use of one shared full bathroom, but may be able to use the kitchen and other common areas BY PERMISSION ONLY, and contingent upon following RULES FOR THE USE of such areas, then you’ve just upped the ante on Airbnb and eliminated part of their tyranny upon you in your own home.

Now clearly it will not be as attractive a rental to guests, at first glance, if they see the listing doesn’t include kitchen use. So that is a difficulty with this strategy. However, if enough in home hosts have enough problems with bullying guests, it may be that more hosts will go in this direction.

The way you could market this, is that you could make it clear to the guest first of all, that certain new policy changes by Airbnb have unfortunately created a potential to have a quite negative impact upon guest’s experience at your home, and created the potential for an unpleasant situation for guests. Then you say you’ve changed some things to ensure that this doesn’t happen, and to protect guest’s pleasant experience. Because obviously if one guest thinks they don’t have to clean up after themselves in a shared home, that has a very negative impact on every other guests.

You make it clear to the guest that although they are technically obtaining use only of the bedroom and shared full bath with their reservation, that nevertheless, 99.9% of guests will be given permission to use the “by permission only” other areas of the house, PROVIDED that they follow the RULES for use of these. RULES, mind you: not requests, but rules. And the rules that you set for use of your “by permission only” areas of YOUR home, are that guests MUST clean up after themselves when they use such areas. If they continually fail to do so, they may lose permission to use these areas during their stay.

Now, due to Airbnb’s meddling with your ability to communicate clearly through your own listing to prospective guests about such “by permission only” areas, you might not be able to provide all the necessary info to guests via messaging. Because it appears that Airbnb is ready to use AI to prohibit hosts even talking to guests about cleaning tasks at all, in messaging.

But if you have already previously listed these rules for use of common areas in your listing, these rules have simply been moved over to “requests”, and are still there for the guests to read. So you can refer them there.

Or, you could indicate that use of “by permission only” areas involves nothing more than very simple common courtesies, and let the guest know that as soon as they book, you will send them a link to a webpage you have on your website which describes what is required to use these areas. Then, they can read it, and if they don’t agree to the stipulation to clean up after themselves, they can cancel their reservation within 24 or 48 hours of making it.

Now with this done, you re-gain what should in all sanity never have been taken from you in the first place: the ability to require that anyone staying as a guest in your home, clean up after themselves in the kitchen or really any area other than the full bathroom, the use of which has to be included in their Airbnb rental.

In my experience, more problems tend to occur with cleanliness in the kitchen, than in any other shared area. The bathroom issues tend primarily to have to do with the tub/shower, which if need be, I can clean more frequently. But keeping the kitchen clean requires more diligence from guests, and thus creates more potential for problems when guests are not up to the task: dirty sink, dirty dishes in sink, dirty stovetop, dirty dishes on stovetop, dirty counter, dirty dishes on counter, dirty dining table, dirty dishes put away with clean dishes, food crumbs on the floor, items spilling out of trash can, spills and messes in the refrigerator, dirty faucet, dirty pots put away with clean pots, dirty shelves, dirty microwave, dirty toaster oven, and more.

For Hosts of Entire Place Listings

This general strategy most likely won’t work for those hosting entire place listings, but a version of it could perhaps be used by such hosts. And that version would be, that you allow all guests to use the kitchen, but only provide paper plates and plastic utensils to be used for free, and charge a fee for use of dishware and silverware, as well as pots and pans. You then say you’ll waive or refund that fee if the housecleaner arrives and finds that no cleaning of dishes and utensils needs to be done.

Another Side Benefit

By making your kitchen and other parts of your home “by permission only” to use, you actually have gained another advantage as well. Which is that now, since the kitchen and other bathrooms, living room, yards etc are not technically part of the guest’s rental, the guest is prohibited by review rules, from mentioning these areas in their review, or doing ratings which mention these areas.

If your experience as an in home host is anything like mine, you learned long ago that it is extremely difficult to keep the kitchen clean enough, at all times, 24 hrs of the day, 7 days a week, to avoid negative comments in reviews, or downrating by guests, when you rely primarily on guests cleaning up after themselves to keep the area clean.

In home hosts generally cannot clean the kitchen and bathrooms every single day, because guests are not paying for that level of service, and they are certainly not paying you to clean these areas MULTIPLE TIMES each day, such as, after every guest who uses the space.

So, if you set up the kitchen as “use by permission only”, and not strictly part of the guests’ rental, it immediately becomes off-limits for guests to mention in their review, and if they do mention it in their review, you can have their review deleted. Which would be a very convenient way to get rid of bad reviews.