Airbnb, the vacation rental company, was founded to allow homeowners and tenants to make extra money by renting out a room or a whole apartment for a fraction of the price of a typical hotel.
However, guests are now complaining that the cleaning fees being charged on Airbnb listings have made them as expensive, and in some cases, pricier than hotels.
'We Gotta Stop Airbnb'
It all started when a Twitter user named Alexa shared a screenshot of the price details of an Airbnb listing along with the caption, "we gotta stop airbnb." The listing was priced $198 for a duration of two nights with cleaning fees amounting to a whopping $215.90.
Twitter Reactions
The post instantly went viral with more than 150,000 likes and thousands of retweets. The tweet also racked up hundreds of comments with many other users complaining about the cleaning fees they have been charged by their hosts.
"If there's a cleaning fee of more than $25 then the host should have to show receipts. I'm happy to pay it if it actually means that money goes to the cleaning service (resulting in an actual clean space) and not their pocket," tweeted one user.
"Places charge $100 dollar cleaning fees and ask you to vacuum, start a load of laundry with towels/sheets, wash all the dishes, etc. Like what are you providing to the airbnb other than taking away a home for someone else," wrote another. "One time a woman charged me $150 for leaving a single dirty spoon in the sink," opined yet another.
Meanwhile, other Twitter users criticized the vacation rental company for offering listings that are more expensive than a hotel room. "Crazy. I travel A LOT and haven't stayed in an AirBnB in years. The value is gone. Hotels > AirBnB,"wrote one user.
"The whole point of airbnb was that it was the cheaper option instead of paying loads for hotels etc... stayed in Paris for 4 days in 2015 in an amazing apartment with views of Eiffel Tower for €300.. they're getting carried away," tweeted someone else.
Here are some of the reactions:
