Should short-term rental hosts rethink checkout chores?

Key Takeaways

A UK travel writer says lengthy Airbnb checkout chores have pushed her back toward hotels
Airbnb says guests should not be expected to leave a home needing excessive cleaning, but standard turnover work is what cleaning fees are designed to cover
For hosts, the challenge is finding a balance between protecting an entire home and asking guests to handle work that may be better left to cleaners

A British travel writer says lengthy short-term rental checkout lists have finally pushed her back to hotels.

In a new column for The Times, writer Laura Jackson takes aim at requests to strip beds, take out trash and tackle other chores before leaving a vacation rental, particularly when guests are already paying a cleaning fee.

Her breaking point came during a trip to Sweden, where she said an Airbnb host asked whether she would be around before checkout so they could work together to prepare the apartment for the next guest.

Jackson wasn’t interested.

She wrote that similar checkout demands have become common enough during her travels that she now prefers hotels, where she can leave without worrying about stripping beds or working through a list of chores.

It’s a harsh assessment of short-term rentals, but there may be a useful takeaway buried in the criticism.

How much should guests really be expected to do before checkout?

And the real question is – before you get defensive – should hosts listen?

STR hosts have a different challenge than hotels

Comparing a short-term rental directly with a hotel room isn’t always fair.

Airbnb's guest rules now cite moldy dishes as an excessive-cleaning red flag — © 2026 REWire Media LLC. All rights reserved.

A guest checking out of a hotel may be leaving behind a few hundred square feet, one bathroom and perhaps two beds. A vacation rental can be an entire house with several bedrooms, multiple bathrooms, a full kitchen, outdoor spaces and room for a much larger group.

That also means there is considerably more opportunity for a property to be left in rough shape.

A group can leave behind overflowing trash cans, food throughout the kitchen, piles of dirty dishes, wet towels across several rooms and furniture moved around the house. For hosts facing a same-day turnover, those extra problems can quickly put the next check-in at risk.

So asking guests to take some basic responsibility for an entire home is not necessarily unreasonable.

Airbnb’s own guest rules say travelers should leave a property in a condition that does not require excessive or deep cleaning. At the same time, the company says cleaning fees are intended to cover standard turnover work such as laundry and vacuuming.

That leaves hosts with a fairly fine line to walk.

Requests to lock the doors, turn off lights, put trash in the designated location and avoid leaving a sink full of food-covered dishes can help protect a home and make a turnover manageable.

But once a checkout list starts asking guests to strip every bed, run loads of laundry, vacuum floors or prepare the property for the next arrival, it can begin to feel less like checking out and more like joining the cleaning crew.

Some checkout chores may be better left to cleaners

There are few things hosts could consider asking cleaning crews to do though.

For hosts looking to shorten their checkout instructions, some jobs may be easy to move onto the cleaning team’s checklist instead.

Stripping beds: Cleaners can remove linens as they move room to room, while also checking sheets and mattresses for stains or damage.
Starting laundry: Guests may use the wrong settings, overload machines or mix items that cleaners would normally separate. Making laundry part of the turnover process gives the cleaning team more control.
Gathering towels: Instead of requiring guests to collect every towel in the home, cleaners can handle them while checking bathrooms and bedrooms.
Running the dishwasher: Hosts could simply ask guests not to leave excessive dirty dishes or food behind and let cleaners load and run the final cycle.
Sweeping and vacuuming: Routine floor cleaning is part of a standard turnover and may be better handled by the professionals already cleaning the home.
Resetting the property: Restocking supplies, arranging furniture, resetting thermostats and preparing bedrooms for the next reservation are jobs that can stay on the cleaner’s checklist rather than the guest’s.

That doesn’t mean guests should be able to walk away from a trashed house.

There is a big difference between asking someone to leave an entire vacation home in reasonable condition and expecting them to perform the standard cleaning work that happens between reservations.

For many hosts, the simplest approach may be to keep the guest checkout list short and move everything else into a clearly defined cleaning and turnover plan.

Jackson’s column is only one traveler’s experience, and plenty of guests continue to choose short-term rentals specifically because they want the space, kitchen, privacy and flexibility a hotel room often can’t provide.

But if a long checkout checklist is enough to make even some travelers reconsider their next booking, hosts may want to ask whether every item on that list really needs to be the guest’s job.