I had a guest here on April 8-9. When I was at the door to welcome her I noticed her putting something in the bathroom and closing the bathroom door before she came to the door. I asked her did she only have one dog and she said yes. I should have asked if she had a cat but I didn’t want to accuse her and make her feel uncomfortable. When she left the next day I went in right away and smelled a fishy smell so I went through the trash which she had tied shut very carefully. I found cat food cans, cat treats and cat poop in a plastic bag. I know gross right? So because it is very clear that I don’t accept cats due to allergies I reached out for a $150 cleaning fee. It requires 9 loads of laundry and an extra 6 hours of cleaning time. I know this because the last time I had this happen the guest apologized and said she would pay whatever was necessary. And that is what it was. Anyway Airbnb said I needed pictures of the damage or dirt so I said it’s hard to take pictures of cat dander. But I dug out the trash and took pictures of it. They said they really couldn’t pay an extra cleaning fee without proof that the guest made a mess. Then they said did the guest not follow house rules? And I said no they didn’t. They brought a cat in and it clearly states that cat are not allowed. So I think they changed the claim to not following rules. So after almost two weeks I reached out to the guest and told her why I asked for the extra cleaning fee and that I knew she had a cat and that I looked through the trash and found all the evidence and she did something and now my platform is completely blocked. Unbelievable. I call Airbnb and they say there was a safety issue reported. So now it’s gone to the safety department and I’ll hear back in 24-48 hours. In the meantime my site is blocked. I have been with them for six years. I have maintained super host. I have not had a complaint at all. And now this stupid little girl has ruined it. Ok just needed to vent. Any body have anything similar to this?
Sorry for your loss, but on a side note, how can one person staying one night require you to do 6 loads of laundry?
There are lots of stories of retaliation from guests after hosts call out on their bad behavior, and unfortunately, fabricating some issue for which Airbnb has no tolerance (e.g., undisclosed cameras) resulting in deactivation of the hosts account is one of them. Here’s hoping Airbnb does due diligence when investigating.
It could be that the guest felt that you going through her trash was an invasion of privacy. Sometimes we have to pick our battles. It seems like the kitty just left dander and didn’t damage your property. Yes, the guest didn’t follow house rules, but perhaps it would have been best simply to give her one star review for that category instead of asking for $150.
Unfortunately that has zero effect when a guest accuses you of privacy violations, hidden cameras, or “pests”, regardless of whether the guest is lying or not.
It’s best to pick your battles. I wouldn’t have bothered put in a claim for this, just left her a scathing review.
I also don’t understand how one person for one night can possibly involve 9 loads of laundry, and an extra 6 hours of cleaning time, unless you are going to take down all the curtains to wash, have rugs cleaned, wash the walls and ceilings, etc. It would be easier to open all the windows and put an ozone machine or other air cleaner in there.
Is that effective for cat allergies?
because she brought a cat into the house
I really don’t know. I was under the impression that it removes both odors and allergens, but I may have assumed falsely.
I wonder if you could explain this? I’ve had undisclosed cats and dogs (in one instance four dogs) but they have never created nine laundry loads and six hours extra cleaning.
My little 220 sq foot rental is 2 loads minimum in my residential size large capacity washer. Depending on size of home and what is washed 9 loads seems like about 30 % more than what I would do in a 3 br 2 bath
home.
I don’t understand why anyone is questioning the amount of laundry, because NJH may have a 5 bedroom home for all we know but I suspect those of you with cats are playing a little dumb about it all just for cats-sakes 
If a cat got into my little studio I’d easily have 5 loads of laundry for the curtains alone, which I would absolutely have to do because I have a regular who is cat-allergic that stays every other week. Add in the bedding and towels and that’s 8-9 loads of laundry easily for a studio with one queen bed. That’s why I have a no cats rule.
Any queen bed is 3-4 loads of laundry at least on its own without cats. Not sure how y’all are doing laundry. Maybe not washing everything.
And cats are why I have no textiles in the room except those absolutely necessary. Shutters, not drapes, vinyl chair upholstery on the two folding chairs, rugs taken out of the room when there are any pets or in hot weather.
My only complaint about cats is the litter I find in the room despite leaving and broom and dustpan in the room with people that have cats. I haven’t had issues with cats but understand why some would.
She might, but her post sounded like it was just one guest for one night, so I sort of assumed, perhaps erroneously, that it wasn’t a 5 bedroom house.
1 load to wash my single bed bedding- sheets, pillow cases, mattress pad, and duvet cover (or blanket, depending on season). So yeah, I could see 3 loads for a queen size bed, but not 4. Guess it depends on how thick and heavy the bedding is, or whether you have 2 dozen pillows piled halfway down the bed. 
Sheets & pillowcases = 1 load
Mattress pad (it’s thick with wool fluff on one side) = 1 load
Duvet (and it’s too thick for the home machines) = 1 load
Duvet cover & Indian/hippie bedspread = 1 load
That’s 4 loads for the bed. Plus towels = 1 load. That’s 5 loads.
Plus we have 16 ceiling-to-floor cotton velvet drapes (we double them for a blackout effect so they’re only for 4 windows). That’s another 4 loads, making for 9-10 loads of laundry if I had to wash everything at once.
We also have 6 cotton cafe curtains but I could mix them in with the bedding loads.
I don’t know if I would wash everything if someone snuck in a cat, but I probably would because I don’t really know what people mean when they say they’re allergic to cats. I think it’s possible they just don’t like cats but I can’t take a chance of someone having trouble breathing or breaking out in hives or whatever either.
For the record, I like cats. This is one of the rare times in my life that I haven’t had any cats of my own. Nonetheless, I would have to do 9-10 loads of laundry if someone snuck a cat in. I think the implication was that NJH was exaggerating about the laundry, but I don’t think so and none of us have any reason to believe that. What I think is that people with cats get a little defensive about cats sometimes. And rightfully so, it’s hard out there with all the cat-allergy people. (Imagine how Tide must feel, lol).
Geez, I’m just keeping people warm in New England, I’m not a maniac
I love summer when the insert comes out of the duvet cover and I just have a top sheet, a blanket and an empty duvet cover or light bedspread on top. If someone gets cold because they put the AC low, there are added blankets in the closet.
Load one colors: duvet cover, 2 pillow shams, hand towel, bathmat, 1 or 2 washcloths 1 kitchenette towel.
load two whites: fitted sheet, top sheet, two pillow cases, 1-3 towels,
Because I have both white and gray bathmats, blankets, hand towels and multicolored kitchenette towels and washcloths the possible 3rd load varies. If I have 2 people stay it’s almost always 3 loads.
I rotate in washing the duvet insert, the zippered pillowcase covers and mattress pad which is under the top sheet. I don’t do them every turn over but I do them often enough that there is a third load about every five turnovers guaranteed.
Oh, I can assure you I wasn’t questioning the 9 loads of laundry because I’m a cat person. I have a cat, but only because she was a stray who insisted that she lived here and turned out to be a great mouser.
When a guest asked me what the cat’s name was, I said she didn’t have a name because I was in denial that I had a cat, since I’m so not a cat person. The cat only has a name now because the guest named her. 
You’re a wild woman 
I would never wash sheets and towels together. Not even my own.
That sounds really nice. We leave ours on all year because it doesn’t stay warm for very long and even then it is often chilly at night. Sometimes people fold up the duvet and put it in a chair but it’s easier to leave it up to them. We also have a couple of cotton blankets and a throw on a shelf so they can use those instead if they want. But, shoot, I forgot about those and the kitchenette towels in the snuck-in-cat-scenario so that’s nearly another load of laundry I guess, lol.
We don’t either. And in reality, we wouldn’t have to do them all at once anyway because we have extras. Y’all taught me that 
The only thing we don’t have extras for is the drapes. We have a couple extra (cause sticky fingers get everywhere 
) but not a full set. We wash them 2-3 times a year.
This is why this forum is educational.
Why? I always wash white sheets and towels together…
I often travel with my former 2 cats, but now one. Before booking I always ask if they accept cats. That’s the proper thing to do, no?
TL;DR: They will last a lot longer, look better and not attract as much lint.
So, the general laundry “rule” is to wash things together that have a similar texture and weight. Everything will last longer and have less damage if you do that.
For instance, washing knit shirts with jeans will not only stretch and pull and pill the knits but it will make them fade faster and also shrink them (a lot of shrinking actually happens in the wash from resistance and pulling, not in the dryer from heat) too from the resistance from the jeans. If you think about wadding up a pair of heavy jeans and rubbing them on a smooth knit shirt over and over, that’s what is happening in the wash, except wet which is worse.
And that’s why thrift stores are full of shrunken faded shirts that have pilly bits, tiny tears and, especially, stretched-out and misshapen necks and arms on them. Whereas I literally have shirts from high school (class of 89 yo!) that I still wear and you wouldn’t know except they may not make the brand anymore. (We were really poor so if you bought a shirt you were expected to wear it forfukingever ).
Towels do similar to sheets because they are so much heavier, especially wet, and obviously textured. It’s like rubbing a sheet with a bunch of little scrub brushes over and over again. Not only will it weaken the sheet but it can cause pilling and uneven wear and shrinkage, but most importantly, it will make the sheets attract more lint.
Of course, the towels are going to leave their own lint on the sheets, which is annoying enough IMO, but the constant abrasion in the wash makes the sheets more lint-attractive in general. So even if you don’t care about the sheets lasting forever, it’s worth washing them separately so they’re easier to maintain in the present.