Hosts with guests within their home..do you wash guest's towels?

Hi everyone

One of the changes I have made since joining this forum, on the basis of advise from other hosts, is that I now wash guest’s sheets and have someone come in to change their beds. I was just wondering what other hosts with guests in their homes did with towels? Do you wash these for the guests too?

I have three bedrooms within my house listed on Airbnb, soon to be four. I will be investing in new towels for guests soon, and after some research have decided on three sets per person per week. So they will have enough to be able to manage washing themselves, but I am guessing if I am changing beds I should be maybe be washing their towels too?

Thanks

I have a home share. I do both linens and towels, but I have few guests who stay more than a day or two. If a guest has a longer reservation I ask them how often they prefer things changed and encourage them to let me know if they need anything sooner (due to a spill or something). My washer and dryer are in my creepy old cellar so I’m not expecting anyone to go down there. However, some guests who have been coming here for years have “creepy cellar laundry privileges” and often throw their towels in with their clothes.

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We don’t allow stays longer than 2 weeks. But those who stay more than a week are offered a changeout of linens and towels. We make the bed up while the guests are out (with permission). We wash all our own linens and towels. Would never allow guests to wash them, or used an expensive linen service.

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Not sure what you call a “set” of towels, but guests don’t require 3 sets of clean towels per week. That seems quite excessive. Same as Ken, my guests get a change one a week (I also have a 2 week max). That would be 2 bath towels, a hand towel and a washcloth.

I let guests know I provide a light cleaning and change of linens every week. They have access to a set of towels pp in their en suite 1/2 bath and to whatever bigger, fluffier towels they like in the shared bathroom. I seem to get lots of singles who use one of the pretty, but not big or plush towels in the half-bath for the whole week, and 1 facecloth. I do have a small “help us save water” sign, so that may be it. Plus, sharing a shower with your hosts doesn’t inspire one to luxuriate- time or resource-wise, I’d guess!

I would say wash their towels. If you had friends or relatives staying over, I’m sure you would not expect them to wash their own towels so why expect it from paying guests?

I have a room and bath in my home and I do the linens and if guests are staying more than 1 night, I ask permission to go in and vacuum and tidy up while they’re out. Guests love the extra service and it gives me a chance to hang up towels dropped in haste, clean up any messes, and refill their filtered water bottle and clean the cups.

Guests get 1 large towel, 1 hand towel, and 1 washcloth and 1 pool towel for a week. The linen closet is in their suite but so far no one has abused that locale and taken too many more towels.

It seems to work well.

of course I wash the towels with the linens. I change them once per week, just like I do for myself.

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This is not clear. Do guests bring their own towels?

If you provide towels then naturally you would wash them.

No I provide the sheets and the towels. I see the answer to this is obvious to most so I’m sorry about that. I don’t know why I’ve been letting my Airbnb guests wash their own towels?! I think I figured when I stay in an Airbnb apartment, I usually wash my own towels so i associated washing your own linen as part of the Airbnb set up. But it seems that isn’t okay for a room in your house. I’ve taken this on this advise with immediate affect!

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It really depends on how you want to work it. If it’s a long term guest, getting a discount on the rent, you might have the arrangement that they wash tthe linensand towels themselves, but then you could end up like you did before with someone dirty never washing them.

And you would have to be prepared for the stuff being stained beyond redemption and resign yourself to probably having to replace those things after a long term guest.

But for short termers, it’s generally expected that the host takes care of providing clean sheets and towels. That doesn’t mean guests can expect hotel-type service with clean towels every day or even every 2 days. A week seems to be the norm for most hosts. If I have a guest who stays for 10 days, I’ll offer clean bedding and towels at the halfway mark, 5 days, as it doesn’t make much sense to give them clean stuff for 3 days when they’ve used the last batch for a week.

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