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I have toyed with the idea of sending a few $$ refund to any guest who cleans their own hair out of the shower drain catcher. Or putting up a little sign “Guests who squeegee the shower and wipe the drain before checking out will receive a prize!”
But it’s sort of too “digusting” to even mention, isn’t it, per above anthro discussion? It’s a rare, but delightful, surprise when it does happen.
I’ve just returned from a trip staying at
STRs advertised on Airbnb. In the first one, I found a hair in the bathroom sink.
The was no big deal but I found a few more. It was when I found a hair in the bed that it started to get gross.
Himself has very short dark hair. I have very long auburn hair. The hairs I found were about six inches long and black. They were obviously not ours.
But the trouble is with this, that once you’ve started noticing them, you notice more. Those dusty shelves, the dirty sliding door tracks, the leaky AC unit, the used dryer sheet on the bedroom floor…
Before you know it you’re heading towards leaving a less-than-stellar cleanliness review. All because of that one hair in the bathroom…
For years, I’ve thought that a huge lint-roller is the host’s best friend. Roll bedding and towels before they go into the wash. and again when you take them into the rental. And again when you’re positioning them. Lint-roll the sofas and any soft furnishings.
A robot vacuum runs first, then the washing robots. Then the vacuum again just before the guests arrive.
Because I shed, I wear a shower cap when cleaning the rentals. Yes, I look daft. 
I shed, too. I tie my hair back and wear a scarf over my hair when I clean. Much more stylish than a shower cap. 
And for sure, when guests notice one thing that isn’t clean, or a hair you missed, it’s human nature to start noticing or looking for other stuff that’s not up to snuff.
Luckily I’ve never had a guest complain about cleanliness, I actually get a lot of “it was immaculate” reviews, but I doubt that I haven’t missed a hair at some point.
If that’s the case you need to change your profile picture in this forum. 
I was involved with the opening of a fairly iconic Miami Beach hotel. White epoxy floors in the rooms and baths. The tiniest hair looked huge in that backdrop. All staff had to wear hairnets and hats if they entered a guest room!..
Everything has to be clean, look clean, and feel clean. White sheets can bee clean but if wrinkled they don’t feel clean…. A wine glass can be clean but if it has water spots it doesn’t feel clean. Perceptions count!
My husband thinks I am crazy with my fussy cleaning, but I told him “If they find just one hair, they will not be happy.” I hang the sheets out on the line when I can, soon it will be winter and that will end. When removing the sheets after a guest left I found a really black spider under the fitted sheet! I am pretty sure that the spider must have crawled onto the sheets while hanging on the line. Pretty sure that I dodged the bullet with that guest. I have a constant 5* rating and while the room was immaculate, there was that “one” spider under the dam sheet! Sooooo glad they know nothing about that “one spider”
I have a double curtain on one guest room window- the city put in a streetlight right across from my house when I was out at work one day, and it glares right in that window, so I had to run out and buy blackout fabric to add to the back of the existing curtain. They are attached to each other at the top, but not at the bottom hem.
One day while cleaning the room, I opened out the curtain and found a big scorpion mama with a ball of writhing scorpion babies on her back, between the 2 layers of curtain. Sure glad I found it before the guest arrived.
Yikes! I have never even seen a scorpion, well except for national geo and movies lol.
It’s all a matter of what you get used to where you live. In some areas you have to be aware of scorpions, in others bears and cougars. I’ve never been to Australia, but I’ve heard stories from those who have about the terrifyingly huge huntsman spiders and poisonous cane toads.
I am Canadian and you must be bear smart for sure. There have been cougar sightings in our area which is pretty scary. I lived in Australia for 6 years and while the Huntsman spiders are huge they are not poisonous, although they can give you a nasty bite I hear. The buggers can jump and move with lightning speed. We only ever had one in the house but we quickly moved her outdoors.
After almost 6 years hosting I just received 3 stars for cleanliness because of hair. It was probably mine. I think Air makes it clear to guests that they ask about finding hair in the review process? Anyway time to up my cleaning game and have my hubby look over the place after im done. The guest never mentioned anything to me and was very happy with his stay
Friend of mine trained her 20 year old son to clean the Airbnb suite, as she works a lot as a nurse, and isn’t always available to do it. Sometimes they would clean together and he noticed stuff she didn’t, because he has young, keen eyesight.
“Mom, the shower stall you just cleaned still has hairs stuck to the walls.”
This was the best thread! Hair = bane of my AirBnB hosting existence. My sister thinks I’m
Overly cautious but hair left behind looks like things weren’t cleaned. On the other hand, as a guest I am Understanding because I know how hard it is to get every one. What about the hair that sticks in between the bathroom tiles?! Or guests who trim beards/ hair in your bathroom! Literally I groan when a long haired guest arrives. Lol. A refund is crazy. That person should have to clean up her own hair before leaving!
I am sorry that happened but glad that my complete obsession over getting rid of every hair was /is an intuition worth paying attention to.
The shower drain, the bathroom rug, the sink- all inspected within an inch of its life- and I change the bathroom rug with every guest.
Good to know. Thank you for sharing!
My wife and I joke that if we were as obsessively clean in our own (upstairs) living space as we are in the (downstairs) guest suite that our family would organize an intervention – with notaries and physicians on standby to sign the committment papers if we resisted.
Fortunately (for our marriage) we are on the same totally-nutty page when it comes to cleaning the Airbnb, and the reward (as everyone else in this forum knows) is Five Stars, and reviews that typically have us booked six months in advance.
A new rug, or just freshly washed?
We have 2 of the exact same rug, we just use the clean one while the other one is being washed.
If they told you about it at the time, you could have dealt with that hair. I haven’t read the replies here as I’m on a train tootling along . You could have offered a deep clean at that point.
As long time posters, we have posted often with basic cleaning tips like this. I’ve also been gently mocked for my headlamp and black light. But 4.98 over 600 reviews and 9 years is worth it. My headlamp has revealed many things over the years that no guest would ever see unless they also looked in the corners and under the bed with a light, but like you said, once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Especially in the bathroom. I have marvelled at the astonishing urine-spray prowess of the human penis.
Hosts who don’t have a black light can approximate one with their cell phone, a couple of sharpies and some tape. See here.