I'm encouraging bad reviews and I hope you will too

I’d be interested in learning. :yum:

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So you have to wash the duvet cover after every departure then?

We use a top sheet and were surprised at guests who just lay under the duvet. Since then we always fold the top of the sheet over the duvet. We are in the tropics so it is a thin duvet in winter and just the duvet cover in summer.

We’re in Florida and both apartments have pretty efficient air conditioning so I find that a cheap-ish duvet from Ikea fits the bill. That’s what we use ourselves so it’s not a case of getting cheaper for guests than we’d use ourselves :wink:

Yes, the duvet cover is washed at every turnover. Even if the guest has only stayed one night, it’s still laundered. I have three or four duvet covers per bed so there’s always a fresh one ready to go.

It’s so quick to make the beds using just a duvet and fitted sheet.

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“have to” sounds so oppressive. Like you I started out not washing the top layer after each guest. Whether it was an American style “comforter,” a quilt, a duvet in a cover, or bedspread. However, over time I became convinced that most of the time there is a good chance that top layer has had a sweat armpit on it, or a naked butt, or it’s been drooled or sneezed on. So I tossed the puffy comforter and started going with thinner layers that can easily be laundered, including using duvets with covers in cold weather.

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I just read on the recent cleaning thread another host who only “airs out” the blankets and comforter. I’m guessing that’s what the majority of hosts do.

Aaarrgh. You know what I think about that.

I’ve written here often enough in the past that we hosts never know just how people sleep. If they have their arms or legs out from under the covers then they are touching the blankets or comforter or whatever.

But we also don’t know what our guests sleep in. I have no idea if guests sleep in top-to-toe pajamas or nightgowns, or just in shorts, or just in a t-shirt, or just in underwear or … stark naked. And then, as most of our guests are couples, I have no idea what they are doing in bed. (Although I can hazard a guess :wink: )

So everything is washed every single time.

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LOL…don’t ever stay in a hotel (even 5 star) then as they do not change the comforters/blankets between guests. They only change/wash them every few months, usually on a quarterly basis. I have no clue how often they change them if they use duvet covers…

Don’t worry - I’ve only once stayed in that type of place as far as I can remember. (And it’s permanently engraved in my mind - Daytona 1995). I slept fully clothed :slight_smile:

For the last twenty years or so decent hotels have been bothered by the fact that there are some hotels that have improper bed hygiene and have since used white bedding only. Even in the US many good hotels use duvets rather than the old sheets-and-blankets ensemble.

The last few hotels I’ve stayed in weren’t 5 star but they weren’t bottom tier. Hyatt/Marriott/Microtel/Hilton/Best Western hotel types. What all of them are going towards are thin top layers that can be washed. Triple sheeting or duvet covers are common. One I stayed at had a blanket type top cover that was more like a tablecloth than anything else I can think of. No, I didn’t watch them make up rooms to see if they are changing everything out but compared to the old style bedspread they certainly could easily wash everything. The worst place I stayed was a friend’s house where the linens smelled mustier than my dog beds.

Agree! Change it if you must every third day and at turnarounds, but to wash every night… totally unnecessary.

Cant understand why you would have a top sheet as well as a Duvet I strip top sheet off if I find one as its another item to tangle up in.

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This is exactly how we do ours, too! I also leave extra pillows and blankets in the bedroom, if needed. I think its perfect that way. I’d die without a top sheet, personally! It’s obvious the Europeans don’t have summers like we do, isn’t it? LOL, we’d burn up with a duvet instead of just a top sheet in summer down South!

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I’ve always used a duvet in South Florida. Thank goodness we’re all different :slight_smile: :sunny: :slight_smile:

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I’ve never been in a place with no top sheet that was really hot but if I were I’d just crank the AC down and snuggle up under the duvet. I love sleeping in a cold room and if I’m paying big bucks for the electric bill, why not? :wink:

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What a moron! I don’t see why they don’t provide an accurate guide to reviewing a property & Host. I think a lot of guests feel pressure to put something down under what needs improvement and other categories. That needs to change. I feel like if Airbnb didn’t ask certain questions, reviews would automatically be higher! Also, Location should reflect “the accuracy of the listing’s location description,” instead of guests arbitrarily rating it based on who knows what. Things like that. I’m feeling unsupported by Air, especially the way they undermine our authority as the listings’ SuperHost, by refunding money over any petty complaint,having the gall to ask us to refund it(I said “HELLLLLL NO!!! They left the cover off my hot tub for 24+ hours. Why should they get a refund when I’m on Strict Cancellation?” I’m SOOOO sick of entitled jerks gaming the system, and Air ALWAYS taking the bait, further emboldening these pricks to do it again.

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Yes, thank goodness for that! Very interesting to hear a different way of making beds. I’ll have to give it a try one of these days (assuming the duvet is pure cotton). I get hot extremely easily, due to my neurological disease. And it causes major flare-ups of my symptoms. So I have to sleep on cotton percale sheets.

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A friend who has a hotel in the same village gave me a great tip for this - all my double beds have king size duvets so there’s plenty of room for “duvet thieves”. Having been a victim of this myself I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, so simple. :slight_smile:

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I think I’m over sensitive to the rating system. All other guests had rated this home w/ 5 stars (34 other reviews) and I started to question whether I am unfairly comparing this home to the standards I have in my home. It was clean overall, but details were missed, i.e. one burner pan was dirty, had grease in it and my mom dropped something off the nightstand and said that underneath the bed hadn’t been cleaned in quite some time.

I can’t imagine anyone being OK w/ sleeping on polyester sheets, but again, maybe it’s just me, because other guests didn’t mention it and seemed to be OK with it.

If I hadn’t been a host I would have pointed out every broken item and the level of discomfort, but I didn’t want to ruin a young family’s source of revenue.

You all are confusing duvet and duvet cover…obviously the cover is changed between guests but only every week or 10 days for the same guest.

Clearly, an uncovered duvet living against a sleeping sweaing, farting, eating chips in bed body would be fairly gross, dirty and unhygenic. I think people are conflating the warm layer (duvet) and the protective layer (a removable cover) .

Enough of this!

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Ha! That’s what I said in 2015…2016…2017…2018…

I can guarantee you that many hosts don’t know the differences and don’t change the cover between guests.

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Oh dear, Karen. That’s really lovely of you but maybe it doesn’t help them in the long run? With the floor uncleaned under the bed, inferior bedding and all the other issues you mentioned you can be sure that these hosts are going to get a bad situation one way or another.

One scenario is that they get rotten reviews. And they think ‘but no-one ever mentioned it before. We’ve even had hosts staying with us and they gave us four stars. How come someone has just given me one (or two or three) stars?’

As you say,

So anything less than a good review is going to come as a shock to them and the problem is, that these people think they are doing okay. A bad review will upset them. It might even put them off doing Airbnb.

The other scenario is that they get a guest who is influenced by the poor accommodation they are in. It’s human nature to react in the way in which we are treated so guests won’t be as careful as they would be in a better type of place. They’ll think ‘oh, it doesn’t matter if we don’t do the dishes or if we dirty the oven because the place isn’t clean anyway. No need to take my makeup and mascara off before bed because the sheets are cheap and nasty.’

So again, the young family gets upset about nightmare guests and decides not to do Airbnb at all because guests are so thoughtless. They lose the source of revenue that you’ve protected - and I understand why you did it but still…

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