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Home / Travel

Airbnb host's passive aggressive note on 'personal hygiene' goes viral

NZ Herald
15 Jan, 2020 09:11 PM3 mins to read

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The owner of the room, bed and sheets was 'extremely displeased' with Jack's BO. Photo / Cassidy Kelly

The owner of the room, bed and sheets was 'extremely displeased' with Jack's BO. Photo / Cassidy Kelly

An Airbnb' passive aggressive note has gone viral on Reddit after chastising a guest for not showering before bed.

The smelly guest in question took to the Reddit "AITA" forum, to ask if his decision to go to bed without showering was poor Airbnb etiquette.

Jack, 26, first time Airbnb-er and self-confessed "shower-in-the-morning person", was taken aback to discover a "handwritten note" had been slid under his door.

Having arrived in New York after an eight-hour flight, tired and jet-lagged, Jack had prioritised going for a nap over getting clean which – according to his host – was a violation of his duties as a guest.

In the note, host Clara outlined that there were a "few standard etiquettes" to the experience:

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Firstly she explained that guests "need to keep the room clean and free of odour because you are staying in someone else's room."

Secondly, "personal hygiene" is also the responsibility of the guest.

"After your flight, you had a strong odour yet you didn't take a shower before going to bed. As the owner of the room, the bed and the sheets, I am extremely displeased with this fact."

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While the 24-year-old host understood it was Jack's first time "doing Airbnb" the note was a first and final written warning:

"I might have to report to Airbnb if you fail to keep up with the personal hygiene and lower the quality of my room."

While Jack understood that nobody wants a smelly room he also thought that it was part of the hazards of being an Airbnb Host. "If you're worried about people's funk… don't rent your room out to others," he wrote.

The note had clearly worked its way under Jack's unshowered skin. Not being able to stop thinking about it he shared a picture of the letter with the AITA forum on Reddit to see who the internet thought was in the wrong.

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Dear Jack. . . Photo / Reddit, AITA
Dear Jack. . . Photo / Reddit, AITA

246 people weighed in on this issue of Airbnb Etiquette vs Travel BO.

"I am floored that you did not shower after a long plane ride," wrote one disgusted responder.

However the majority of replies came out in favour of Jack, suggesting that it was poor manners of the host to make her guest feel "uncomfortable".

Although, it was noted that the level of smell was hard to convey via a written forum most people thought the host was at fault.

It can't have been pleasant fragrance wrote another, considering "a stranger felt compelled to comment on it in writing."

"Either the host is a complete nutter and she needs reporting maybe has some type of fixation or OCD or something. Or dude you are in some huge denial about some major BO issues," was one of the more neutral summaries.

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The verdict was 34 to 3, in favour of Jack.

The forum called AITA (which stands for "Am I the A-hole?") refers to itself as "a place to finally find out if you were wrong in an argument that's been bothering you."

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