Strict Airbnb rules ban guests from using toilet without cleaning it

A detailed how-to bathroom guide from a stringent Airbnb host is both tickling and horrifying the Twitter world.

Free-wheeling users of the popular accommodation service may approach the use of their host’s ‘facilities’ more gingerly in future after Twitter user Ian Hickton took to the social media platform over the weekend to share a set of rules he discovered for his Airbnb bathroom.

Ian hails from Stoke in the UK, but was visiting London for a concert when he came face to face with the funny list of rules.

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“The host was rather nice, and if I hadn’t read the sheet carefully I wouldn’t have thought anything of it,” he told Yahoo Lifestyle.

The list itself is quite striking in its specifics.

“Please try your best to use the washbasin without splashing the mirror,” is the ominous first line of the full page bathroom how-to.

The user is asked to ‘wipe dry’ the washbasin and - somewhat strangely - the tap, ‘out of courtesy’ after use.

There is also a request to squeegee, and then hand dry, the entirety of the shower after use.

Of course, the use of a squeegee in a shower is not unheard of and prevents soap scum and streaks on the glass – however the owner asks that guests use the instrument to ‘‘remove any water clinging onto the glasses, onto the tiles and onto the window”.

Perhaps best of all is the delicate approach to toilet use.

Guests are warned that the use of the toilet brush ‘is not optional’.

They are asked to use the instrument to “remove any sign of your passage, of whatever colour, from inside the toilet”.

Finally it is asked that all guests regardless of gender remain seated for the ‘passage’, be that ‘number one or number two’.

And just to round off the meticulous journey, the owner reiterates their penchant for a dry bathroom - “Please make sure that when you leave the bathroom the floor is dry.”

Ian told Yahoo Lifestyle the rules weren’t confined to the bathroom, but that the stay was still ‘very pleasant’.

Hilarious response

Twitter users responded wholeheartedly to the post, with dozens of comments reliving and dissecting the complexity of the bathroom rulebook.

"‘Do not leave any traces of your passage’ how sinister is that?!” one user pointed out.

Another broke down their understanding of the subtext behind the rules.

“In other words, ‘even though you have paid the air bnb (sic) cleaning fee, we want it to look as if the bathroom is clean for the next check in so we don’t have to do anything!’,” they surmised.

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Another couldn’t help but wonder what the ramifications of disregard for the list might entail.

“I wonder how violations are punished,” they queried.

“...I suggest you run very fast and very far,” was another’s advice.

Airbnb horror stories have always fascinated would-be holiday makers, having something of the car crash effect attached to them.

It’s almost impossible look away, and yet despite seeing the worst case scenario you’re likely to get behind the wheel (or stranger’s front door) again in no time.