Vaccinated or unvaccinated: Should you be an Airbnb host?
Tricky Airbnb rules querying about COVID-19 vaccination status
Ina world full of Millennials and Generation Zers who are looking for the next side hustle to make ends meet, the LinkedIn Learning webinar “43 Ideas for Starting a Side Business” would’ve made sense to me — if number 43 wasn’t released in November 2020. I raised an eyebrow at “Rent a room on Airbnb,” wondering, “Does anyone even do that with strangers after March 2020?” Judging from the $1.2 billion drop for the first nine months of 2020, the worldwide health pandemic definitely hit Airbnb hard.
In my own world, I removed myself from Rover altogether because I simply did not want to dog sit — even if the dog owners weren’t there. The exhausting process of disinfecting my own groceries before putting them into my own refrigerator was enough for me; I had minimal desire to disinfect someone else’s home. The few times I completed dog boarding (dog sitting in my own home), I made sure the hosts stayed outside or wore masks for a lobby drop-off. I was cleaning the hell out of dog leashes though and had zero problems with one dog owner who threw the leash in my general vicinity, knowing her dog liked me enough to beeline toward me from the other side of the alley.
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With 35,665,877 infected and 614,291 dead (at the time of publication), I just don’t have any desire to travel around to hang out with strangers or be in their homes. And I’m saying that as someone who is vaccinated and sighs whenever random people walk within my six-foot distance to ask if they can pet my dog while I’m standing outside minding my business. I even dodged my (favorite) dentist for a year and a half, and had to put my foot down about not allowing my (also favorite) dental hygienist to clean my teeth because she was not vaccinated.
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As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a percentage from purchases with my referral links. I know some consumers are choosing to boycott Amazon for its DEI removal. However, after thinking about this thoroughly, I choose to continue promoting intriguing products from small businesses, women-owned businesses and (specifically) Black-owned businesses who still feature their items on Amazon. All five of my Substack publications now include a MINIMUM of one product sold by a Black-owned business. (I have visited the seller’s official site, not just the Amazon Black-owned logo, to verify this.) If you still choose to boycott, I 100% respect that decision.
How Airbnb is and is not handling the anti-vaxxers
When it comes to real estate, there appears to be a gray area for Airbnb hosts. While Airbnb’s “Health and Safety Requirements” checklist requires wearing a mask and social distancing, by state law guidelines, and not traveling if you’ve been exposed to COVID-19, there’s no firm rule on vaccinations. There is language regarding vaccinations, but it leans more toward anti-vaxxers not sharing posts or comments that encourage “others to ignore applicable health or travel advisories (including discouraging others from getting the COVID-19 vaccine or denying guests because they are vaccinated against COVID-19)
Recommended Read: “If your doctor or dentist won’t get vaccinated, do you still visit them? ~ Why I opted out of working with my dental hygienist”
Meanwhile, according to Newsweek, an Airbnb host rejected a couple for being vaccinated “citing a false claim that the vaccine would cause people to pass COVID-19 to unvaccinated individuals.” Although the comparisons to varicella vaccine (or the “chicken pox vaccine”) continue to be a poor comparison — primarily because the chicken pox vaccine contains the actual vaccine has a live but weakened version in it. mRNA vaccines (or COVID-19 vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna) do not have coronavirus in them.
While Airbnb does have a voluntary Health Safety Attestation, a program that enables hosts to request that guests attest they are clear of common COVID-19 symptoms and have not knowingly been recently exposed to COVID-19, the problem with it is there doesn’t appear to require any hard proof such as a rapid test or vaccination card. Hosts just have to take the guests word for it. (After one homeowner told me she couldn’t get COVID-19 “because Scorpios don’t get it” and rambled on about Mercury Retrograde, I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have a vaccination card in hand. I got vaccinated immediately in hopes of protecting myself instead of trying to be a vaccination sleuth. I cannot control everyone else, only myself.)
So should Airbnb hosting still be considered one of those side gigs that homeowners (and permitted tenants) are able to do? First, make sure your condo association board does not ban any for-profit businesses within your unit. After you’ve done that, the final decision is really up to you. My thoughts? Not a chance in my Scorpio body would I humor the idea.
Did you enjoy this post? You’re also welcome to check out my Substack columns “Black Girl In a Doggone World,” “BlackTechLogy,” “Homegrown Tales,” “I Do See Color,” “One Black Woman’s Vote” and “Window Shopping” too. Subscribe to this newsletter for the monthly posts on the third Friday. Thanks for reading!