I stayed in a VRBO with a shocking list of checkout chores. I'm an Airbnb host myself, and I worry it gives our industry a bad name.

• An Airbnb host photographed the checkout chore list at an Ohio VRBO she stayed in this month.
• It included a request to wash, dry, and put away sheets and towels before leaving at in the morning.

Annie is a new Airbnb host in Fairport, a village 9 miles east of Rochester, New York. During a recent stay in home she booked via vacation-rental site VRBO in Cleveland, Ohio, she encountered a list of chores to be completed before checkout. She photographed the sign and shared it with other short-term-rental hosts on Facebook, where her post received hundreds of comments.

Earlier this month, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky committed to being transparent about the chores required before guests book — and take off listings that get low reviews for chore lists. Still, Annie, who asked to be identified by her first name only for professional reasons, reflected on her worries that chore lists like these could give all short-term-rental hosts a bad name.

My Airbnb rental is our primary home because we live at our lake house in the summer. I've had five stays so far. Most of them have gone fine. I had one guest that kind of complained. It's a historic home and she said it was 'dated.'

Recently, we rented a five-bedroom VRBO house in Cleveland, Ohio for my daughter's college graduation. The place was a large cottage right near Lake Erie, and we were staying for four days.

The thing that really struck me was this note that instructed us to wash and dry all the sheets and all the towels and fold them the morning we left.

It wasn't disclosed in the listing at all. It simply said, 'All linens are provided.' I would have booked elsewhere if that had been in the listing.

We had seven people. It would take hours to do multiple loads of laundry, and we had to be up early on the day of our departure. I immediately decided it was unreasonable, and we weren't going to do it.

I'm new to hosting but was caught off guard by the demands

What struck me was the way it made me feel. It produced a negative energy around the place. I felt like I was in conflict with people I've never met.

It made me want to look around and say, 'Okay, what else is wrong with this place? What else are they going to find fault with?' There was a dent in the coffee table and I quickly took a picture of it because I was like, 'Well if we don't do the sheets, are they going to say we damaged the furniture?'

We stripped all the beds. We put all the laundry in the laundry room. We emptied the trash, we emptied the dishwasher, we wiped down the counters. We left the place quite neat and tidy.

We just weren't going to do hours and hours of laundry.

Other hosts agree that it was unreasonable

I'm in a Facebook group for other short-term-rental hosts, and I'm learning a lot. I thought other hosts should understand how a surprise like this can color a person's feelings about their stay.

You know what they say: 'People remember how you made them feel.'

The post blew up. It's got 1,500 likes on it and a ton of comments. Basically everyone agrees that this was unreasonable. It's not okay to not disclose an expectation like this ahead of time.

What hosts typically do — and I know from being in this Facebook group — is you make sure you have multiple sets [of linens]. You can furnish your rental with one, and send the other out to the laundry.

I understand it's impossible for a cleaning person to do hours and hours of laundry in a single day. That's why you have to have multiple sets.

Experiences like this give all short-term rentals a bad name

Airbnb in particular — but short-term rentals in general — have gotten a lot of bad press recently. Part of it is cleaning fees and ridiculous expectations on guests.

A lot of hosts are talking about the fact that bookings are down this year. They're wondering, 'Is this a sign of the economy?'

I think if it's a sign of anything, it's a sign that people are reacting to all of this bad press and feeling like it's just not worth it to stay in an Airbnb versus a hotel.

It isn't like something terrible happened to me. But it'll make me more vigilant in the future about making sure that I have read everything and am clear on all expectations before booking.