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Comment by mcjiggerlog | Hacker News Reader

I live next door to an AirBnB, in a building where maybe 1/5 of the flats have been converted to tourist flats. When I moved in 3 years ago there were zero.

I'm woken up by screaming drunk tourists as they come home at 3am on a Tuesday night. There are constantly people clattering suitcases up the stairs at all hours. People smoke inside the common areas instead of on the street. Of course, just generally feeling like you live in an illegal hotel is horrible. We're looking to move.

Then again, I have reservations for two AirBnBs next week on holiday in another part of the country. The difference is we have booked entire houses in the countryside, not city-centre flats. AirBnB is not inherently evil, but strict and enforced controls are definitely necessary in cities.

I love AirBnB as a customer, but hate it as a resident.

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I, too, love externalities when other's bear the cost, and hate them when I bear the cost.

best comment.

Heh. I am aware of the contradiction.

My point is not all AirBnB usage is equal.

So it should be okay for your use case but not others?

Which is true, but I think misses the point. It's not that AirBnB is in and of itself bad, but there are good and bad places to rent with respect to the neighborhood.

Consider something like the Outer Banks for North Carolina, where nearly all the homes are rented out for vacationers. There's an expectation and knowledge of what to expect from the neighborhood (for example, multi-hour delays on the weekends as move in/out happens).

That's a very different situation from buying a home in a neighborhood and then having every 3rd house turn into a hotel.

Neighbours should have a hotline to Airbnb that they can call to report disruptive guests.

I've been thinking this for ages!

Makes me really angry when I think that the guests will receive great reviews from some faceless agency who never even interacted with them, whereas we as residents have to suffer for their behaviour.

Not sure if it's useful, but they have www.airbnb.com/neighbors

Yeah, I'm an AirBnB customer as well and I use it mostly for business travel because affordable hotels are usually located in the crappy parts of town, have nothing around them, and are generally not comfortable. In contrast I can book an AirBnB at 1 to 2 star rates and get a place that's within walking distance of coffee shops and running trails and stuff to do when I'm not working.

I generally don't stumble home drunk at 3 AM, but I sympathize with the neighbors of people who do.

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