How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb
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The reason hotels are more expensive is because they have to follow a bunch of rules that makes everyone's life a bit better by having insurance for risks and zoning and so on. However you have to pay a bit more.
So, if you ever find yourself complaining "I wish people did something in a not the absolute cheapest and effortless way" so that society in general would benefit - don't stay in airbnb.
I've been looking into AirBnB for certain situations, and because people tell me they are cheaper than hotels. However, I have found that in a lot of cases, hotels end up being cheaper. The big gotcha is the prices shown are the fee for the room (or house or whatever), but then at the end they tack on exorbitant "cleaning" fees that I have found to be greater than the rental fee. They have taken to using big graphics promoting living wages as a way to justify the extensive cleaning fees. In the end, it is much less hassle for me to just book the hotel. They have dedicated staff that allows me to arrive and check-in whenever, rather than having a small window of time before the "host" goes to bed or what not.
tbf you'll see this on a lot of hotel bookings too. We just got back from a week in NYC, and most booking systems (either hotels or airbnbs) were a massive slog. Try to airbnb an okay place in the Bronx for $110/night? Click through and see an $80 cleaning fee. Try to book a hotel in Manhattan? Bam, $100 tourism tax.
Really not loving all these systems that go out of there way to confuse me into paying more money.
When you think about it the cleaning fee really does need to be separate because it's a one time fee. So with your scheme it's $190 for one night, but but $121 a night for a week.
That said I used AirBnB for the first time last month, and I was very confused by the different pricing on different pages. The UI did seem to be purposely confusing. It should have been listed as total price for the dates I am searching for.
An example is Cologne's "Culture tax": https://www.stadt-koeln.de/politik-und-verwaltung/steuern-ge...
So you think you should be able to violate the spirit of the law? Why shouldn't you pay that tax as a tourist?
But it doesn't. People are breaking the social contract by not respecting the area. If I invite friends from out of town over for the weekend, is that breaking the social contract? If I'm going away for 2 weeks, and I have friends house sit for the duration, is that breaking the social contract? Tourists and visitors existing in a space (unless it's too many) isn't inherently violating the social contract. Their selfish behavior is the issue.
I understand what you mean. I have neighbors down the road who throw a massive family gathering once per year that I'm certain breaks noise, traffic and safety ordinances[0] due to the sound system still going at 10PM and parked cars littering both sides of the streets. That's not due to Airbnb or any other hospitality broker.
If you have an issue with visitors, talk to them. It's possible that they don't even know they're being a nuisance. I have had cops called on me for a noise complaint. It would have been a better use of everyone's time to knock and let us know.
[0]: As far as I know, no one reports the reunion/gathering. I like to think that since we're all very respectful of each other's property and space, breaking the rules for a special event once in a while is no big deal.
This is externalizing a social cost: Normally your neighbor (that you know personally, ideally, so you can discuss any matters with somebody you know) will take care of their visitors' conduct.
When we're away, we sometimes have friends over to house-sit, but we know them, we know their conduct, they know us, and they're not interested in giving us a bad reputation in the neighborhood.
With airbnb, the owner of the apartment likely doesn't know their "visitor" (otherwise, why pay a commission to airbnb?) and often they're not around to enforce standards. It's a huge diffusion of responsibility.
That's different. You know your friends. You don't know your airbnb guests, and the reviews are only worth so much. I can't find the article now, but some porn company had an easy time gaming airbnb by getting good reviews in the beginning and using the place for shoots on the 10th stay or whatever.
And, as a person who had I think ~15 airbnbs from 2015-2018, the recent change I don't like is that some houseowners hire an 18 year told (who I have to call and meet outside) and have him give me a hurried 10 minute intro and then leave. I actually _was_ one of those people who enjoyed airbnbs for the reasons they publicize (the 'it's not a hotel' line, the 'feel at home with friends!' type of thing) -- but that seems to have largely disappeared. Last time I was in an airbnb, I would always get these nasty glares from the neighborhoods, who seem to be just screaming "We don't want you here, strange" with their facial expressions. Staying at a hotel is indeed now much more comfortable, and the consistency of services (while not perfect) is better than airbnbs in my recent experiences.
But the guest is not automatically breaking the social contract by staying in an AirBnB, which is what was implied by the OC.
> the owner is potentially breaking the social contract by maybe allowing someone without respect for others to stay in their home
And a person walking around the gas station with an open flame is only potentially a fire hazard, because they may very well get lucky and not set any fuel fumes on fire.
Reality doesn't work like that. You drop the "potentially" once the risk becomes predictably high. The owner is breaking the social contract by putting their neighbors at very high risk of dealing with guests who don't respect other people.
> though ratings systems are generally used exactly to allow this type of vetting in advance
Ranking systems are trivially gamed. One would think everyone knows this by now.
> But the guest is not automatically breaking the social contract by staying in an AirBnB
No, they're not. But if they behave as if they were in a hotel while in a residential-area AirBnB, they most likely are. Maybe they should know better than to behave like that. But AirBnB should know better than enabling this problem in the first place.
> Reality doesn't work like that. You drop the "potentially" once the risk becomes predictably high. The owner is breaking the social contract by putting their neighbors at very high risk of dealing with guests who don't respect other people.
A flood of legitimate complaints about poor guest behavior would likely make me stop - i.e. the pattern is now predictably high enough to make a logical conclusion. I hope that my neighbors would be courteous enough to do the same.
> But AirBnB should know better than enabling this problem in the first place.
I think someone else touched on this, but I have a feeling that the location attracts different types of guests. Beaches are a great example. The surrounding area is a good indicator if the beach is a party beach or more oriented for family vacations. The former typically has brighter lights, more bars, clubs, and places open later. Family-friendly beaches usually shut down activity around 10 or 11 save for the corner store that's open later. I bet the Airbnb guest behavior reflect this as well.
As far as I’ve ever heard, as a guest, the worst that is going to happen is you are going to be thrown out. Municipalities in general don’t want to scare away tourists or visitors, so I would be surprised to see any fines or penalties in that directions.
Some municipalities have very large and escalating fines for listing on AirBnb. Miami Beach is $20,000 for first offense and I believe doubles on the second. Search “Airbnb Miami Beach” on google, and it is going to take you a while to figure that one out. I doubt most visitors have any idea.
Like many other things (search engine rankings come to mind), quality decreases as everybody figures out how to game the system to extract maximum profit for minimum effort. The rise of "superhosts" who manage dozens of properties from afar, using keypad locks to avoid any human interaction and contracting out cleaning to the lowest bidder, has undoubtedly been bad for the AirBnB experience. Yet AirBnB not only tolerates but actually celebrates them.
Sadly, too many people now are afraid of conflict, even small conflict, they prefer to call the police rather than deal with others directly. They don’t want to deal with it themselves.
That anxiety I’m sure goes up with unknown Airbnbers, and so raises the likely good that people will probably call the police instead.
This is the core of the problem. My neighbors across the hall might have a party from time to time and it's of course no big deal (espescially if they take the time to leave me a note with a way to contact them if it's causing a problem). My neighbors above me are always on their "special event once in a while" with 6 people in a 2 bedroom flat because today is their bachelorette, stag do, end of year blow out, holiday, party.
Do you charge them? I guess not. And it's one of the reasons why they'll do their best to honor your trust and reputation, aside from, obviously, your friendship, given you trust them.
and
> Tourists and visitors existing in a space
are very different things.
I was renting a room in a flat in Soho. The other floors slowly got converted to amateur hotels for airbnb/booking. Many a night, I'd see families stuck downstairs with luggage. They would then phone a capricious property manager who would tell them to walk about two miles to the key safe. Many a time, they didn't have a phone that worked in London, and I would lend them my phone. One angry customer checked in to the 5* boutique hotel next door after waiting for an hour. The hotel was about the same price. I wonder if he got his money back. I doubt it.
I don't book airbnbs. Hospitality is not for greedy unregulated amateurs. Of course, there might be some great hosts, but I like consistency.
I avoided the tourists with luggage looking puzzled standing at the front door; if I saw some I'd use the rear door instead.
When they rang my buzzer, I'd tell them AirBnB was banned, and leave the line open so they couldn't buzz anyone else for 2-3 minutes until it disconnected.
I also reported the apartments to the building owner, and they were kicked out after a few months.
These people know where they are, what time it is, and mostly what’s expected of their surroundings. I think they just don’t care. I’m guessing it’s similar to anonymity on the Internet, where people behave differently because they don’t expect to have to face those they harm.
Tourists are noisy and careless. That's to some extent forgivable - tourism is a leisure activity. Hotels and other legit tourism-oriented businesses are prepared for it and mostly take care of it (and are appropriately regulated to make sure they do). But take the same tourists doing the same things and sprinkle them around neighborhoods where regular people live and raise families - in that context, their behavior becomes disturbing and destructive to the quality of those neighborhoods. It's breaking social contract.
The sin of AirBnB is that they know they're making the world a worse place, and they don't care. They just keep doing it.
In Germany, one can openly drink any sort of alcohol one wants. But the social norms as such that jackassery by those consuming alcohol is greatly reduced. The people there are under a stronger social contract.
I suspect people who regularly “cheat” in business for example are acutely aware of the necessity of finding a constant source new interactions.
I also suspect that the stereotype of people from small towns being more naive than people from cities is also related to this.
It all seems kind of obvious to me as I write this post but I don’t think I’ve actually consciously directly thought about things on those terms until just now.
Yep, if you ever lived in a vacation destination you know.
Both of these AirBnb offered something way better than a hotel.
I do agree that that middle ground - a whole apartment in a mixed residential building - is problematic, and I'd feel awkward staying in that setting.
However there are still the questions of things like insurance coverage and other safety related topics. Basically if anything goes wrong in a hotel, there is staff who is required to be trained to be able to deal with it. Again, the cost associated with dealing with the 0.05% corner cases is distributed to everyone in the case of a hotel room, but to the specific person to whom it happens in the airbnb case.
To be fair, if you really want to rent a whole house, the hotel industry doesn't often provide good options ....
There's a huge bicycling event in Texas every spring, and it overnights in a town that is, most of the time, very very quiet. The meager hotel inventory is sufficient 364 days of the year, but absurdly low for the weekend of the MS150.
& so, homeshare sites make a killing that weekend.
Your example is one of the few edge cases where AirBnB works. The OP is talking about an everyday situation where AirBnB has instead had a detrimental effect on residents as well as would-be residents.
Personally I don't mind AirBNB if it's only people renting out rooms in their residences. For instance here in Portland the law requires this. But it's poorly enforced.
Currently we hear it a lot regarding housing density, but it's also a factor in locating sewage treatment plants, nuclear waste disposal sites, etc.
I'm going to choose door number 2 every time. Any time I am given the choice to buy something, especially a higher-quality experience at a lower price, from a human being versus a corporation, the human gets my money.
Just like I prefer Uber to taxis, I prefer AirBNB to hotels. Even Hostels now, if I go into Amsterdam I will pay $35-$50 per night. If there are two of us, the $50 per night AirBNB is our choice.
These businesses flourish because the social contract is broken. Creating artificial scarcity will harm the community in the long run, preventing tourism and limiting the ability of home owners / tenants to make a couple of extra bucks on under-utilized resources.
Whatever this social contract is, I've never signed it, and I don't really recognize anybody else telling me I must abide by this contract upon which I was given no opportunity to vote or discuss.
One way is to say that uberized businesses are all like this: they remove costs from the sticker price and externalize them. It's the ryanair model as applied to other things. Removing insurance and offloading the costs of not having insurance onto the users, removing proper benefits for staff and externalizing the costs from that onto society, removing quality of service items and requiring users to make up the difference (like doing your own housekeeping in an airbnb, or uber drivers having to provide their own vehicles).
The other way of looking at it is these services providing a middle ground. People may not wish the "full option" service, and are prepared to pay less to get less. Someone who wants the full service can still get it, there are now just more options.
I noticed this particularly in Princeton, NJ. A cute, small, and overly expensive town. Anyway, I was visiting the university on business, and if you stay downtown it is easy to get everywhere without a car.
Except... there are few hotels downtown, and no budget hotels. For those you have to stay near the highway (and hence rent a car).
The "social contract" would require that I view my own presence as a nuisance, even though I was being quiet and going to bed early. I decided that I didn't have any qualms about renting via Airbnb/Craigslist.
Are you implying that tourists/visitors/non-locals should have as much say in local rules/policies/etc as the people that actually own property and live in those locations? If so I 100% disagree. While airbnbs are a less extreme example, look at tourist locations all around the world and how they are being destroyed and local populations are being displaced. The "social contract" SHOULD be biased in favor of people that actually live in and contribute to the area
As much? No. (However, I do strongly believe that locals who rent should have as much say; often their interests are not aligned with those of homeowners.)
I agree that in some cases, such as locations with huge numbers of tourists where local populations are being driven out, drastic measures are required.
In general, personally, I would favor a compromise involving a lot more regulation (e.g. of AirBnBs in apartment buildings) on the one hand, and making it easier to operate hotels on the other. I support homeowners who don't want informal hotels to be operated out of their apartment buildings; less so, homeowners who don't want hotels (whether formal or not) to be opened anywhere nearby.
So you're saying I don't have the right to want those things? That new people coming into that kind of environment should be allowed to, even though there is nearly literally anywhere else in the f-ing world they can go.
I'm not saying you, in particular, are going to bother me, you sound quiet - but why should I give up on upholding the social contracts the neighborhood has established for decades for a rowdy party animals to blast through every weekend?
But, I also believe that new people coming into that kind of environment should be allowed to. People step on each other's toes, and it can be annoying. But I still don't believe that people have the right to keep other people out.
They generally are. But it's not practical to enforce them in a condition of a lot of short-term rentals, where people rotate on a weekly basis. Before AirBnB, that might not have been a problem, but now that's trivially easy to become a pirate hotel anywhere in the world, people are pushing to ban such rentals in residential areas, because it's the only way to make the problem go away.
That's another negative side effect right here. Occasional vacation sublet by a thoughtful homeowner doesn't hurt anybody. But those cases become collateral damage of the effort to fight off AirBnB's pirate hotels.
You could be right. I would like to think that there is some option which would make everyone more-or-less happy, but it could be that I'm being too optimistic.
My neighbours are much more careful at 4am, and each might only leave like this a couple of times a year. An apartment on AirBnB has this pretty much every week.
You don't of course. Anyone shouting at 4am is being exceedingly rude; if there's any social contract in place, then they certainly aren't honoring their end of it.
Under these circumstances, I certainly wouldn't blame you for advocating to your municipal government that they crack down on AirBnBs. I would just hope that that government try to find some way to simultaneously keep the needs of visitors in mind. Maybe there is not a true win-win scenario here, but the status quo doesn't seem to be working well for anyone.
I didn't know I was party to this contract, and I couldn't tell you what the terms are.
I travel a lot for work and I stay almost exclusively in AirBnb because I like having my money and a nice home-like experience.
I still don't understand how society would benefit from AirBnb not existing and us being where we started with the hotel cabal.
"Hotel cabal" is bullshit. Slightly less bullshit than Uber's "taxi mafia", but still a steaming pile of bovine excrement.
AirBnB is a multinational corporation. It's displacing not just large hotel chains, but also all the local legal forms of short-term accommodation - small hotels, hostels, motels, BnBs, etc.
It really bewilders me that people have fallen for the same reality-inverting marketing propaganda not once, but twice. AirBnB and Uber aren't underdogs fighting cabals, they're SV-money-pumped cabals fighting small local businesses.
Having personally made “status” in the various hotel cabal loyalty programs, and having used AirBnb/VRBO/HomeAway/etc... many many times as well. I say with confidence that the hotel chains have negative externalities that exceed those of the various short term rental sites. I’ll go so far as saying the hotel cabal is a net negative.
I can see harm in it. But the solution isn't enabling yet another single company to expand and capture even more of the hospitality market.
> I say with confidence that the hotel chains have negative externalities that exceed those of the various short term rental sites.
Name three.
2. Wages are low
3. Architectural blight/reduces walk-ability
AirBnb (of whom I’ve been very critical in the past)
1. Encourages property ownership and wealth building amongst the middle class
2. Enables the middle class to extract the maximum value from their assets
3. Offers a better product at a lower price
4. Keeps profits local
Everyone assumes the hotels are complying with all local statues and are behaving in good faith just because they pay occupancy taxes and carry insurance. Bizarre.
Local city councils can and do enact laws for short term rentals and the short term rental companies have whole departments of developers who program those laws into the system. If those laws are not being followed then the justice department should do its job.
Many of the people on this site don't see or experience the downsides, as we are privileged enough to own our own properties or have our own space not impacted by airbnb. However, consider for example a family living in inexpensive housing with parents that work and children that are in school. There have been many cases of wealthy individuals purchasing/renting blocks of cheap apartments/condos and turning them into defacto hotels with no rules leading to partying, destruction of property, increased crime, and other issues. How would you feel if where you lived was suddenly overrun with short term tenants that are having a negative impact on your way of life, and not being able to afford to move?
That is how society would benefit form AIrbnb not existing. It may not benefit engineers making 100k+, but it would positively impact many in lower socioeconomic classes
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/reader-center/airbnb-new-...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/17/airbnb-nu...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/airbnb-affordable-housing-gen...
Does your airbnb host have proper insurance? For example you flood the apartment you rented from airbnb and the downstairs apartment owner sues you. IANAL but I'm fairly sure that usually in home insurance cases short term rentals aren't covered.
If it's over 50% or you are not living there at all, you need a permit.
http://www.haniotika-nea.gr/90-meres-to-chrono-i-enikiasi-me...
It's 90 days, 60 days on small islands and you can only go over that limit if you're low-income. Compliance is a different issue, because Greece, but hopefully AirBnB and the other platforms will help police this.
Why ? what's different about dutch culture?
Instead of a new hotel or hostel getting built, there won’t be demand for it and an apartment will be built instead (or some other structure).
Even something as simple as a fridge with usable space, not packed with minibar stuff, is hard to find. Hotels aren't very comfortable places to stay.
EDIT: I'm sorry, I only just realized that "hostel" in Europe means something entirely different from "hostel" in the US. What I mean by "hostel", per how we use this term in Poland, is a cheaper version of a hotel, where you still rent by the room, and rooms are usually 1, 2, and 3-5 people-sized, and usually have kitchen and a bathroom in the room. They're not like dorms, they don't involve shared bunk beds. I don't know what the right term in the US is. Bed&Breakfast?
In principle, hostels have everything. A fridge, a kitchen and so on. In practice, though, you have to label all your food because there is one fridge for 50 people. You need to share the kitchen with everyone else too. Privacy is limited. Noise is biblical. Fucking party dickhead bros everywhere ruining everything. Creaky floorboards and noisy doors. I've done hostels all over Europe, and while there are exceptions, the exceptions tend to cost a bit more too.
Hostels are OK when you're young and broke and very adaptable. I used them a lot, and am grateful they exist. But they do NOT fulfill what the GP is asking about.
If it says "we have a great atmosphere, and go clubbing every night" it's a party hostel.
If it says "we have family and dorm rooms, kitchens and car parking" it's probably for families or school trips.
There are also hostels used by people who are essentially homeless, though I've never seen one advertised. I knew someone who volunteered at one.
On hotels.com, what you're looking for is described as an "apart-hotel".
Not in America. You might find a few in & near major cities, but hotels and motels are everywhere, bed & breakfasts are fairly common, and AirBnBs are plentiful.
I haven't personally stayed in one, because I have enough money that I'd never have to, but the impression I have is that one would contain a bed, a desk, a chair, a not-entirely-spotless bathroom, and not much else.
The quality varies from pretty tired and not so clean, as you say, to--if not upscale exactly--to comfortable, modern, and clean.
Hostel in Ireland and UK invariably means cheap shared accommodation for young people, with facilities in common areas.
But yeah, if you want to cook, the options are slimmer. There ARE still options -- Extended Stay America, in the US, for example -- but mostly you'd be better off renting a property and not a hotel room.
Exactly, every business hotel I've ever seen has had a fridge, kitchen-style sink and a microwave. Then touristy locations often have condo rentals on a weekly basis which will have proper kitchens and washer & dryer, if you're travelling long enough to need a kitchen it's probably going to be a week or more.
Worst case people can do what Americans have been doing for decades, travel with a cooler and refill with new ice as needed. We did this all throughout my childhood when we'd go to Florida from Indiana, we'd eat out for dinner and sometimes for breakfast the whole trip but lunch was pretty much always sandwiches made from perishables kept in a cooler. We'd keep drinks in a small igloo and then we'd usually buy a large Styrofoam cooler for the food.
Not really my experience although a small refrigerator that isn't a minibar is more common than it used to be. Outside of extended stay hotels though, I don't see a microwave or other kitchen-related features very often.
Here in Switzerland (once again, sorry for being generally mixed up with Sweden), most buildings are owned by investment funds, life insurance companies, banks, etc..
So the exact opposite of what you describe happens - to maximize profits at close to zero risk. Cities are having a really hard time keeping a lid on companies that restructure whole buildings to use as short-time rentals.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-airbnb-covert-l...
It was impossible to study most days because of kids to illicit renters running around screaming and biking in the corridors.
But it's just a civil agreement between property owners, isn't it? Is breaking that civil agreement a criminal matter that needs police attention?
Lost you there, how exactly? I live in one of these buildings. They can just tell you they are relatives or housesitters, then what?
If a person in a building that is not Airbnb-able, trust me, they will tell their tenants to say these things. I have experienced it myself in several Airbnbs i have stayed in.
My city actually prohibits the use of residential buildings for short-term lets by planning permission. Though as far as I can tell despite the hundreds of air bnb listings nobody has actually applied for it!
I've appealed for enforcement to the local govt and am hopeful that this will resolve my issue. :-)
I haven't personally experimented sharing a building with an Airbnb rented flat, but I know a few people who have. Saying that they are not happy is an understatement.
I've also heard about tenants (normal tenants, i.e. rented by the month) who rented one of the flat's rooms in Airbnb, which in the end caused complains from the neighbours to the flat owner. IIRC this is illegal in my country, but it's not like that is much of a deterrent, apparently.
Seriously, fuck Airbnb. They are the number one cause of the decrease in purchasing power and quality of life in my area in the latest year, and believe me, that's saying something.
- The noise level is within the reasonable legal limit: Tourists are exercising their rights to use the condo, in the same way that the owner (main renter) could have done. Whether it's the owner making the noise or the tourists is immaterial.
- The noise levels are above the legal limits, inform them (courtesy) and then call the cops. whether it's the owner, or the tourists it's the same thing.
Similarly, in some villages, you are NOT welcome to tear down an old building and build a modern monstrosity in its place. Facade changes often need to be approved by the local authorities. The advantage is that villages look more homogeneous and thus more beautiful.
On the one hand, such a society means the Swiss will sometimes call the cops if you're noisy, or if you parked your car wrong etc. And it DOES get infuriating no doubt.
However, such things tend to load to a society where everyone has a baseline level of self-awareness and sensitivity towards those around you. It translates to all sort of good things like the 'zipper' approach to intersections, where you let someone in, and then the next car lets you in, and the virtuous cycle continues.
Ultimately, if I had to choose, I'd much prefer such a seciety, even if it errs on too much strictness. The quality of life is amazing.
And the problem with AirBnb is that every new set of guests re-rolls the dice on how they're likely to react.
You know how many fucks I give about my neighbor's power tools at odd hours or my other neighbor's loud birds or my other neighbor who's always smoking weed, or my other neighbor who's always getting loud and drunk with his buddies and all the other things people around me do that some find disagreeable?
Zero.
Those things are what a free society sounds and smells like. The people who want everyone around them to abide by an upper middle class standard of behavior where everyone keeps their lawn just the right height, ensures non-running cars are parked out of view and (practically) never makes any noise can move to an upper middle class neighborhood.
Edit:
I'm being serious. People need to care less what their neighbors do. Caring what your neighbors do and slowly codifying that over time is what gave us the affordable and walk-able utopias of SF, LA, DMV, etc.
You say that, like it's something surprising. A Priori, a person will do anything as long as it does not violate his own self imposed code of conduct.
That code of conduct need not be the same for everyone.
Laws, religion, moral codes are used to codify parts that are shared by a group of people.
In a civil state, the only part that you can force people to abide to, is that of the law in the general sense. (because they have a right to have a different religion, different moral doctorines etc..).
of course, people can self impose stricter rules on themselves but they can't impose rules stricter than the law on others.
> In this case, it's leading to cities trying to ban or restrict AirBNB
yeah, they can. I agree with you here. And I'm sure there is many valid reasons to do so.
My point is noise,in my opinion, is not one.
Inacceptable levels of noise should be banned regardless of the type of the rental contract.
for example, increased demand on housing making long term renting too expensive, is a valid one. Because it's a necessary result of airbnb.
My general point of view, is that one should ban / disadvantage X because of undesirable property Y, only if Y is an essential property/consequence of X.
I like this principal because it's general enough to be equivalent to "one shouldn't punish the innocent" and prohibition of racism directly follows from it.
But far lower volume noise every evening would be far more disruptive.
You can get that with long term renters too, but typically it tends to be a bigger problem with certain types of use, such as vacation rentals, than others, and with long term renters you have more ability to try to resolve the issue before someone new moves in.
In this case increased average noise level is an observable property of short term/vacation rentals in a lot of locations. If the people renting out does not want it to be banned, then it is on them to ensure the people they rent to are considerate enough that residents are happy for it to continue.
I discovered this after stumbling across some darkly funny bad reviews and then diving into their API to look for more of the same.
..Not that I am neither condoning nor condemning finding a way to dock the property a star over time. Personally I'm pretty tolerant of happy neighbourly noise - I like to feel like I have life around me, and I have a fairly good memory of how loud a neighbor I was when I was younger.
- my point, it's easier to attack a group of people , if you can put a label on them. Noise is a problem regardless of its source.
A noisy long term neighbour is at least as annoying as a noisy tourist. And a calm tourist is less annoying. Being noisy is not an essential property of airbnb rentals.
Those who are noisy should suffer the consequences of their actions. Those who are not, should not.
The second part of my argument, is "my rights start where your rights end".
if the tourists/owner/ whatever has a right to make that noise, then you don't have the right to prevent them from doing that noise.
If they don't have the right to make that noise level, then they don't have that right regardless of who they are.
Because something disadvantages you, it doesn't mean that others don't have the right to do it.
For a permanent neighbor at least you may be able to take some action against them but with Airbnb the people will change every few days or weeks.
When I lived next to several Airbnbs the problem was non stop. Sometimes I could talk to people and they would begrudgingly quiet down but in a few days they would be replaced by someone else and the whole thing would repeat. For tourists they are only there for a few days or weeks but for the people living there it is their whole life.
In my experience as well it's a lot more common to find bad tourists then bad permanent residents. A lot of tourists will be gone in a short time so a lot wont care how much noise they make or by the time they are told or realize they are being too loud you may get a few days of quite before someone new turns up. Most permanent residents have to see each other a lot more and the repercussions for upsetting their neighbor are much more likely.
"Common courtesy" is a very vague term and changes from place to place
If you can't rigorously define something, you certainly still can work with it, pursue it, use it, regulate it, etc. Consider: art, love, health, happiness, pregnancy, ...
- The condo rules or the co-op lease forbids rentals for less than a month, in which case the owner is in violation of his lease or agreement.
- The apartment is in a jurisdiction which holds short term rentals illegal, and the owner is breaking the law.
Regardless of the level of the noise.
Even if there is laws this doesn't mean that hotels are free from pervert.
Random idea: internet connected decibel meter in ceiling or Alexa type device that tracks noise levels above a certain threshold and doesn't record any conversations, just measures decibel levels (100% legal). If consistently above city noise ordinances, renters get fined by Airbnb and ultimately banned if it keeps occurring across bookings. Is this too intrusive? I bet smart speakers can already achieve this functionality. Neighbors should have peaceful enjoyment is my motivation behind the system. Thoughts?
Sure, cameras happen in hotels too, but there is a gigantic liability machine -- the hotel company -- which has its ass on the line if there is a camera found; plus it makes their brand look like shit and is a hashtag away from trouble. It also means there is an org to go after with grievances if you find something in a hotel.
Maybe neighbors can leave reviews on guests? Maybe a unit can be forced to be delisted with enough complaints?
Who knows but automatically banning things isn’t always the answer.
Not saying any complaints about guests are baseless, but they're balancing a small amount of comfort for them against what would be life-changing value for us.
... at least legally. I assume you could work something out for your case with people you know who are in need of a place to stay for vacation, or - at a higher risk - with second-degree connections, or even complete strangers. It's not a perfect solution but it does place the risk where it belongs - on you. You have to make absolutely sure that the guests you invite aren't causing problems, or else someone will rat you out.
But booking out entire apartments is the problem. My friend lives in London and the block is being overtaken by Airbnb, and it’s making him miserable. Too much noise, too little sleep.
Having the city ban it entirely is extreme. There are plenty of locations in (almost?) every city where a B&B could operate without bothering anyone. Why ban something everywhere when it is only a problem in certain places?
It's hard to make people behave well (for any definition of "well"), and the way it's usually done involves community - a social structure composed of people who spend significant time together, and which evolves and maintains its own code of conduct.
It's easier to mitigate bad behavior. That's why legit hospitality businesses are structured and regulated in a way that "eats" the consequences of bad conduct and doesn't let them leak out. AirBnB did nothing to "find some way to incentivise good behaviour from people"[0], but unleashed those people onto communities that were unprepared to handle the bad behaviour.
It's kind of like - wouldn't it be better to find a way to neuter nuclear waste so that it's not dangerous? Yes, it would. But we don't know how to do that, so the next best alternative is to box it up in designated storage locations. AirBnB is essentially letting anyone with a house become a nuclear storage facility, with no care for safe storage.
--
[0] - well, they made a rating system, but I think that in 2019, it's universally recognized that rating systems are trivially gameable and generally don't work too well.
- Hotel rooms are more uniform (and just have less stuff) so a camera is easier to identify or harder to hide.
- Hotel rooms are visited not just by many guests but by many staff. If you place a camera you are sort of rolling the dice that no one that works in the hotel (and for example, cleans dozens of nearly identical rooms every day) is going to notice or won't care if they do notice.
- Hotels usually have management that cares about their reputation and hence would take direct and indirect measures to prevent someone from placing a camera in one of the rooms (e.g., scrutiny when hiring, limiting access to rooms, acting swiftly and severely when anything like this happens). (AirBnB does not seem to be interested in this sort of policing in particular.)
- Many hotels are part of a large chain, which does everything that individual managers do but on a larger and more systematic scale.
- It is almost certainly a crime to place an undisclosed camera in a hotel room (while inside someone's AirBnB it may be more of a gray area). This is both a deterrent and (by removing such people from the employee pool) a mitigation strategy.
- Beyond being a crime, hotel management and hotel chains are probably subject to lawsuits in the event one of their employees (or an outsider for that matter) successfully plants a camera in one of their rooms. This is also a deterrent and mitigation strategy.
I don't really have anything against AirBnB (in moderation) but I do think it is reasonable to assert that an AirBnB room is more likely to contain hidden cameras than the typical reputable hotel room.
yeah Let them eat cake
This.
I'm sorry but there is something inherently wrong about letting a stranger (that isn't a professional, like CDL/chauffeur license/pilot license at a minimum) drive you around and staying in a stranger's home. I'm not at all shocked when people go "I was recorded in an Airbnb!" as, well, yeah it's someone's house... I wouldn't trust anything about it, I'm actually surprised someone hasn't been caught running a voyeurism pay site for their Airbnb yet.
And as far as the car services, we already have multiple acts of violence to varying levels. A friend in the past few weeks had to report a driver after he offered her lotion upon picking her up and then before dropping her off started telling her how beautiful she was and how he gives massages at which point she cancelled the ride and got out and a co-worker of mine took an older couple home race weekend (May) and they invited her to come in and use their hot tub... I imagine stuff like this, and far far worse, is quite common and largely unreported.
I practically lived out of different hostels, and one a few peoples' couches, for about 11 months once:
Hostels, at least in (most of?) Europe, are essentially cheaper hotels, usually without a minibar and with much less upselling. Or, in terms I know from US cinema, they're like motels without the car culture aspect.
I must have stayed in something like 30 different hostels in Poland over the course of last decade; it was always in single bed or two-bed rooms, with the whole room rented for me. I never used booking.com, though, but always did a Google search for "hostele w $city", and reserved room via phone or web form.
They are basically a ring of super bright LEDs with a colored lens in the middle you put up to your eye and scan around the room. The light reflects off the curved glass of the lens and the filter helps you see it.
The less effective but impromptu version of this is just holding a super bright flashlight between your eyes (facing out), but you kinda need to have to done it before to know what to look for.
Another confusing attack is to put a camera behind a much larger half-slivered mirror... that does the job too because everything reflects... add a circular polarizer to that :^\
https://www.aliexpress.com/i/32731641924.html
Looks like an arms race easy to win.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_junction_detector
Expensive, but surely there's someone providing such a service nearby?
They were developed at a time when electronic equipment was far less common, so the presence of electronics was more suspicious; now, you can come across things like deeply embedded RFID tags (only used for inventory tracking) in otherwise completely non-electronic products.
There are defeats for nonlinear detectors, like a three port circulator with a resistor. In turn there are more advanced detection methods, but now you are getting in to tools not publicly available.
This is the professional version (~$1500), for comparison: https://www.selcomsecurity.com/en/products/data-leakage-chan...
Ofc, doesn't work with cameras that don't have IR.
A good way to test that is by using an old-fashioned TV remote with an IR emitter and look for it to glow when pressing a button. It's a good way to test the batteries too!
Many hotels do charge unjustified amounts of money, so I am personally happy there is an option to pay reasonable money for good service. Also, it's not like hotels don't have their share of problems. Many hotels in many countries offer you pure garbage when you arrive, mix rooms, bad food, etc. And in many hotels, you can't sleep because of loud tourists or your hotel neighbors. With Airbnb when you find a listing with 30+ 5star reviews, at least you are sure it matches pictures and description.
So obviously, Airbnb has its flaws, just like any other service. But hotels are definitely not the solution to them, at least from a tourist's point of view, though I absolutely see how they are for some local residents.
Airbnb is evil, because it facilitates and profits from rule and lawbreaking, up to and including turning whole apartment buildings into pirate hotels, while spinning the tale that it's all about individuals occasionally renting out their primary place of residence for a couple of days. It's evil because while occasional random temporary sublets aren't a problem, they become a problem when they stop being random and instead become a coordinated, frequent phenomenon.
It's evil because its whole business model is making money by encouraging people to break social contract and do wrong against their neighbors.
Sure, hotels, motels, hostels, and all other legit accomodations aren't perfect. But this isn't the way to fix them.
VRBO isn’t inherently bad, hijacking VRBO into a stealth hotel business and breaking the social contract of residential neighbourhoods is.
And what's extra sad here is that once a company like Uber or AirBnB gains large-scale success, there are only two things that happen. Some places accept it and eat the social externalities. Others try to ban the practice, but legislation is expensive, enforcement is expensive, and it also hurts the society by making illegal what was previously just fine on a small scale.
I think societies need to learn to recognize this pattern ASAP, because the best outcome is nipping such companies in the bud, before they grow and leave only two bad options on the table.
EDIT: Related is this post I read once:
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/
It calls "sharing economy" a locust economy - an economy based on making money off leading masses of people to destroy other businesses, and ultimately each other.
This is the other thing that leaves me feeling salty. Wholesale abuse of prerogatives usually results in those being taken away from everyone.
The other thing I'm saly about is when I started in tech you had two 'prongs'. One was defense companies. Which also served as tech incubators and dual use tech companies. And then mostly commercial tech companieswhich was focused on products people wanted. I feel like now a lot of tech is about enabling exploitation. Providing no benefit to ordinary people at all. And worse these companies produce zero low to minimal skill jobs.
Who are you specificities referring to when you say ‘societies’? Government? Consumers?
Not always, but typically it does, as one usually breaks laws to benefit themselves at the expense of others, either direct or through second-order effects.
> For every reason that AirBnB is "evil" for breaking the law, you could come up with a reason that the law is "evil" for existing in the first place.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Whether or not the laws need changing doesn't justify breaking them (or encouraging people to do so), especially not when that act of disobedience has well-understood and well-documented negative consequences to society at large. It's not like AirBnB (or Uber) are doing this to make the world a better place - they figured out a business model that's essentially burning social trust and cohesion as if it was a fuel.
But I think the use of the world "evil" here is really bad - it's both wrong, in my mind, and is also hurting your case, because people who can be convinced of it might be put off by insisting that "no, it's evil".
I mean, evil implies a lot of things - it implies this is done intentionally. It implies that anyone working at Airbnb is by association evil. It implies that there is no working with Airbnb.
Whereas if we thought about it more neutrally, we'd have both much clearer remedies, and a much more appealing argument. Instead of "Airbnb is evil, because is facilitates...", we could say "Airbnb causes problems, because it facilitates...". Therefore the solution could be to regulate it in some way. It sounds a lot more silly to say "X is evil, so the solution is to regulate it".
EDIT: I know that you were using the word evil because of the gp, and I disagree with their use of it just as much. I also disagree with gp's point, that it's an "either/or" on who is really evil in this situation.
Airbnb is just a platform. Its users break laws. Just like there are bad landlords for long term rent, same is here only for the short term. The problem is landlords that break laws and turn homes into hotels etc.
> because it facilitates and profits from rule and lawbreaking,
Every business profits from grey areas, and even from regulations which give them advantages. Hotels are also big offenders to this (regulate against their competitors/barrier to entry even before airbnb).
> they become a problem when they stop being random
When there is demand, people find supply. People want ways to live temporarily, and airbnb accelerates this trend. People believing their neighborhoods should never change by tourism/immigration/gentrification are not necessarily less evil
> by encouraging people to break social contract
the social contract may need an update? It's not like anyone ever signs those anyway. People move a lot nowadays, and maybe the idea of an idyllic quiet downtown neighborhood cannot exist without paying premium anymore. There are trends like digital nomading and remote work which are in a steady rise for a decade, and it will only keep rising. Airbnb is perfectly positioned to serve this alternative social contract
Basically it's the understanding that we're all in this together and we shouldn't mess things in some way for other people purely for our own benefit. Think of it as avoiding negative-sum situations. More formally:
an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits, for example by sacrificing some individual freedom for state protection. Theories of a social contract became popular in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries among theorists such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as a means of explaining the origin of government and the obligations of subjects.
We're talking about something much more fundamental than social norms you might call patriarchal or cis-/hetero-normative or anything like that. This is the kind of behavior that keeps you from getting punched. And most people are explicitly taught these behaviors as children, whether in pre-school / kindergarten or just by being around other children at all.
Surely we can identify much more important factors propping up the current social order.
You seem to refer to something else.
Which is why we don't have to reinvent civilization every generation, forever not leaving the caves.
> and is a concept loved only by those benefiting from the current order.
Which, under reflection, should be most people, as the alternatives available through abandoning civilized society are strictly worse.
Take Toronto where the by-laws are too strict (11pm cutoff) but the enforcement is lax. It should be reversed.
""" After Hours noise complaints
At this time ML&S officers do not work at night/shifts. However, in some instances (when warranted as part of an investigation) an ML&S officer will make arrangements to conduct an inspection during the evening/early morning/weekends. These arrangements are generally made after direct contact with the complainant and/or submission of noise logs. """
https://www.toronto.ca/311/knowledgebase/kb/docs/articles/mu...
Note that you can get a full refund if the host breaks these rules.
If you can't rent out your place without recording your renters, you dont need to be renting.
My point in including the link to the help article is to point out that AirBnB is on the side of disclosure -- so you as a consumer can make that choice for yourself.
Somehow, I don't think many hotels would be that transparent.
AirBnB is on the side of disclosure for this specific problem, which isn't a problem in hotels unless someone is breaking the law.
He rented again and the girl asked if she could rent for a few more months. So they signed a standard city lease outside Airbnb and she hasn't left or paid. He's had to file eviction. That obviously isn't AirBNB's fault, but it's now 2 for 2 bad experiences that started with AirBNB.
I wonder how many people install cameras in just the entrances/open areas more as a general liability thing. It probably goes against Airbnb policies, might be unethical or illegal in some jurisdictions, but considering the horror stories on both sides, I can understand why it happens.
Can you clarify that? How does adding a camera near the entrance avoid liability? The examples given it wouldn't have helped, particularly if positioned where suggested.
Plus in that scenario they should be overt cameras not covert. If for no other reason that there's no real concept of the entrance area being any less private than anywhere else in the abode.
That seems like a point for AirBnB to me. This happened by going outside of AirBnB and doing a normal lease, which has those risks. If a guest is somehow avoiding paying, that is AirBnB's problem to deal with
Why have companies require FDA approval/inspections if it doesn't guarantee that there isn't some poison in your food?
If a hotel is required to maintain a standard of privacy, then you better believe the brand tries to maintain some compliance to that standard. If Marriott found out that one of it's hotels was putting recording devices in their rooms, you better believe the corporate office would come down on that hotel. If not for legal reasons, public image and brand reputation.
I ran into a situation where there was an undisclosed camera inside a room I rented (with the bathroom in its field of view, no less!). It put me in a tough spot because in an unfamiliar city, I don't want to cancel my room and have to look for another, but I also don't want to be spied on either. I covered the camera and disclosed it to AirBNB after the fact. I'm not sure what happened to the hosts, if anything.
In any case you should also say so in the review so other guests are warned. The host can't see your review until after they review you themselves.
BTW, some states have laws that extend this to an entire living space, including kitchen etc.
There is currently a debate on some Airbnb forums about smart speakers, whether they are a nice-touch or just creepy.
lol... many smart TVs are not innocent devices
If it was me I would start by disabling the local modem and router. That doesn't take care of cameras that have on-board SD cards, but it is a good start.
A personal spy cam in a rental home is bad enough, but the fact that there are so many open to the world (and therefore indexed on Shodan) makes it infinitely worse.
Cameras INSIDE a home is just not OK. I cannot imagine a single legitimate purpose where that is OK, can you?
Most AirBnB guests are not doing what you describe. Call the police, and let AirBnB ban the loud ones.
Lengths to which the SV crowd would go to pretend that it is not absolutely, thoroughly, and irredeemably morally bankrupt are truly scary...