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Comment by noduerme | Hacker News Reader

Yes, I did. The whole point is that I wasn't just a one-or-two-day ghost. I lived in these places for as I said 3-6 months (in one case almost a year). So I knew my neighbors, and treated them as I would neighbors in any other apartment I rented as a regular tenant.

[edit] I should just add that I'm as embarrassed to make noise or screw with anyone's living space as a homeowner as I was as a tenant. I could make $400/nt renting my own house on Airbnb and go live in Morocco or Chile and just live off the fat of the land (read: being an American with access to credit). I frankly would never do it. I'd rent it to long-term tenants, or I'd sell it, before I'd subject my neighbors on the other side to what the airbnb jerks have subjected me to. And as a tenant, even with a piano that's calling me to play at 2am, I'm not going to wake anyone up.

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What it is that leads you to believe the 3-6 months thing is so significant? There are (a very small proportion of) AirBnB guests who are awful. There are (a very small proportion of) longer-term tenants who are awful. At least with AirBnB, the awful guests are gone after a couple of nights.

I know some AirBnBs are used as party destinations, and that's different -- but it's a problem with those hosts, not with the platform. AirBnB make it pretty easy to telegraph that your property is completely unsuitable for loud gatherings, and anyone who puts a piano in a short-term rental is an idiot.

There's no magical cutoff at 3-6 months, but the game theory is that the longer the relationship, the more of a repeated game there is, and the less socially destructive things you'll likely do.

If I'm going to live with a neighbor for ten years, in addition to purely friendly reasons, I'm going to say hi to her and get to know her. Whereas at a hotel I'm overnighting at, if I'm not in a chatty mood, I don't see the reason to oblige a neighbor's request for a 20 minute chat.

If you’ve ever lived next to an active Airbnb I don’t think you’d ask this question. The issues with an endless stream of short term guests are like in your face obvious.

You’re getting people who are in a leisure situation basically 100% of the time. Your normal neighbors aren’t like this.

Even just the transitions are disruptive. Picture a European couple unable to figure out how to open the door with 4 suitcases completely blocking the entrance to your building and making it impossible to go in and out every single time you come home, for one highly specific example plucked from the real world.

Exactly. It's not even that the people mean to be disrespectful, they just don't understand that they're talking loudly 6" from your bedroom window, and this happens every day. Sometimes I used to live in motels where I would wake up every morning to people dragging their luggage out. I used to rent apartments. Finally I bought a house. And now... it's like I'm back in the motel.

Where I live, many (perhaps even majority of) buildings have apartments that are rented as short-term tourist rentals, and I've lived in many such buildings. I never perceived any issues with short term guests.

I unfortunately live underneath a floor that is rented out on vacasa. During the week I have to get up earlyish for work, and it's only occasionally annoying. But since these people are vacationing or just visiting, especially on the weekends, they'll often violate the building's noise ordinances Friday and Saturday night. So the only two days I ought to be able to sleep in, they're partying till 3am, banging around, stomping on the floor, and then sometimes getting up at 6am and banging around to go be a tourist. I've had to call the police multiple times.

It's not the 3-6 months thing that's difference. It's that you signed up to live in an apartment with neighbors and instead you find yourself in an unstaffed hotel where there is no one on site to manage unruly guests violating lease agreements. And all they'll do if you call them (Vacasa at least) is to text the people causing the problem.

Even simple examples can come to light - someone who lives next door for 3 months is unlikely to be able to perpetually party every single night; but an AirBNB on the coast could see a party each night.

Another huge thing is people learn to live with consistent annoyances; if your neighbor runs a leaf blower at 8 AM every Saturday, you may hate it but you learn to live around it. If instead, he were to run a leaf blower randomly at different times it would get really annoying.

There are awful homeowners to. Based on Nextdoor I'd wager the fraction of them is higher than the other groups

I think the fact that the 3-6 months was negotiated directly with the landlord is more significant than the length of time itself. They essentially had to take their listing off Airbnb and rent it as a regular furnished apartment. This enforces a mutual sense of responsibility and respect on myself and them which is perhaps even more than would exist in a typical lease agreement, because it's done under "special circumstances". Whether you blame the hosts or the platform or the guests, that sort of respect for a place and a host just is not possible when everything is done through a giant corporate medium; and it's also not possible if it's only done for a short period of time, since there's limited accountability.

3-6 months isn't so important, but it's about where things start to be serious. Water pipes leak. Refrigerators break. You get to know people.

that sort of respect for a place and a host just is not possible when everything is done through a giant corporate medium

I find the claim that you can't respect someone else's property just because you rent it through an intermediary... strange.

Whenever I'm in an AirBnB, I'm well aware that this is someone else's stuff and that (at least) common decency requires me to treat it with care and respect.

I think for me it's less about how well the renter behaves and more about the turnover rate: how often will I, as a neighbor, see a new face next door?

At 3-6 months, not often. At 1-7 days, quite often, which may give the feel of it being a hotel.

> So I knew my neighbors, and treated them as I would neighbors in any other apartment I rented as a regular tenant.

Tangential, but I have lived for 10 years in the same apartment and I have never interacted with my neighbours. Not even once.

Elevators. I talk a lot and only about 50% of people seem to mind.

The etiquette seems to be that if someone is waiting for the very small elevator, the other person takes the stairs.

Can you tell me more about what you mean by "airbnb jerks have subjected me to" ?

Honestly, my family and I use airbnb pretty frequently, and I would like to think that we're considerate guests... but, maybe there's something we're missing? What makes the guests next-door to you bad ones (or great ones) ?

I was referring more to the owners than to the guests. Most of the guests are polite and quiet, although it's impossible for them not to wake me up when they're leaving with their luggage, which is 3-4 times per week. This simply wouldn't happen with longer-term tenants. But it's also due to the way the neighboring property owner set up their Airbnb. Essentially, they spent 2 years building a tall, narrow cottage directly up to the property line, using every available inch of their yard, which blocked off my terrace from the sun. This is allowed here under loosened building restrictions because of the acute housing shortage, but the intent of the scheme was to provide more housing for local working families, not additional airbnb income for absentee landlords. So after they put me through a couple years of construction and loss of the sun, they rented their main house to long-term tenants, posted the cottage up through a management company for $300/night and f*cked off to Europe. And now I wake up to people leaving, and again to someone knocking and saying "housekeeping" every weekend.

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