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Comment by dabinat | Hacker News Reader

Rented an AirBnB for a friend’s wedding and it caught fire. We were at the wedding when it occurred but I sometimes think about what would have happened if we were sleeping inside at the time. There would have been no escape except through the upper-story window.

The host initially accused us of causing the fire through negligence, then it was eventually revealed to be an electrical fault in the building, which had been built by the homeowner himself.

The bigger problem was that they hadn’t told their insurance company they were subletting. We eventually agreed a deal with lawyers for them to compensate us. (It probably goes without saying that AirBnB was of course no help throughout the whole process.)

It occurred to me that none of this would have occurred in a regular hotel. The hotel would have a proper fire and sprinkler system with actual fire escape routes, the electrics would not be amateur and they would have had proper insurance.

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Wow, what a nightmare.

Airbnb feels like WeWork – they both desperately want to be "tech companies" but at the end of the day neither one of them really is. They should have more important things to focus on before tech. Instead of making sure their app has the nicest UI, they should first make sure all of their rentals have proper fire exits.

WeWork either owned or rented all of it's properties. Airbnb is a tech platform that doesn't own any properties so by definition it's a tech company. I hear the same argument about Uber not being a tech company but they are too. Airbnb and Uber build apps and benefit from being a tech company because they can scale globally without investing in properties or taxis

They are middlemen, not a tech company.

Using tech for your business doesn't make it a tech business.

The same business has been run for years before the internet with cork-boards.

Big hotel brands often don’t own the hotel property that their names are on too.

The difference between “host” and “franchisee” seems to mostly be accountability and capital, not ownership by the brand on the booking site.

Amusingly enough, I once stayed in an Airbnb at a Wyndham.

> by definition it's a tech company

Using technology to enable the business doesn't make the company a tech company. By that definition every company on earth is a tech company.

> It occurred to me that none of this would have occurred in a regular hotel. The hotel would have a proper fire and sprinkler system with actual fire escape routes, the electrics would not be amateur and they would have had proper insurance.

It's not like there's zero chance of negligence at a proper hotel, but yeah the odds should be better.

I'm reminded of an incident ages ago when I was renting a modern townhouse in a large corporate complex where they were arranged like duplexes with shared garage walls. My gf at the time had fallen asleep immediately after starting one of those Duraflame logs without opening the flue. She and our cats nearly died from smoke inhalation.

The units were all on a centralized smoke detector/fire alarm system powered by in-wall wiring that we weren't responsible for. We didn't know it at the time, but someone had unplugged all of the detectors so no alarms went off while her and the cats came dangerously close to dying in the buttoned up space. I came home to find her and the cats sitting on the front stoop, all coughing and sooty. The interior was all blackened with smoke damage.

> It's not like there's zero chance of negligence at a proper hotel, but yeah the odds should be better.

If you're staying at the Sheraton, there may be negligence but you can be confident that there will be proper insurance.

Much more common than a fire would be theft. My friend was staying at the Shangri-La in Paris for his honeymoon. The porter took his bags while he was checking in, and their bags were stolen right out front the hotel.

The hotel apologized profusely, upgraded them to a very nice suite, and they got something like EUR 5000 for their belongings. He had a camera but mostly it was just their clothes (and suitcases) that they had to replace.

Hotels are like the opposite of Comcast or United. There is a lot of competition. They are literally called the Service Industry. AirBnb's offer a lot that hotels don't (charm, locations, potentially cost), but security and consistency is not it.

> It occurred to me that none of this would have occurred in a regular hotel.

I assume that rentals without smoke detectors have other red flags. For the owner's sake, installing a smoke detector protects their investment! Pure negligence.

P.S. You definitely don't want to stay at an AirBnB in Italy!

> [For rentals allowing smoking,] the lowest prevalence of smoke detectors was among venues in Italy (2 percent) and the highest was in Scotland (83 percent). [0]

[0] https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2019/multi-country-study-many-a...

I couldn't find the original study, but as an Australian, I'm shocked.

100% of homes require smoke detectors here, must be positioned outside of every bedroom, and must be less than 10 years old. It's a requirement for building.

83% seems crazy low to me, let alone 2%!

When I book on AirBnB I am paying less in exchange for possibly burning alive or having substandard construction cave in and crush me. Seems fair by my book, I know the game going in.

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