airbnb, C or D?

What should i beware of if i sign up? (to occupy, not host)

Utter classic, the future of holidaying

classic imo. i've only used it once, we rented an awesome little bungalow in austin for a week. i had a great experience.

website is better designed and more usable than competitors (e.g. vrbo, where searching was a fucking pain in the ass and i had to browse luxury listings alongside the budget stuff i was looking for)

beware that different hosts have varying levels of requirements. the lady i rented from was super laid back and relaxed about everything, but some other places i looked into required an entire lease agreement and all sorts of tenant requirements and house rules

airbnb had some feature where i could browse listings (filtered by any criteria i wanted, e.g. price, amenities, etc) alongside a city map so i could see exactly where the rental was located, it made finding a place in the neighborhood we wanted to stay in really easy

and imago otm, honestly i kind of feel like i will never stay in a hotel again for a vacation. like in austin i rented it during a conference and for $100 less per night than the conference hotel we had a whole house, backyard, kitchen, living room, etc., and stayed in a great fucking neighborhood

classic... affordable and you get much better accommodations than if you were to stay in a hotel

maybe sometimes there's an expectation to socialize and 'get to know interesting people' that I don't really enjoy, but you can always just grab keys say thanks and shut the door.

classic. a. and i used it to book a private cabin at a hilltop retreat with a well-water pool outside. we could have stayed at a boring days inn or something for the same price. we're using it again for our seattle visit; it's cheaper than the conference rate at the hotel and we'll have our own apartment.

ive used them a bunch of times and its always been great, way cheaper than a hotel would be and often in better neighborhoods

unbearable, why am i leaving the comfort of my home if not for a corporately-monogrammed robe, what is this

but no, great, i'd imagine the only thing you'd be wary of is clarifying that it's as kinda free-standing/domestically un-assimilated as you prefer?

got it, thx guys

fine, as long as they are fairly assessed and pay the same occupancy/transient/etc. taxes that hotels have to pay to the cities they do business in

living next to an unregulated hotel room is kind of a drag, especially if there is any kind of shared or communal space. the og intent--monetize that spare bedroom!--makes perfect sense but enabling ppl to rent a mess of apartments and then airbnb em out to randos is kinda problematic imo

airbnb owns, especially if you have kids tbh

yea, with a small child i could not imagine a vacation in which we are all in one shared room without a kitchen

I will only be investigating unshared spaces, going solo.

http://nypost.com/2014/03/17/airbnb-renter-claims-he-returned-home-to-an-orgy/

we stayed at a lovely place in islington when we took a vacation to london. location was great, the host had provided alot of amenities and guide books.. even power converters. was also way more attractive price than some wack ass hotel in a bad location.

people should take advantage before the business model gets destroyed by litigation and the big hotel companies. no way they will stand to let these guys host people without regulation, insurance, etc.

I stayed in the St Pancras clock tower on my birthday, total surprise. Place was fucking awesome so I am firmly in the 'classic' camp.

Lookin at this for nyc in september good to hear all the posi experiences

ok! looked for a air bnb thread a couple of weeks ago and didn't see anything. nice to hear folks are having good experiences. looking forward to using for trips to NOLA and Vancouver in the near future.

airbnb allows me to explore my fantasy of living in various craftsman bungalows throughout the central and western US

I find it essential for Paris... the equivalent airbnb for a basic hotel room is significantly higher in quality and location.

Used it in NYC and it was p amazing for hardly any money

Classic based on my Chicago trip last year.

Had a good exp in DC, one-bedroom more than big enough for lil ol' me. She left beers in the fridge I didn't even have time to drink.

I'm down with this whole idea but I don't like the idea of turning up in a strange city and the house owner suddenly being absent for some reason. I'm assuming there's some protection for instances of this happening but at least with a hotel there's a sense of security.

i don't like the thought of the house owner being anywhere near me tbh

classic - we stayed in a converted garage two blocks from santa monica beach for way way way less than a hotel in the same area. owner lived in the main house but left us alone, place wasn't fancy but had a full kitchen, a large-ish bedroom and living room area that could be partitioned by a heavy curtain, and owner allowed us to bring our dog for no extra fee.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/airbnb-user-loves-how-easy-website-makes-it-to-eja,35949/

I'm keen to try this but really really don't want to have to even see/socialize/talk to owners

I have friends who host and they are fully into the taking their guests around and showing them the city, hanging out etc and i'm just like nooooooooooooo thank you

you can look for the hands-off situations, i never met my host.

accidentally airbnb'd in a hippie cult sex drug compound recently

I didn't get much sleep due to didgeridoo

uh oh I'm having to recount the entire affair, please

uh that's offputting

it's a really funny story but was a huge inconvenience at the time, I'll prob post abt it on 77 at some point

it was prob worse than what a stereotypical bad sketch comedy bit on airbnb would be

sorry to speak all cryptically, just wanted to say that I have had great experiences w/ airbnb but I now know that it's possible to accidentally book a hippie cult sex drug compound

Used it again this weekend to book a place in Austin. Great experience, as always.

please tell story on 77 xp

there's at least one airbnb place on every block near my house, in a city with a hugely depleted stock of rental properties and already-skyrocketing rents and ten million billion hotel rooms. i find this problematic.

I just booked a big farmhouse in NH for a week. The rate is so cheap I'm wondering if there might be a (n unpleasant) surprise awaiting our arrival. THe owner seems super chill and didn't have any problem with the fact that our party will include 8+ kids. should i be concerned?

I'm keen to try this but really really don't want to have to even see/socialize/talk to owners

I have never socialised (or even had the opportunity to socialise) with a host. Sometimes you meet them at check-in/out, sometimes you don't see them at all.

the whole airbnb thing just seems like a big ugly mess just waiting to happen... like an ideal scenario for unsavory people to take advantage of others.

that's what they said about christianity, maaaan

........

yep, proceed with caution, as always.

Problem with Airbnb is that people can be unwilling to write bad reviews or point out bad parts of a trip if they've gotten to know the owner

I know that when you review you can tell the owner stuff in private

But who knows if the owners ever actually act on it

would stay

lol

http://valleywag.gawker.com/the-worst-airbnb-in-the-universe-22-beds-in-one-apartm-1630029953

Lol @ this pearl clutching

I love the idea in principle. In practice, I used it once and it was a total disaster since it turned out host's definition of "nonsmoking" meant something more like "I'm not personally a smoker but obviously when you have people over, they smoke, what did you expect, and when I say I'm not a smoker, I mean I don't smoke every day, but usually when I smoke I smoke on the porch, OK, not every single time" and we ended up in a foreign country with no place to stay because the place reeked.

Another friend got to his airBnB only to find that the host wouldn't accept his service dog so he too was in a strange city and SOL. Hotels, under ADA, are required to admit service animals; airBnB rentals are not.

So it's a funny thing -- I would probably try this again at some point, because I love the idea of staying in a house with a kitchen instead of a hotel room, but in practice I've really come up against the fact that there's some actual value to regulation and knowing exactly what you're getting!

he didn't think of mentioning he had a service dog?

you'd rather be homeless than smell cigarettes?

trying this for the first time sat night btw hi

sorry that's coming across harsh but both of those seem like strangeness to me, is all

just letting u know darraghmac, if there's a disaster u CANNOT stay at my place

it's a gamble to be sure, but hotels (cheap ones anyway) are too.

(I would NEVER stay at one where the host was around)

well, same as that, so yr place was academical I guess

this is still libertarian techy faux utopian bullshit and airbnb's smug, plentiful subway ads are just insulting.

viva la regulatory state

lol

bet if eve saw a hot shit apt for cheap on it you'd find yourselves yrself overruled p sharpish

i see yr point adam, but any city where most hotel rooms are $300+/night deserves what it gets.

right. i don't object to the idea of alternative lodging-for-pay arrangements (subject of course to a modicum of consumer, health and safety regulation) but airbnb poses two immediate challenges:

1. the presence of an airbnb often results in a lowered quality of life for neighboring domiciles due to nightly bro-down bachelor party bacchanals. this is a major drag in a perceived party-oriented city like new orleans and surely also a drag in high-density nyc.

2. the inevitable influx of capital into the "sharing economy" means you have speculators subverting the techie utopia (or not i guess) by renting (or purchasing in cheaper locales) domiciles specifically for the purpose of airbnbing them out, thus decreasing housing stock for the hardworking normal folk of wherever and becoming another driver of ever-increasing urban rents.

eg in new orleans, the house next door to mine was purchased by a wealthy lady (heiress of the founding family of a longstanding chain of suburban/roadside fast casual restaurants) who for whatever fuckin reason airbnb'd it out all the time. and while i was never caused any material harm per se it was an annoyance of the kind that i would not mind seeing regulated out of existence.

i see your point but it's reaallly fucking nice to have cheap alternatives to hotels when traveling, and to have the luxury of kitchen facilities too. spending a week in a different city gets extraordinarily expensive if you are staying in a hotel and have to eat out at restaurants 3x a day. especially if you have kids. and i think your point about bachelor parties is kind of bullshit. i doubt that the percentage of bachelor airbnb trips are anything more than insubstantial.

also re: speculators purchasing places purely for airbnbing them out, do you have data on that? seems like most places (for now maybe) are actually people's lived-in homes, even if it's a second home

high density is what's a drag in NYC.

also residents who expect churchlike silence after 10pm

So the city has gotten too quiet, and too crowded?

The only time I've airbnb'd was for a bachelor party, so

my airbnb "data" is purely anecdotal but almost every airbnb rental in my former neighborhood in new orleans, bywater, which is the "hip" area, was unoccupied aside from short-term airbnb renters. that is to say, i have literally never encountered an airbnb in new orleans that functions as advertised (renting a spare room or whatever).

as far as churchlike silence, there is a difference between normal street/social noise and new groups of assholes whooping it up several times a week 10 feet from one's bedroom window; pretending there is not is purely willful obstinance.

My only airbnb experience was nice enough and pretty cheap, but I found out in retrospect that it was basically a hotel operated by someone who'd had his hotelier's license revoked.

on the four blocks of my old street, stretching from the mississippi river to st claude avenue (demarcating the bywater and less-desirable st claude neighborhoods), there were _at least_ 10 apartments or houses operating as airbnbs without permanent residents.

I use homeaway rather than airbnb and have had nothing but good times, in france & spain & italy & the uk. but I think homeaway is maybe more for oldsters? it's just a way for me to rent a flat rather than a hotel, along the lines of marcos' post above. friends have used airbnb to rent a room in another person's flat for a couple nights which seems very weird, like people just coming in and out. but these friends are mostly germans and are thus naturally weird. but I dunno: in the 90s in italy I would just go from town to town, go to a bar and ask if anyone had a room to rent, and the bartender would be like "yeah my sister's family has an extra room, 80000 lira for the night" and we'd share their bathroom and everything, so I guess it's not that different.

i see your point but it's reaallly fucking nice to have cheap alternatives to hotels when traveling, and to have the luxury of kitchen facilities too. spending a week in a different city gets extraordinarily expensive if you are staying in a hotel and have to eat out at restaurants 3x a day.

otm - I am all for renter-outers paying tax etc but the service provided by an airbnb flat is just different from what you get at a hotel. Check-in and -out can be a bit unpredictable but if I'm staying in one place for a few days (or more) I'll generally go with an airbnb.

place fantastic btw

A floating wooden house upon a raft

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/4162480

I will let you know how it is

airbnb listings have reached apotheosis:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/4182729

Are "strict" cancellation policies more or less than the norm? It just seems kind of fucked up that if I book a place four months in advance and cancel a week later I lose half my money.

Tried to book something for NYE weekend in Philly and was surprised at how fucking expensive everything is once you include all the stupid fees, like pretty much nothing of a normal level of comfort came to less than $200 and change per night. Granted I'm talking entire apartments, not rooms, and granted it was sort of last minute and a holiday weekend. But the "cleaning fee" and "service fee" bullshit really add up, plus the folks who charge like $20-50 extra per night for "extra guests" are out of their fucking minds.

whaaaaat look in West Philly dude

yeah I think part of the problem is just last-minute NYE, plus that I need an apt that can fit my whole family. Slim pickins. But totally separately, I just hate the fees, so the total is always way more than the rate that shows on the list/map.

yeah it is pretty shitty for them not to include the fees on the map

are you taking your family to mummers parade, Hurting?

That was the plan (I have friends in the parade) but I think it's not going to happen. Too logistically complicated/too few reasonable stay options, and the couple we were going to go with may also be backing out. I think next year I wanna do it, book early and find a place really close to the parade route.

A Private room in public space.

https://a2.muscache.com/im/pictures/092b533b-414e-414c-92d1-2e7bd1cc6471.jpg

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/11429217

tempted? not as sylvan as your usual haunts but

Sylvan is a great word, and this place definitely isn't it. The advantages of being in the open air here would surely be destroyed by being able to hear a) cars, b) music that is in cars, its enough to send you to the bottom of the canal.

so has anybody hosted? considering it right now as a way of making money from the basement apartment without have to deal with Ontario's brutal landlord/tenant board.

I haven't but a friend who lives in the same building as my wife and I does. she has a studio apartment and when she's out of town or cat-sitting at a friend's place when theyre out of town she airbnb's her place and makes $100 a night. works out p well for her.

I have a friend in Nashville who's moving to the country and turning his home into a dedicated airbnb. I assume he expects to cover the mortgage and then some.

if you do it, i will price it next time i come to TO, TT! :)

(TT already rethinking this)

ha! you stay for free at Casa Dysa, my friend!

right now – we're 99% doing this, but we're having trouble figuring out insurance. since air bnb covers the unit and we'd need our own home insurance for the rest of the house. we're not sure how it would work if, for example, Morbs started a fire in the basement and burned the entire house down.

"no hot takes allowed to be posted by guests"

I stayed in an airbnb in Sharrow the other day in a family house and I went into the kitchen on the second day and the guy that was in there I recognized but I couldn't tell where from and its still bugging me

it might just have been that he had been on the bus earlier the same day

We're using Airbnb for accommodation every trip now. We've had great experiences in Barcelona, London and Co. Donegal, Ireland so far, with Fife and North Yorkshire coming up before the end of the year. Our experience thus far is that it's so much cheaper than hotels and can offer better conditions than hostels in the big cities if you take a bit of time to search and check listing/reviews/photos carefully and is much cheaper than standard b&b offerings in rural areas, which are often pretty expensive. Classic.

Use it in NYC, Madrid, Seville and next month Lisbon. Classic.

I have yet to use it. It never works out better economically than a hotel room for my family with two small kids since there's always an extra charge for more people, even a baby. Granted I'm usually comparing whole apartments to hotels so there could be a certain comfort factor. Sooner or later we will probably try one.

Also a lot of them have terrible cancellation policies, another problem when you have small kids.

I feel like it's had its day, but maybe that's premature. It used to actually be people's houses or apartments, now in big cities it just seems to be some type of scalper. It's also not as cheap as it was. For NYC it seems totally dead now, and really iffy. I've reverted to just getting a hotel - there's a privacy and formality about hotels that staying in someone's apartment doesn't have.

It can be great if you stay in the apartment while the host is there - I travelled around Europe and used it a lot, and in Marseille I stayed with a couple and we all got on great, went out late each night, met all their friends etc. Afterwards they said I could come and stay for free in future. I hadn't considered the potential benefits of sharing a place versus being on your own - I guess there are still some actual homes on it but I definitely stopped using it sometime in the last year or so because every apartment seemed like essentially a rented apartment run by a professional, which I could just book via booking.com and a much easier interface, better user reviews, etc.

Been travelling through Central and South America for a few months and airbnb has been amazing, both for meeting people and for the massive advantage of paying in full online with no crazy exchange rates or 20% taxes on top of the room rates (eg in Chile). Saved us loads of money

I feel like it's had its day, but maybe that's premature. It used to actually be people's houses or apartments, now in big cities it just seems to be some type of scalper.

This has not been my experience recently at all, though I have noticed lots more traditional BnBs and hotels are using it as a marketing tool now.

Renting your flat on airbnb while on holiday is pretty classic, I went to Ireland a couple of weeks back and it paid for the entire trip, flights included.

it's been a little while since i've used it, but i've had a number of great experiences 2011-2014 (vrbo too, though i remember vrbo having a shittier UI than airbnb) throughout the US. i rented old, beautiful houses for same cost or and often way less than a hotel. i've used it w/ and w/o my kids along.

my new place of work won't let me use it for conference travel though, which is a bummer.

the best airbnbs imo are people who are renting out their own homes or maybe a second home that they still often use themselves. i had a good experience in the really cool hyde park neighborhood in austin in 2013 renting from this cool older hippie lady who had an awesome little arts & crafts house but it took a while to find it, like 5-6 other houses in that neighborhood were all owned by the same dude who never lived in these places and just airbnb'd them out and they were all decorated in this shitty generic contemporary style with no character. probably more and mroe places are gonna be that way

I actually can't rent out my own apt because it's a co-op and against the rules, although I suspect people of doing it on account of occasionally seeing an unfamiliar looking young couple with a slightly bewildered expression and bags, never to be seen again.

xp I read that some huge percentage of airbnbs, like the vast majority of them, are rented out by professional landlords who own a bunch of properties. This is sort of the lie of the "sharing economy." It's the same with companies like Uber, at least in NYC -- they're always professional drivers and it's never some friendly guy picking up a little extra money in between his studies or whatever.

but i think there are still deals to be found, maybe not in like downtown NYC or something but in other cities and neighborhoods with less tourist traffic. even in the heart of downtown charleston SC though i found an amazing private guest room with its own dedicated entrance and second floor porch -- part of huge southern colonial house with like 15-ft ceilings on the porch -- for like $110/night. hotels a block away were all $250-$400

rented out by professional landlords who own a bunch of properties.

yea, and ime these are the people w/ the shittiest strict cancellation policies and extra fees, too. that dude in austin required this full lease agreement too. the regular people just renting out their places have been way more relaxed and flexible ime

Brooklyn seems like kind of the nexus of the branded Airbnb experience - I've looked a bit at listings when we were considering an in-city getaway from the kids and it's like there's standardized Airbnb apartment charm in the same way there are now standardized blackboard espresso shops. And pricey - getting a hotel is cheaper. However I did find a rooftop geodesic dome I am tempted to stay in at some point.

Maybe things are still a bit better here in the UK? We stayed in London last November and the choice on Airbnb was basically overwhelming. Plenty of varying degrees of bland 'professional' listings for sure, but balanced alongside what appear at least to be genuine real-life people renting out a room or flat etc.

Someone I am friends with on Facebook has bought specifically to let on airbnb.

There's something kind of inherently gross and ultimately self-defeating about the commodification of the couchsurfing experience.

should be an "also" in there, obviously talking about the situations that are not just "key's under the mat, apartment is yours for the week"

I live next door to one, it's definitely owned by property-investing landlords and not normal people temporarily opening up their flat, and being in the centre of Brighton it is fucking stag & hen dos screaming and yelping every single weekend. I honestly don't give a shit about my neighbours being noisy, I am usually the noisy neighbour in fact, but *we live here*, so these stupid happy yelling tourists can FUCK RIGHT OFF.

stayed in bay area recently and did not use airbnb because SF is insane, we stayed at a motor lodge in one of the little surrounding towns for much cheaper

have had a fantastic experience using airbnb in china fwiw

ya I stayed in a very cheap and very stinky hostel in sf cause airbnb was off the charts

I had a great airbnb in London in June this year which was clearly someone's home which they were letting out from time to time (the general stuff lying about was definitely that of an inhabited home), and it worked out perfectly for us, but it was hard going to find it amongst all the professional buy-to-let properties. We're back down again in a few weeks, and it's proving harder now to find something which would work out cheaper than a hotel and isn't just part of a scalper's portfolio (the last one was four of us sharing, this time it's just for two).

I'm also in the process of trying to rent a flat in a touristy bit of Spain for a long weekend and it's clearly taken over from the regular holiday letting sites for people with holidays homes in the area.

Ffs

There's nothing 'gross' (stop using this word) about airbnb not being puppy money for some moon-eyed fartknockers

There's nothing wrong with it being 'just' an alternative to hotels

There's nothing wrong with them being airbnb-styled airbnbs

Maaaannnn I remember it used to really mean something mannnnnnnnnnnn ye tarts

That's kinda just yknow aimed everywhere. Must dash! X

airbnb is probably the best thing ever. have had great experiences in SF, SD, taipei in the past year

puppy money for some moon-eyed fartknockers

ilx posts with striking imagery

ya I stayed in a very cheap and very stinky hostel in sf cause airbnb was off the charts

― flopson, Monday, September 12, 2016 12:06 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark

if u have a car i recommend staying in the marin headlands hostel, amazzziing

Ffs

There's nothing 'gross' (stop using this word) about airbnb not being puppy money for some moon-eyed fartknockers

There's nothing wrong with it being 'just' an alternative to hotels

There's nothing wrong with them being airbnb-styled airbnbs

Maaaannnn I remember it used to really mean something mannnnnnnnnnnn ye tarts

― poor fiddy-less albion (darraghmac), Monday, September 12, 2016 10:02 AM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

living in a city with a housing crisis and really low vacancy rate and observing the very real effect of air bnb raising property and rental prices while taking large numbers of homes off of the rental market makes me think it's perhaps not exclusively classic

a pox on airbnb-dedicated apartments in residential blocks or houses on residential streets and on anyone who rents them

my airbnb experience in SF wasn't bad at all, we stayed in pac heights which is a pretty nice neighborhood and it was only $150 a night -- with fees came to about $800 for 4 nights but i doubt you can approach that value with hotels, especially for the middle of the summer

xp to dayo/floppy

it's been the talk here in Toronto, about what it may or may not be doing to the rental market here. tho I've not seen anything concrete about the effects. but apparently the city isn't planning on doing anything about it right now.
which is a relief, because we're planning on putting up our basement apartment on ABnB. our last full time tenant fucked us over pretty badly, and it's amazing how easy the landlord tenant act mades it for nightmare tenants here in Ontario. from my perspective, Air BnB makes our lives so much easier (or we're hoping it will – we'll see how it goes).

xpost to jim

airbnb has been both great and horrible, I'm running about a 50% success rate with them.

Our latest experience was our host canceling our reservation THE NIGHT BEFORE (<14 hours) we were scheduled to arrive. airbnb immediately offered us +15% credit to find another listing but as you can imagine there was nothing available within reason near the city center, only the remote suburbs. We ended up getting a deal booking a hotel downtown at the last minute that ended up being about the same price as the airbnb, luckily enough. Upon check-in the desk clerk at our hotel asked us how we found them I briefly told him the airbnb experience and he upgraded us to a suite. So in some ways, airbnb can be a blessing.

I ended up giving airbnb some feedback and they gave me another $100 credit (my 2nd this year due to problems like these), but $100 credits can only buy you so much goodwill.

xp. i have neighbours who airbnb their apartments when theyre cat-sitting for other friends, or who go and stay with their parents for a few weeks in the summer and airbnb their place, basically to make ends meet, i know it's not all bad.

i don't think any tenancy act can make it hard for nightmare tenants really (and airbnb nightmare guests are not unheard of), in B.C. i feel completely unprotected as a renter and have had horrendous landlords, nevertheless if i decided to fuck my apartment up and stop paying rent it would probably take my landlord months to get rid of me.

i've used airbnb with a lot of success

the situation in vancouver is that you're turning a residential/condo building into a hotel, and there are strata regulations against that. homeowners are also being taxed differently due to not reporting that they will be using their property for short-term rentals. there's also the tearing of a community by installing what is essentially a hotel in a residential zone

having said all that, the problem, specifically in vancouver, lies in the fact that airbnb rentals are a lot cheaper than hotels or other short-term rental solutions

>if i decided to fuck my apartment up and stop paying rent it would probably take my landlord months to get rid of me.

yes. this. took half a year and even then she only left because we weren't letting her walk all over us, we never actually succeeded with an actual eviction after two tries. she also (in addition to not-paying rent) had pets she was just letting destroy the place and a bf that moved in (couldn't legally say anything about that!) who'd she get into constant screaming matches with followed by door slamming/frame destroying tantrums that would terrify our child. and again, the LTB could not give a fuck about her terrifying our kid and inviting her deadbeat boyfriend into our house without our consent. we cannot charge deposit here either so we will likely have to eat the cost of the damage her and her fucking cats (can't say no to pets) and boyfriend caused as well. plus all the fees it costs at the board and now (ongoing) small claims.
so now it's either Air BnB or nothing. we'd rather have trouble making ends meet than ever be at the mercy of the LTA again.

lol at my reddit formatting. whoops!

I'm bumping this so I can find it on zing! - the bookmark didn't seem to work - But I desperately need advice to plead bear with me.

I'm staying for 21 night in Ibiza and have been here 9 days so far. The hostess is a highly strung (to put it mildly) French woman who had told me of quite fiercely for - amongst other things - closing doors too loudly and leaving the bathroom light on. Fair to correct someone but this is quite unpleasant. Today I got told off for flushing the toilet too much today 😳 ok? 4 times in one morning she had told me. She also told me she was about to put on a washing and "hoped it could be a half load" because I was using so much water. And her tone is getting increasingly unreasonable.

I need to go back to pre-arrival though:- here's how I fucked up in the beginning. I asked by Airbnb message for her address and postal code or equivelant one week before arrival three days later she replied by email (not on the air bnb message system - she had asked for my email address) saying that the address listed on the air bnb website was not correct and that the actual address was this - and gave me another address quite near actually one street away. Now I think she waited until 4 days prior to my arrival because she had a moderate cancellation policy and that if I wanted to cancel I had to do it 5 days before to get a refund. I should have taken it through Airbnb right then but I'm a first time user and didn't want to have nowhere at all to stay although i was worried. She told me to go to the new address and the person who was checking me in would meet me outside the building which she did ( a friend of hers). Now, The new address 44 via romana was not the correct address either. There is a 44 but her flat is at 46! She wouldn't give me the buzzer number and I had to meet her friend outs this doubly incorrect address.

She told me she had the wrong address listed because it is illegal to let an air bnb on Ibiza (this is not correct as I'd researched it) I suspect it's because she's illegally subletting.

Should I take it directly through air bnb or try to reaolve? I already feel like I'm treading on eggshells here. also there's another person staying here (also French) and this French woman said the host told her her name is Ciara not Clodia ( as I call her) she has the different rooms of the flat listed under different names with different accounts.

I've no idea what to do and would prefer to move or come home. But I can't afford to move as everywhere else is fully booked other than significantly more expensive places or hotels and flights back are LOADS right now.

Thanks for reading this. I could say much more but I'm posting from my phone so ask me anything you need clarification on.

I have no advice but I hope you're alright. I would spitefully take a massive shit in her toilet and not flush it "to save water" before leaving if it was me.

And ps I don't have enough money in my bank accounts to pay for new accommodation or a return flight. I have euros to spend here and cash in the bank enough to cover my uk bills and a bit extra.

I have actually been using the loo a lot because this is giving me a bit of a nervous/anxious tummy.

sounds like a really shitty situation, that sucks dude. honestly though i would just tough it out and spend as little time as possible at the place, avoid her as much as you can, and try to have fun in ibiza. in less then two weeks this will all be over

Document everything sketchy and then file a complaint with airbnb right now at an elevated/emergency status.
The giving of the wrong address and the emailing outside of their system are huge red flags for them and they should respond accordingly. Make sure to let them know the sensitivity of the situation.

They may be able to partially refund your payment and (help you) find alternative housing in the area.

Worst case is you have to stay put but you're in Ibiza... Plenty of things to do away from the crash pad.

ya, i would think they'd make some effort to get you somewhere else. did this woman have a decent rating? this can't be the first time she's pulled all this.

Thanks for all the feedback. She has decent ratings but very few over a long period (like 5 or so since the beginning of 2015) and one very negative concerning the hygeine of the flat, which I have no issue with.

The thing is I think she is using multiple profiles in the same flat and I can't seem to find her other listings (although I had seem them previously) so her negative ratings, if she has them, must be spread across them.

Thanks for all the advice. It is Ibiza but it's rainy af right now so I think I'll write down everything that has happened on pagesso that I can fire off an email to support very quickly if the situ worsens.

Will try not to use loaded language about her been French or highly-strung haha.

i didn't even think about Airbnb for my London trip, bcz being surprised with stuff like this would be bad enough domestically.

"on pagesso that" should read "on pages, so that"

True, morbs.

Although you could maybe look for someone with EXTREMELY positive ratings.

I searched a different way (without dates, although the app doesn't lend itself to you doing that) and found all four of her profiles - there are only three rooms in the flat fwiw, one is listed twice under two different names.

sounds like she's fucking at it. I've been on the receiving end of airbnb bullshit before (lack of comms leading to last minute cancellation) and it is stressful af ! hope you get this sorted x

Aye I think she might be! cozen, would your advice be to bypass her and go straight to Airbnb now?

two options, I think

1. dingy her as best you can and just try to have ur best holiday, staying away from the apt as much as possible. appreciate this is difficult if she is a super on edge type & ur all cooped up w/the rain etc.

2. raise a support ticket w/airbnb, outlining all the irregularities and difficulties in your message to them & stressing the potential precarity of your situation. don't think it's beyond the pale to stress tht she's not being particularly welcoming host either. ask if they can support you by helping to locate another room or whatever

not mutually exclusive those options of course

Seems very stupid of this woman to be horrible to someone who is in a position to expose her prohibited by airbnb at best, illegal at worst activities!

I don't have any experience of contacting/relying airbnb support however so can't say how responsive or helpful they are sorry

They're pretty good ime.

jed, email or call Airbnb now!! My neighbors went on vacation and their reserved apartment was mysteriously unavailable when they got there (I forget what happened), and they complained and Airbnb put them up in a hotel within a matter of hours!!

AND refunded their money I think!

Yeah two points - one is they are collecting a substantial fee from your booking and thus their help is a service you are paying for. Two, is that it's essential this woman be reported to prevent others having the same bad experience, particularly if she's gaming the system with the multiple profiles and fake addresses.

Multiple profiles and fake (ok, obfuscated) addresses is an inherent element of Airbnb's business plan.

I was away from wifi and on limited roaming data so thanks for all of your advice. I wouldn't like to exaggerate the precariousness here. And I've already been contacted by a friend (who saw this thread, thanks) and who has offered to help me out with flight arrangements if it comes to that which I'm sure it won't!

I'm going to compose this email now and then head out for a drink!

rip

http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-governor-signs-bill-authorizing-fines-for-airbnb-rentals-1477079740

Staying at an airbnb and woke up this morning and met the host, and he said you are a foreigner, and where I'm from its tradition to give a foreign guest a shot of vodka.

I said thats great, and he said well i wont be back till very late, so then he poured me out a huge glass of vodka, said you'll enjoy your day now, then he jumped in his car and drove to work

lol

are you going to drink it?

burps

time to have an incredible day!

I too am interested in enjoying my day

didn't realise it was that easy #lifehacks

and where I'm from its tradition to give a foreign guest a shot of vodka.

So where's he from?

He is from Nigeria!

I had a little bit of it but most of the glass is now in the fridge for this evening. having said that, a little bit of a huge glass....isnt that much of a little bit, when i'm trying to do some work!

Very nice!

I have just arrived at another airbnb. the host has left me a bottle of wine in the room. there are two glasses

well if you break one

Drink both of course

that doesn't even make sense.

leave a review pointing out that the you've come to expect a Jon Bonham Breakfast and this wine nonsense is unacceptable

"All this wine nonsense! You get all these wine people don’t you? You know, wine this, wine that!. Let’s have a bit of red; let’s have a bit of white! Oooh that’s a snazzy bouquet! Oooh this smells of... I don’t know, basil! Sometimes you just want to say ‘sod all this wine just give me a pint of mineral water’."

had my first repeat AirBNB stay. there's one place for like $30 in Ybor City where they just give you codes to get in and out and the owners aren't there. good for when I'm going to get drunk at a show, Uber-able distance.

feel like I'm going to start leaving cryptic clues each time I stay there

"Detroit just banned Airbnb without anyone knowing it" https://detroit.curbed.com/2018/2/8/16991266/detroit-banned-airbnb-zoning

awesome!!

I wish I knew more about the legal issues and technological issues around information sharing of tax documents. I feel like it should be possible for cities to be able to get copies of the 1099 forms that Airbnb gives to its "hosts" and then develop better systems for collecting business tax from them. And if that enforcement and collection results in higher rates or less profits for Airbnb, then fine. But I feel like it's screwing cities out of hotel tax revenue and also creating unfair competition with actual hotels because Airbnb isn't paying its fair share of local business taxes.

i guess they aren't enforcing it https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/02/09/detroit-airbnb-ban/322991002/

just stayed on 49th and 8th in Times Square for $59 a night in a decent cramped apt. nice.

had a weird first at this latest stay in Atlanta - one I've often worried about! Renting one of those units which are owned by a guy who owns multiple properties and isn't on site - so they give you codes to access the door to the house and your room.

There's an upper lock that is no longer used per the owner. I went out for a while for food and came back. Some doofus (probably another AirBNBer) locked the top lock after they left, so I couldn't get into the house at 11:30 pm even when putting in the right code. lucky that someone in the house was up to let me in. He was a dick about it though, suggesting I was at the wrong house even as I insisted that a) all my shit was already upstairs and b) I had put in the right code and someone had clearly locked the top lock which I could clearly hear that idiot unlocking before he opened the door for me!

"after they left" should be "after they returned"

Booked 4 nights in London for my wife in July, just had an email to say that the flat isn't available on the first night and if we're ok for just the other 3 nights. As she and her sisters have booked air and planes not really so asked for her to cancel so we can get a refund.

Haven't heard back from her, so looking to cancel using the 'my host needs to cancel' option. It says it'll refund it minus the service fee of nearly £60. I haven't submitted it yet, but are we going to be £60 out of pocket through no fault of our own? Or will the fee be refunded when the landlord responds?

Get in touch with Airbnb direct and tell them the situation, should cancel without fee (that's been my experience)

I'll give her until tomorrow morning and if I don't hear anything will get in touch with Airbnb.

Got my refund, but she wanted me to cancel at first which I guess would have penalised me.

To what level are you experiencing price inflation? Going to go back to look at previous airbnbs stayed in and from even a year ago the change is eye-watering, some are double the price, some as much as 300% higher. Only place that seems to have relatively unchanged prices is Sarajevo

What is your native currency?

So one of my neighbours has taken it upon herself to rent out her flat on Airbnb, not to mention Booking.com and various others. Since it's a shared block (in London) we now have constant noise and disruption, plus lots of mail going missing where it's been left by the postie on the table downstairs - parcels, bank cards etc. So fuck you, Airbnb. Hotels need licenses for a reason.

If hotels weren't so prohibitively expensive, I'd be on board with Airbnb-bashing, but as it stands, I would have no way of travelling otherwise.

Update 11/1/19: The morning after this article was published, the FBI contacted VICE about the claims made above.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43k7z3/nationwide-fake-host-scam-on-airbnb

oh yeah! that article was amazing!!

Massive dud from the POV of someone who lived in tourist town. Jacked up rents and depleted the already-small apartment/condo stock. I had to battle for a spot in laundry room with maids washing sheets and rugs every day. Ruined the community vibe of complexes. Forced me to leave the lil village I liked and move 20 miles away where the unintended side effects from this shit aren't an issue. Yet.

that was a really great article. I used airbnb the first couple of years it started and still look at listings every so often when traveling but it turned into such a hassle with bad owners, complicated key hand offs, cancellations, excessive cleaning fees/deposits.

I rented out a second bedroom in my old house about a dozen times and all guests were totally fine but I eventually just completely lost interest in hosting. I do recall one 60-70ish yr old Turkish guy who stayed with me, he was in town to "see nyc" and his wife sent some turkish bowls and turkish delight to bring as gifts for me. I noticed he was around a lot. Like all the time. Eventually he had to tell me he was really there because his son had been arrested for credit card theft and he was going to MCC (correction center) in the day to try to visit or coordinate a time to wave from outside. I think he felt a lot better after he told me. He ended up cooking me crazy dinners (like steak cooked in heavy cream???) and I would drink whiskey with him. We watched the Macys thanksgiving parade together and then I drove him to the airport.

And now we are married.

maybe everyone else is just terrible at airbnb but we never have anything other than excellent experiences

the key is a lengthy multiple-hour vetting process and an open mind about one's destination town

Helps if you know how to cook steak with heavy cream

lol Yerac.

I haven't used it in forever but it's always worth a chuckle to see the top line price compared with the bottom line whenever I do get curious (and then immediately book a hotel which is easier, more trustworthy and cheaper).

Before I swore off it I used airbnb maybe a ten times over the years and literally every time something super sketchy happened. Got pretty much one of each category of bad experience - hosts cancelling last minute leaving me stranded, disgusting places that were obvious scam/flophouses, scary hosts or fellow-renters, hosts trying to squeeze me for extra money, etc. I only ever used it travelling to big cities and each time the cost always seemed to be within 5% of nearby hotels anyway, which made it easy to decide it wasnt worth the hassle anymore.

The last straw was the lady who seemed normal over email & text, then upon my arrival tried to make it a condition of my stay that I have my phone on airplane mode when on the property at all times to protect her from "electric waves". After the 2nd time she woke me up in the night by banging on the door to remind me about the electric waves rule I split.

cook her a steak before I left though obv, just good manners

I think I've only successfully used this service a few times. Once in London, and the place was a bit shittier than I expected and in retrospect since work was paying for it I wish I'd just gotten a hotel, but I was trying to save them money. Once in Brooklyn and the place was excellent, zero problems. Once in Italy, and it turned out to actually be a hotel that was taking bookings through ABNB; there were some issues but we worked them out. The last place was the worst, it was in upstate NY, and their cancellation terms were not laid out well or well communicated, we had to cancel a whole month out and they still charged me about $200 and there was nothing I could do about it.

So far we've have exclusively good experiences.

how many hours of scanning per place booked do you employ

I've had a combo of good and bad experiences, airbnb are terrible at dealing with bad experiences/refunding money and you end up with a vindictive review from the shitty host that stays on your profile. Also yeah it destroys the rental market in lots of cities (good luck renting an apartment in shitty, boring, small city Edinburgh for anything like what it's worth to be living there for instance)

Not that I travel much, but I boycott the fuck out of airbnb -- it contributes to gentrification, homelessness, and it is set up to avoid paying the taxes many cities impose on hotels that pay for civic services. If I was a San Francisco resident, I would be FP-ing the fuck out of everyone on this thread that is an unrepentant AirBnB user/host. ... I live across the water, so I am just gonna shake my head and resent y'all and this fucked up company.

Sedona AZ passed a law that banned short term rentals...but it was overturned by the Republican-dominated state legislature. Turns out Republicans here don't actually give a shit about "govt that's closest to the ppl" or whatever their spiel is when they want states to have the power to overrule fed laws.

we no longer like airbnb, just bc of a couple of not-great experiences plus just the general "we disrupt, you fuck off" vibe of this company, and just so many rental places getting flipped once people move out, being turned into airbnb spots. it's happening all over the city and of course a lot of other big and not-big cities, too.

I actually don't think anything bad has ever happened at a place I rented on airbnb. Besides the normal private residences in some countries not having ac or a fan or screens in the windows and it's a heatwave. But all the places that I have rented in the past, i usually check on them, seem to no longer list or have increased prices to more than nearby hotels (like someone mentioned above). One of my favorite things to do in other locations is go to the grocery store so I really like to have a kitchen. But there are some pretty decent aparthotels now in some cities.

in oahu, i know they recently passed a thing where all rentals under 30 days need to apply for a license (of which there are not many?). so if they even see you listing on vrbo or airbnb without the registration number they will fine you.

but yeah airbnb started out ok and then like everything else, got corrupted.

all my airbnb stays are in small towns/the countryside so i do not consider myself part of the problem tbh...or at least, not part of this specific problem

Is Airbnb notably shittier than it’s competitors? I like to rent places with kitchens when I travel so that I don’t have to eat out so much. But I’ve only used Airbnb a couple of times, and not for five years I think. I usually use homeaway and have only had good experiences, renting whole houses usually. But going into it each time I worry that I’m gonna get the shaft. In big cities I just use hotels.

and almost all the time it isn't a second residence but a cabin in someone's garden

or an entire floor of their house

all my airbnb stays are in small towns/the countryside so i do not consider myself part of the problem tbh...or at least, not part of this specific problem

― imago, Friday, November 1, 2019 2:32 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

airbnb is definitely an issue in smaller places also, oh, i see your further caveates, nvm

A shooting at an Airbnb in Northern California killed four people and wounded several others during a Halloween party. The renter had falsely claimed she needed the home to escape wildfire smoke. https://t.co/oycXTgQQNN

— AP West Region (@APWestRegion) November 1, 2019

On my last trip to japan I needed a place for 4 weeks and tried to book through the local short lets agencies rather than Airbnb, hoping my Japanese was good enough. They all just pointed me back to Airbnb where they have the same places for a little more expensive (and then Airbnb adds their fees). I guess it is just easier for them to deal through the platform with automatic translation and stern warnings not to take the trash out, ever. It was fine but would have rather cut Airbnb out of the picture. I need to craft a more Japanese online persona, or at least one that looks resident in japan.

The only time I used it it worked out fine in the end but there were a hairy couple of hours where I thought I was in an unknown small town with a small child and nowhere to stay. The house didn't seem to exist where described and no-one was there and I couldn't seem to phone the owners - the AirBNB chat/interface was useless at actually connecting us with the owners (who afaict weren't doing anything shifty). I'd definitely be wary of it now.

The sudden collapse of AirBNB has been, legitimately, the funniest fucking thing I’ve watched play out this past month. pic.twitter.com/RxBTKLC8gC

— Ilhan's Berndam RX-46-2 (@taintberner) March 23, 2020

yessss

fantastic

Fuck this person, who was single-handedly responsible for taking 20+ families out of the city.
Vacant blocks, filled on weekends with tourists.

Without govt regulation this shit will just pop right back up when ppl resume traveling.
Please only stay at designated hotels/motels/hostels when traveling. Resist the temptation. It wreaks havoc on residents wherever it's prevalent.

The reverse is happening in Joshua Tree, where frightened Angelenos are trying to escape the city.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-22/californians-flee-cities-as-coronavirus-pandemic-spreads

And in googling this story I found a place out there that calls itself "The Gaslight."

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/42228923?source_impression_id=p3_1585102174_fWmUOnxm9QmMLvfs

San Bernardino County (which includes Joshua Tree) has ordered airbnb’s to shut down fyi

They could switch to long-term rentals now, I suppose. Even if it ends up being a short term situation.

coworker just moved out of a situation where her landlord decided (midway through her contract) to convert the vacant rooms in the house into airbnbs. every week there'd be a new set of random people roaming around, sharing amenities, complete nightmare

christ, I couldn't handle that. can barely handle the steady roommates

Yeah that's a nightmare. I could barely handle when other units in my complex turned into short term rentals. But at least I was only renting. Felt so bad for the retirees who bought condos in that complex years ago only to have it all go to shit due to rich fucks from Phoenix buying up all possible units and turning them into airbnbs.

Like for real I've had bad dreams where there's somehow strangers living in my home legally

I called them step-brothers.

Don't know why I expect more from a single room single night stay in london than a man wearing only shorts opening the door and communicating in little more than grunts that the room is upstairs.

So just a room in someone's house? I don't think I knew that was a thing!

Utter classic, the future of holidaying

― imago, Tuesday, 18 March 2014 16:25 (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

innocent days

Really? We occasionally let a room in our old 3 bed flat and maybe there a still a few friendly families out there doing that but this definitely looked like a 'landlord has converted property into short term rentals' deal, perhaps with a couple of long term tenants to do the most perfunctory 'check in'.

xp indeed.

still using it this weekend for a one-night stay in todmorden as there really wasn't much in the way of hotels

but in general, booking hotels is at this point both nicer and cheaper than even an ethical cabin-in-the-garden airbnb

my issue with AirBNBs is snafus that happen that could never happen in a hotel.

one time, it was a multi-room AirBNB that had a self-entry lock on the door, but I couldn't get in because one of the other idiot tenants had locked the door with the second lock that had "DO NOT LOCK" written on it in tape. then he berated me, suggesting I wasn't really a tenant when he answered and I had to get the actual host to message everyone to say do not lock the door that says do not lock.

a second time, I put some stuff in the room to go to a concert, and then when I came back, the code stopped working on the door. the host wouldn't answer the phone so I had to give up and leave. thankfully all I left in there was contact lens solution. I got a refund though by disputing with Paypal lol

My experience has generally been very good. A couple of kind of funny ones--I once rented a "room" in Beverly Hills that was essentially a balcony converted to a very narrow sleeping space--but overall good and interesting experiences.

That said, I did have one situation that freaked me out--it was an entire apartment that I was supposed to have for a few days. I walked in, and it was obvious that someone was already staying there. There was a bag of warm food on the coffee table, the bed was unmade, the toilet (which was not flushing) was full of piss. I noped out of there immediately. On my way out, I noticed for the first time (still not sure why I didn't notice on my way in) that someone had splashed red paint on the front door.

I messaged the landlord and she never responded. I did get my money back.

had you seen the movie Barbarian first, y/n

I still haven't seen it lol

I don't think I've told my horrible air bnb story here.

This was the first Christmas during the pandemic, and the kids were stir crazy and we had to be outside to see the grandparents and everything kind of sucked anyways. We decided to surprise the kids by booking a cabin in the woods not far from my parents. They would be somewhere new, my parents could come by for easy visits, it would be a nice long weekend getaway. The place got good reviews and I booked it.

Christmas eve morning we tell the kids and they're so damn excited. We've already packed their bags, we load up and go. We get there and outside of the house there are a couple of trash bins and they are overflowing with trash. There are some muddy boots by the front door. A couple of dogs from a neighbor's yard run under the fence and start barking at us, but not overly aggressively. Okay, this is fine, this will be fun!

We get in and try to get comfortable. Each of our kids has a bedroom and my wife and I have a separate room. One of the kid's window unit heaters is so noisy that we can't use it. There are holes in the walls that you can see daylight through. There's a weird cabinet thing in the living room that has remnants of dog food in it. As we start getting into the kitchen stuff we're finding mouse droppings *everywhere*. The house is grimy. We find a hypodermic needle in my youngest daughter's closet, on the floor. The oven was disgusting, like somebody cooked a frozen pizza upside down on the rack and it all melted into the bottom. Switch plates are missing on the light switches with wires poking out. No clothes hangers in the closets. muddy dog footprints on the windows. The mattress in our room is the worst thing I have ever laid down upon. STILL, the kids are having fun because they're kids. I message with the owner, SCOOTER, and she is sort of apologetic, although she says that mouse droppings are something that happens with country living. I let her know that I grew up in this area and my home was not covered in mouse feces. She offers a refund, I say no, my kids are having fun, this is a Christmas present, let's try to make it work. She says that a cleaning lady can come over at 11am.

So we wake up, wash everything that we need to make breakfast several times, then move our stuff out so the cleaning lady can come in. We don't want to be in the house with the cleaning lady because of covid. The rough looking cleaning lady shows up at 10:45. We ask her to wait while we get out. We get out at 11:02. I have a message from SCOOTER, from 11:00, saying that the cleaning is complaining that we will not let her in. Because of this, she insists that we get out and she will give us a full refund. For some reason, I'm still trying to make this work but SCOOTER is having none of it. Because we have some sort of standards, she wants us the fuck out of there. By now, my parents have shown up to open presents and everything. I tell SCOOTER that we're going to do that, and we'll leave.

We pack up and leave. While on the way to Houston we find another Airbnb in Galveston that is actually nice and the kids have fun but I'm kind of a shit the rest of the weekend because I want to burn down SCOOTER's shitty cabin. I still want to burn it down.

I leave a review that details everything I wrote above, with photos, in a professional tone. In a prior, review, someone mentioned the dogs that came over and they knew the names of the dogs and it was implied that the dogs belonged to SCOOTER. So, in my review I mentioned SCOOTER's dogs. I received a notice that my review was being removed because it contained information that was not true. I called them up and said what the fuck. They said that those dogs did not belong to SCOOTER, and because I had information that was not true, the entire review was deleted. I could not edit the review or write a new review. I said what the fuck. They said tough shit.

So, fuck SCOOTER, and fuck Airbnb, I hope they both burn in hell. I just checked out her listing and all of the reviews are uniformly positive. I do not understand.

still using it this weekend for a one-night stay in todmorden as there really wasn't much in the way of hotels

Oh, I stayed in a really nice holiday apartment in Todmorden for Torfest last year - I think it's on airbnb but it looked like you could also rent directly from them. Just in case you need one again.

I've only ever used airbnb a few times and never had a terrible experience, but they do seem awful tbh. My feeling is that 'gig economy' stuff works okay on a v small scale, but once it spreads and becomes a normalised way of working, it's exploitative and shit. I guess the selling point when uber and deliveroo and airbnb first came into existence was that they were supposed to be 'side hustle' jobs, and they literally had no plan for becoming primary jobs (except to fuck over everybody and run away with a load of money).

xpost jesus christ. maybe she is getting ALL of the bad reviews taken down on 'misinformation'.

I am imagining Cow_Art's story being about HP Baxxter from Scooter, it's a bit more fun that way.

My feeling is that 'gig economy' stuff works okay on a v small scale, but once it spreads and becomes a normalised way of working, it's exploitative and shit

otm

SCOOTER: Those are rat droppings not mouse droppings. Please remove this review as it contains untrue information.

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/46087930?source_impression_id=p3_1702480399_ceES%2BIjmOdGM90VI

Here's the place. Pretty sure those are the same photos from three years ago. It looks nice from the listing! Even the tetherball was gone when we were there. Just a rope dangling from a pole.

there was one time I stayed at a place as I was going to a Judas Priest show, and I was only at the place very shortly before the show. so I came back drunk, and the house was pitch black, and I was stumbling along with my phone flashlight (since I couldn't find the light switches), got to what I thought was my room, opened the door, to find another female guest lying in bed asleep. was fairly surprised because the listing had mentioned nothing of this being a shared space with other roommates, I had thought I had the place to myself.

I quickly backed out and shut the door, startled, then found my room. the next day, the Host asked me about it, as the guest had mentioned it to them (understandably!). I apologized for scaring the guest and said it was dark and thought it was my room but I'd accidentally opened the wrong door. He responded "Or maybe you were looking for some action?".

I said "you didn't even fucking indicate in the listing or in your email to me there'd be other guests, how could I have done it on purpose? I completely understand why the other guest was startled, I would be too if a complete stranger walked into my room. But you didn't tell either of us there would be other guests staying!"

he was apologetic.

xpost oh no re: tetherball!

One of my favorites was the carriage house in Sacramento that was completely decorated in a log cabin, Twin Peaks theme.

omg. would want to stay there. themed places can be great.

apparently lots of people rent via AirBNB that shouldn't/aren't allowed to? I stayed one place that was built like a hostel in Miami, and the owner wrote many times on the front page "don't ask about or mention Airbnb or ask neighbors where the Airbnb is, or I will put you off the proprety", and I didn't get why he'd be saying that, but then it seemed like maybe he lived somewhere where it was a violation to do Airbnb and he was afraid of getting shut down. but why write it so prominently on your listing? easy way to get caught, more discreet way of ensuring nobody asks about your Airbnb is making your home and parking instructions easy to follow.

"I'll do my best to make you feel very good here..if you want we'll go out together to events, etc.😊,"

The place only has one review, though it is a positive (and real-seeming) one

I get nervous about first time or relatively new hosts, but one of the best AirBnb experiences I had was renting a small apartment room smack in the middle of Times Square for like $90 a night. I showed up and the hosts handed me a glass of Shiraz and said "let's do a toast" on arrival

Cos I was their first ever guest

Wish I could find the old Spy Magazine article where the author stays at an under-the-table New York B & B where the host is doing naked yoga (this is long before Air B & B).

This place now has a second review, positive but uninformative.. Then I checked his review of the guest

"i enjoyed my time with Victor.. i showed him the place around and we were together in canyon, he loved it and he appreciated so much that i spent my day with him.."

I also enjoy being in canyon with my air b& b host

I canceled this as my work plans changed.

But separately we've just had a host cancel on us, or try to - she's asking us to cancel (so theres no penalty for her) due to something unforeseen happening with the apartment (and used the phrase force majeure), though its not for another 3 months

Despite the supposed unavailability of it he calendar both sides of our booking is still free to book and the price is now 2.5x what we paid. Pulling a fast one to free up the calendar to get bookings at 2.5x what we paid? But there are no bookings in the 6 weeks prior to ours, and no bookings at all afterwards, so no one is paying for it at that rate

Is there some event at the destination that would now allow for a 2.5x rate?

Highly unlikely, also it was for 36 days! Its a lot to lose/gain

I guess we have to cancel because otherwise get there and she's telling the truth and it really is unusable and then what. 3 months notice at least!

Don't cancel or acquiesce to the host. Air BNB has penalties for hosts who cancel on their guests, force them to go through that process. Also reach out to them and report the host. This host is slimy and the company is actually doing a lot to push back on them for exactly this kind of situation. It hurts their brand. A good friend of mine works for them, I see and hear a bunch of terrible shit hosts do and a lot people who work there are tired of it.

otm, they are doing the thing that incurs the penalty, so the penalty applies, and it's because the cancellation is a huge pain in the ass for you that AirBnB don't want it to happen

if it's force majeure or whatever, let her argue that with AirBnB

I definitely get it, and understand why she is asking me to do the canceling rather than doing it herself. But on the flipside, what actually happens if we get there and the reason really is "major renovations due to damage"? We're booked for over a month. Her calendar for weeks either side is bookable but she has no other bookings so if she's chasing a dollar she's chasing one that isn't there

Why would it be bookable on either side if it's going to be undergoing major renovations? Why are major renovations scheduled months in advance for exactly the time you booked? Make her cancel.

This conversation triggered memories of my last attempt to book airbnb which was a condo in Honolulu in 2016.

As soon as I booked the owner (who lived in AZ) replied back to me that she could get me an even better rate if I cancel and rebooked ASAP.

Me, a sucker, decided to follow her instructions and sure enough when I looked at the new rate it increased ~40% compared to my initial booking.

I immediately replied to her showing screenshots of the rate variance and the owner said it looked cheaper "on her side" and that she couldn't help me anymore.

I reported her to airbnb and then told the story to someone we knew at airbnb marketing at the time and we got vouchers for our trouble but yeah, that was the last straw. Hotel loyalty programs have their pros/cons but they are so much more stable and worthwhile in the long run.

and yes, I'm still mad!

Why would it be bookable on either side if it's going to be undergoing major renovations? Why are major renovations scheduled months in advance for exactly the time you booked? Make her cancel.

Its not a good look that its bookable, though thats theoretical as its not bookable without her accepting - and as there are no bookings either side I can't tell if she's turning down all other bookings or just no one is interested (also just noticed the dates after our stay are 2.5x more but the dates before are about 15% more)

I had a weird one I tried to book last year and the guy said we're not currently taking bookings and rejected it, I looked afterwards and the calendar remained competely open but also completely empty. The most recent review was from 2016

yeah like I've said above, AirBNBs can be (or at least, used to be) more affordable than hotels and be preferable in other ways (like not having to share a space with 500 other people), but some of the logistical nightmares that come up are very unique to AirBNB only and it's put me off of ever using it.

we used one in January where my friend booked it and he was told he'd get instructions on parking, as this was a crowded area, and those instructions never arrived (to be fair, my friend should have asked earlier in the day when he noticed this, but he forgot). he tried texting the guy late in the evening, but as expected, didn't get a response.

when we got into the house, the house had a sign that said you could park anywhere that said Guest parking or didn't have a number, so he moved his car to an unmarked spot. the next day, we saw the neighbor passive aggressively double parked him in, and he knocked on their door and they yelled at him for 'taking their space', even though it was an open space per the instruction given on the sign in the house.

the host gave my friend a semi-negative review for sending him messages late at night demanding him to answer (even though he texted, not called, and wasn't 'demanding' anything), never mind the fact that he never provided the instructions via AirBNB and the sign had bad instructions on it.

it feels like the whole platform is "advantage: hosts"

I don't think its necessarily that way, guests can cancel way more easily without penalty (ironically we were considering canceling this one anyway as plans might be changing), hosts have to jump through this hoop of asking us to do it (and what happens if we don't I'm not sure - we definitely wouldn't be doing if we were inside the no cancellation window of a month)

We've almost always had great Airbnb experiences, generally better than hotels, tbh. Though I know lots of places and communities are now pushing back against Airbnb, which makes us feel guilty for using them.

i mean the circumstances are kinda different though? as a guest, you're going to a strange city out of town and you need a place to stay, and nothing is scarier than getting into town and finding your lodging cancelled. it's easier for a host to fill a vacancy than for people who just got into town and suddenly have no lodging. esp if they're not permanently living in the house and have helpers doing the things like bedsheets/etc.

one of the reasons i quit using airbnb is that i much prefer the hard distinction btw customer & service provider at hotels. hotels arent perfect but they dont have this weird artificial social dynamic where youre paying them a lot of money but also sort of made to feel like theyre doing you a favor, never had a hotel manager message me like "hey can you do us a solid, it would save us an unnecessary fee if you did such-and-such". not my job as a customer to make it easier for anyone to make more money on their real estate investment.

Lol yea the chores are the real bullshit. I'll do chores if my stay is free

Like throwing shit away, ok, even in a hotel I do that, I don't expect people to clean up after me. But I ain't doing laundry

It's not called passive income for nothing!

Another issue is that Air B & B's take buildings out of the long term rental stream. There was in article in my local paper a few years back about it and a "host" admitted they could make more money doing the AB&B thing than renting it out as actual housing.

Yeah, that's the backlash I've increasingly seen. On the other hand, Airbnb serves some specific needs that hotels really can't fill, namely hosting big family gatherings. Getting a couple of hotel rooms just for the four of us adds up, but throwing in another family or grandparents or however many total people and it makes more sense to get a whole house with a kitchen and a pool and lots of space, for significantly less than the hotel equivalent. Is there an alternative to Airbnb that can offer that? (Aside from VRBO, which is more or less the same thing.)

She cancelled us. I kind of regret not canceling myself now, our period is blocked out and she can't rebook it and I was curious to see if she actually got any bookings for that period. Though she doesnt have any bookings for any other period so I guess I can if anyone ever books it. It seems unlikely as only 4 reviews so far presumably at the price we paid, and if she's not getting bookings at that price getting them at 2.5x the price seems impossible.

None of this really makes any sense, I don't think it was a cash grab, and she can't rebook those dates now anyway so its a guaranteed loss

If there were more apartment hotels available everywhere I’d probably never book airbnbs. I like having a separate bedroom from the kids and a kitchen. I like the option of being able to eat a light meal at our place instead of greasy restaurant food every meal. But that combined with the predictability and professionalism of a hotel, maybe also a swimming pool, is always going to be better than the who knows what you get with a private house owner.

Never even think about one if traveling alone.

Really? The type of hotels you mention seem to be everywhere now: Residence Inns, Springhill suites, etc.

A lot of those places either don't have multiple bedrooms or have very limited availability ime. It's usually a studio apt type deal.

limited availability for the multi-bedroom suites I mean

Sometimes you can find a 1BR room with a fold-out sofa for the kids, which is not bad.

I'm gonna be up in Madison to see King Crimson this November, and even though it's only two hours away, we decided to stay overnight. My buddy requested his own room, because he says he snores like a train. Two rooms at a hotel would cost afaict over twice as much as one airbnb with two bedrooms.

C: Having a kitchen, not seeing 1000 other people when you walk through the lobby in your sweatpants to get something from the car, privacy, separate bedrooms.
D: Predatory, reduces already low housing availability, encourages non-residence property hoarding from bad actors, is both nefarious in intent and also used even more nefariously by parties who know they're acting outside the supposed intentions of "making your extra room available for a small fee" model.

I thought we didn't have AirBnB in Madison, but I guess it's just heavily regulated (you need to apply for a license, they inspect the property, the owner needs to remain on site when renting it out so no investment properties that are only AirBnBs).

Maybe it's technically outside the city? dunno.

there are definitely a lot of "SuperHosts" who have like 20+ properties in a city around here.