airbnb, C or D?

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?

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

https://travelnoire.com/elizabeth-hirschhorn-airbnb

Warning, article has the stink of AI.

Yeah. Detals are real but seems a bit of a autocobbled story.

Honestly I think the ultimate revenge against landlords and thr shitty housing economy is to squat in long term rentals.

I'm firmly in Airbnb's market: b&bs, vacation homes, flats in centered locations, remote places in villages you'd never visit otherwise. Just searching gives you this sense of freedom, personalized experience and projecting your plans. I don't expect much from the hosts themselves, but some of them are adorable: the Greek grandmother who baked twice for us over five days, the ones who tell you about the place and give you recommendations.

In contrast, hotels are this faceless corporate checklist that are as universal as unmemorable: pool, TV, room service, zero decorative sense. And they're more expensive. You can find really special and charming places on airbnb for just over 100 euros per night. What hotel do you have in the early one hundreds ? Probably a crappy three star, or not even. I don't have enough money for my expensive tastes. The hotels I'm looking at will be focused on services, they'll be in town, all the things I'm trying to get away from.

I don't know what European hotels are like - I imagine the Airb&b's are nicer but American hotels are awesome if you're on a business trip!

Classic experiences like pacing in the lobby until free breakfast opens up, smoking outside with an utter stranger at 3 AM, hearing a heart-warming "woof" from next door at 11:30 at night, Having the license to eat utter crap from the gas station for dinner. Taking a hot bath with all the weird artisanal toiletries.

But yeah airb&b is fantastic for a cheap getaway if you're not into touristy shut.

Air b and b's in the US are often a room in some old house you could never afford IME which is but the shower soap is usually some 2-in-1 shit.

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

― Tow Law City (cherry blossom), Sunday, 18 February 2024 01:52 (four months ago) bookmarkflaglink

24 Mar
Its Ok 👍

22 Apr
But you will come for sure in my place ?

21 May
The dates are still available for you to book again hehe

🥴

dud. just got cancellation notice of place supposed to be staying next Friday and Saturday. "no longer financially viable to use airbnb". fs

😟

Wtf.

I stayed at this theater (v minor French film) actress' flat, and it was amazing (the bookshelves, never mind the rest of the place)

I broke my anti-air b and b resolution and stayed at my first ABB ever a few weeks ago. I wanted to stay for a week, needed two bedrooms, within walking distance of a festival, attractions and restaurants and with a kitchen. It was slightly cheaper than a hotel. It was nice, an old pre-civil war workers’ cottage.

usually don't have any issues, so my dud above is aimed at the host and not airbnb really.

Managed to rebook, to be fair seems like a much nicer place anyway. so hurrah.