As a customer of AirBnB since they first posted here this doesn't surprise me. I live in one of the affected cities, Miami Beach. And it's depressing to see the neighborhood being hollowed out. Early on when it was just a few renters and owners renting out space in the spare bedroom or couch it wasn't a big deal. Half my condo, 24 units, is on airbnb now. We currently don't have a HOA president as the last one was fed up with absentee owners and quit. Everyone is bitter as we're paying a great deal of money to live in a frat house.
Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines
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Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Beyond that though, what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the profits and accept none of the blame. I dunno; it seems to me that in these cases, the people who are really to blame are the "tenants" who are actually breaking both laws and rental agreements. I'm puzzled as to why the property owners aren't suing them to recover all the money they lost. I mean, yeah, lawsuits cost money, too, but when you're…
I'm puzzled as to why the property owners aren't suing them to recover all the money they lost. I mean, yeah, lawsuits cost money, too, but when you're talking a $20k fine, I would imagine there's at least a good chance of recovering more than you pay...and it didn't sound like any of the mentioned owners were attempting to do anything to the bad-faith tenants. It sounds like you have never been a landlord. It's a fi…
The lack of a property manager also struck me as crazy and I've never been a landlord. Plenty of rentals have gotten trashed and city fines accrued long before airbnb existed. Doesn't sound like this stuff happened overnight.
Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines
#23[deleted]
Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines
#24Man, the more I read stories like this about AirBnB the more I want them to fail. People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason. Beyond that though, what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the profits and accept none of the blame. They fought to avoid paying taxes and whined when they lost, they refuse to take down listings when pres…
> People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason.
Just quoted this part because it's so important. Most (but not 100%) of regulation complaints are of the "waah waah" sort.
Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines
#25I don't understand. The city is levying fines against... the victim of a break and enter?
Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines
#26Behavior like this will lead to Airbnb being sued until a point where they recognize it is cheaper to put a zip-code blacklisting system in than continue to break the law. Right now they make money from this behavior. It's a poor long term strategy that made sense when they were small and scrappy but is no longer acceptable.
Also, they're losing public support - I've used airbnb for years in SF and around the country and they used to have people on their side because they were the underdog. They are no longer the underdog. They are now worth roughly the same as Marriott.
Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines
#27Is it feasible to write "Tenant agrees to pay all city-related fines caused by their intentionally renting the property on sites like AirBNB" into the lease, and tell the city they can collect directly from the tenant?
Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines
#28> He emailed Airbnb's trust and safety team that night. Nothing. > Five more days passed, correspondence shows, without Airbnb assigning a dedicated person to his case. Then on March 23, Airbnb wrote Grewal with what amounted to a shrug. 5 days and then a "shrug"? Wow. That's appalling as far as Customer Service goes. I haven't listed on, or rented from AirBnB. But is this kind of customer service normal or is the in…
Imagine it was a newspaper classified ad in your newspaper that someone has paid for all week and someone else phoned up asking you not to reprint it tomorrow. Or the noticeboard in Publix
That said, there is precedent for third-parties successfully making takedown requests on content. I think most newspapers would agree to take down an ad if it was proven to sell illegal services or goods.
Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines
#29I skimmed the article a few times.
How did the City of Miami figure out the property was listed on AirBNB?
If they're scraping the AirBNB website for images of the front of the buildings, or however their doing it, wouldn't it then make sense to contact the owner to advise them of the unlawful listing. This would give the owner an opportunity make a statutory declaration stating they didn't make this listing.
Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines
#30> He emailed Airbnb's trust and safety team that night. Nothing. > Five more days passed, correspondence shows, without Airbnb assigning a dedicated person to his case. Then on March 23, Airbnb wrote Grewal with what amounted to a shrug. 5 days and then a "shrug"? Wow. That's appalling as far as Customer Service goes. I haven't listed on, or rented from AirBnB. But is this kind of customer service normal or is the in…
Imagine it was a newspaper classified ad in your newspaper that someone has paid for all week and someone else phoned up asking you not to reprint it tomorrow. Or the noticeboard in Publix
Imagine somebody placed a classified add saying:
"Free wheels. Find them on the car in the driveway at 123 Main St. Also help yourself to the backyard furniture."
And you live at 123 Main St.?