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Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments

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Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments

#351

Post by masonic »

nate_meurer wrote: post #81

I run a vacation rental in a small town in the mountains of Colorado. I'm quite happy to pay the taxes the town demands. Our place is busy, and our guests make a significant impact on the town, spending a lot of money in local shops and restaurants. On the other hand, there is increased wear on city and county roads (many of which are gravel), and increased load on water, sewer, and sanitation services. Cities and co…

  Our place is busy, and our guests make a significant impact on the town, spending a lot of money in local shops and restaurants.
More than actual full-time residents would?

Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments

#352

Post by simias »

drstewart wrote: post #286
pjc50 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hotels usually remain full. There's a huge pent-up demand for tourism.

Now you get it. Airbnb is providing a service there's a huge demand and need for, not some evil provider that's forcing something down people's throats.

You're being obtuse. It's simply a case of a tragedy of the commons, the commons in this case being available real-estate. Paris is already one of the densest cities in the world, if you add more tourist lodgings you have to push somebody else out.

Besides you make it sound like enabling more tourism is unambiguously a good thing. It's true that it has positive side-effects (mostly on the economy) but it also leads to degradation, overcrowding and, as we were discussing, an explosion of the cost of life for the locals. I often hear tourists complaining that they don't get an "authentic" experience abroad, how could they when the place they visit have been deserted by the locals?

Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments

#353

Post by nate_meurer »

masonic wrote: post #351
nate_meurer wrote: post #81

I run a vacation rental in a small town in the mountains of Colorado. I'm quite happy to pay the taxes the town demands. Our place is busy, and our guests make a significant impact on the town, spending a lot of money in local shops and restaurants. On the other hand, there is increased wear on city and county roads (many of which are gravel), and increased load on water, sewer, and sanitation services. Cities and co…

Our place is busy, and our guests make a significant impact on the town, spending a lot of money in local shops and restaurants. More than actual full-time residents would?

Yes definitely. The degree varies by establishment. Most of the shops downtown -- the art stores, rock shop, gift and clothing shops in particular -- are utterly dependent on tourism. Locals don't buy local art and crafts, and they don't buy leather jackets and hats tastefully embossed with the town's name.

The town's grocer is pretty dependent on vacationers. Locals do more of the 45 minute drive to Walmart once a week.

The restaurants in town get more local business, but I'm aware from comments and reviews that our guests eat out a lot. Even with a full kitchen, it's common for people to eat out more on vacation than they would normally at home, especially when the restaurants are seen to be part of a town's charm and reputation. Which is why I put out the menus on a side table in my home's entryway, just like the hotels do in their lobbies.

When we bring family there, we eat out a lot. We walk downtown to get ice cream in the little candy store. We never do that at home in Denver. I don't take the kids to ice cream at home. That's what vacations are for! I say, "You are naughty, awful, disappointing children, but if you be good from now on maybe we'll go on vacation again and get ice cream". I know I'm not the only one.

Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments

#354

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

kalleboo wrote: post #340
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a hotel room with an attached suite, this isn’t very hard. Most in the group can stay in small economy rooms, then use the suite for group things or big meals. My extended family (usually groups of 20+, with various budgets) does this also for beach vacations to book oceanside hotels pretty cheaply, and we also make use of shared spaces, like picnic areas or large table spaces you can use for free at some lodges.…

I utterly despise hotels for vacations. They always make me feel stressed out and claustrophobic. Waking up ungodly early to make the breakfast buffet (and no kitchen for a leisurely breakfast), dodging housekeeping (and worrying about something getting stolen), universally shitty wifi, sometimes no fridge to keep your own drinks in, expensive laundry. Whole-home-style rentals are always more relaxing, and the only r…

I’ve stayed in several whole-home rentals that were far more stressful than hotels. Broken fixtures, water outages, disgusting roaches seen in living spaces and bedrooms, lack of amenities that were promised in the rental description, bad neighborhoods where my car was broken into, and hosts who try to charge me by claiming I didn’t properly take away trash or recycling even when I followed instructions perfectly.

Meanwhile, hotels have a great track record of safety, cleanliness and consistency of service from one place to the next. They’re not perfect, but I’m a big fan of saving just a small additional amount of money to stay in a hotel.

To boot, hotels actually pay their taxes and I don’t have to feel bad about the booking portal company for hotels hustling municipalities and finding ways to lie/cheat/steal to avoid fair burdens to demonstrate compliance with tax laws, like with Airbnb.

Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments

#355

Post by RankingMember »

nate_meurer wrote: post #283
RankingMember wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsolicited recommendation from one person on the other end: don't charge for toilet paper. If your concern is environmental, I don't think it'll make an impact as people will just pay the $1 or $2 and use the same amount. If your concern is money, just raise your rate. Hosts who nickel and dime for that kind of stuff come off like major cheapskates and tend to have reviews that reflect that. I've stayed at places th…

This is good advice. I hate nickle-and-dimey stuff too, so yeah, good point. You know what else I hate? Fucking Keurig. I hate the packaging, I hate the shitty brewing machines that don't brew hot enough or saturate the pods, and I hate the racketeering company. Nevertheless, one of the most consistent compliments I get in reviews is about this dinky little coffee and tea station we have set up on a bread rack. Nothi…

I was actually going to mention maybe trying one of those cheap bidet add-ons, but then I thought about all the guests who won't know what to do with it and might spray the wall if they touch the control while not sitting down.

Agreed 100% re: Keurig. :)

Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments

#356

Post by leetcrew »

bargl wrote: post #292
ProAm wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is that AirBnB's fault? He wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for AirBNB. He likely could have asked the concierge at the hotel he was staying at for help finding his room in his drunken state.

He also wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for: The Host, Himself, air travel?, bachelor party?, bars he visited, brands of alcohol he drank, Uber who took him to the wrong address, His parents, his grand parents. What if instead of the host using AirBnB he was just a local Bed and Breakfast (those existed before AirBnb). Who's fault is it then? I forget the term for it, but there is a legal definition that limits…

Trey got too drunk. Trey couldn't remember where he was staying. Trey tried (unwittingly) to break into the poor woman's house. hell, Trey was the one who decided to go to the wedding in the first place. it's Trey's fault.

it doesn't seem like you actually disagree, but I wasn't sure where to put this post in the somewhat disjointed thread.

Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments

#357

Post by anoncoward111 »

acct1771 wrote: post #348
anoncoward111 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are describing is precisely the same situation I had when I lived in an apartment building next to a long-term tenant . She simply didn't give a shit about the noise and trash she generated and all of us had to deal with it. The landlord didn't care either. The police told me to deal with the landlord, because the noise wasn't at 3AM and wasn't "an event" like a concert. But her music was loud enough to shak…

Went from unsurprised at your lack of success, to surprised after seeing the list, back to unsurprised after seeing "UK"...

I live in the USA and it happened in the USA. Studied abroad in UK and thought the term was fitting :)

Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments

#358

Post by mneubrand »

PHGamer wrote: post #329
armitron wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicago had 561 murders in 2018. That's 1.5 murders a day. Chicago had 2948 shooting victims in 2018. That's 8 shooting victims a day. https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/chicago-murder-total-2018-... To someone living in Europe, these rates defy belief.

yea but its fucking chicago. inner cities suck in the us.

The vast majority of shootings in Chicago do not happen in the inner city (aka the Loop). Most of these are on the South side and West side of the city

Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments

#359

Post by scarface74 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #245
alistairSH wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, the other option... don't buy property that has these rules in place and you'll never have the problem. It's not like these rules pop up randomly - you have to sign condo/HOA docs as part of the closing process.

I agree. HOAs are still relatively rare outside of SoCal, so this issue is unlikely to pop up for 99.999% of the US population.

Almost anytime you have a developer that develops an entire neighborhood, you’re going to have an HOA.

Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments

#360

Post by novok »

nate_meurer wrote: post #318
novok wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many k-cups that are not from keurig, and they are %100 industrially compostable. You can also put a small compost bucket beside the pods so they would actually be composted. That plus sweetener in paper packets and you have a %100 compostable system. Maybe there are powder creamers out there that come in paper packets too. I use these guys myself, and they are 0.30 a cup from Costco: https://www.sanfrancis…

Yes I buy Kirkland as well. You're right much cheaper, but same horrendously wasteful packaging. So, talk to me about the bidet. I've always though that if I hosed myself off real good, then I could consistently use just one wipe with the tp to dry off, instead of needing an unpredictable number of wipings to the same without water. Is this realistic? Do you find it's consistently just one tp wipe per job? Because th…

I use really thin 1 ply scott tp that come with 1000 sheets per roll. It actually works pretty good, but I guess for drying from bidets, it gets saturated quickly compared to more luxury tp, so you have to use more.

Maybe if I used the good stuff it would not take a lot. Also TP is a compostable and renewable resource, so I wouldn't worry that much about it's usage.

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