Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry • Hacker News Board

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#131

Post by awa » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 8:23 PM UTC

blackiron wrote: post #70

Some strange things to note about this case: - she rants about airbnb, but not so much about the thieves.. in those Ebay scam cases the victim usually directs his/her anger and takes action toward the scammer, not towards ebay. She reports very little about the thieves and the progress of the police investigation. - Are these psychotic rockstar thieves so expert at hiding their identity? its a very 'proffesional' job…

Regarding - I thought that you use airbnb to rent extra properties; not your home with your documents, jewels, money, personal diary and what not in there.

Nope. You use vrbo or an external agency for your extra property. You use airbnb for renting the extra room in the house or a week you're away from your place. That's how airbnb spins it and that's how most places are listed on the site

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#132

Post by iamdave » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 8:33 PM UTC

I'm a little less worried about what the MSM will do here (editorialize and paint the hotel industry, as some other HNers have said as golden boys), I'm actually curious to see how someone up on Capitol Hill is going to react to this.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#133

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 8:45 PM UTC

rg wrote: post #112

ig1 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about in Germany, but in the UK it's common for contracts to have a clause ban subletting, but in practice it's considered unenforceable. Also unless the landlord has been through the formal eviction process the tenant probably still has a legal right to the property. From when I lived in Berlin it seemed subletting rental apartments wasn't uncommon. Subletting where you live has been common practice in…

Not so true about the UK. In my building in London, one unit was being quietly sublet for holiday-type use, in violation of the contract, and when complaints from the residents' association were not heeded a court order put an end to the illegal sublettings.

[deleted]

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#134

Post by jordanb » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 9:53 PM UTC

pinko wrote: post #127

jordanb wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a seriously damning essay from someone who's clearly working through PTSD issues (or is an amazing liar). I'm not going to defend AirBNB but I do have to say that I have an incredibly hard time identifying with this woman's writing. Ultimately, some tweakers trashed her apartment and stole her stuff. Is that a bummer? Of course. If that happened to me, would I be angry, furious? Absolutely. Would I change t…

"But the sheer levels of emotion she's experiencing over an event where, basically, her stuff got trashed, suggests to me that she probably had so many emotional stability issues to begin with that..." Being traumatized by someone violating your home, privacy, and personal life is not evidence of "emotional stability issues", it's a perfectly natural and common reaction. I think you're seriously overestimating the ex…

I'm not arguing that it's not uncommon to be upset after a break-in. I'm saying that the levels of emotional response she's describing are so over-the-top that I find it incredibly difficult to identify with them.

An inability to return to the place due to panic (five weeks after the incident, no less)... lying in a fetal position outside the door.. these are not the actions of a well-balanced person who is in a difficult emotional state due to circumstances. These are the actions of someone who really needs some serious help.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#135

Post by hluska » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 10:00 PM UTC

VladRussian wrote: post #118

hluska wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but I disagree with you (and upvoted that post). While post traumatic stress disorder is highly individualistic, one of the classic symptoms is a desire not to be reminded of the trauma (especially only five weeks after). Usually, at this point, a victim would be doing everything possible not to think of it. Granted, PTSD is highly individualistic, but if you read the relevant medical literature, this is n…

another classical symptom is flashbacks, and they aren't necessarily separated by any specific time period from the original event.

Excellent point!

The thing though is that flashbacks are involuntary (though most often brought about by a sensory trigger). The way this victim is seeking to bring this forward is voluntary.

I'm not trying to attack the victim, merely I'm agreeing with this thread's parent comment - this case is nowhere near average.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#136

Post by slowpoison » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 11:57 PM UTC

hussong wrote: post #90

bignoggins wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that is correct. The person who put up the listing claims to be friends with the tenant. The tenant has not paid rent in 4 months and his contract explicitly forbids subletting. So I am staying in this apartment illegally. Luckily, the owner is nice enough to let us stay for the remainder of our time without compensation. I have no idea how common this situation is but this is only our 6th time using airbnb and if th…

Berlin resident here. I agree that it's a tough problem to solve and would make verification of hosts (maybe prohibitively) expensive. You'd have to check that the person listing the place is a) actually the tenant, b) is in good standing with the landlord, c) has permission to sublet (without pre-approval of individual subletters by the landlord). In practice, most Berlin landlords won't ever notice their flat being…

Actually, verification of hosts is not THAT tough and Airbnb already has a solution - "Airbnb verified" photos of the listing. Airbnb offers (in big cities at least) to send a photographer to your address and have him take pictures and upload to your listing page. This verifies to a reasonably decent degree that the person listing the property is the owner too.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#137

Post by Maxious » Sat, Jul 30, 2011, 3:23 AM UTC

rdouble wrote: post #101

This is a ridiculous article. Instead of just quoting an anonymous blog post, TechCrunch could be calling AirBNB, calling the victim, digging up the police report, locating the relevant profiles on AirBNB, and so on, and so forth. They have the resources, they could contributing to the understanding of this event, rather than just spreading FUD. There is no journalism present whatsoever, it is pure spin.

TechCrunch and FT are reporting on this but EJ's latest post says "2. Other than occasionally sharing the link to my blog, I have made no statements to nor have I been interviewed by the press - yet." I'm sure the FT must have a code of conduct around victims of crime (see the BBC one @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/page/gui...) to ensure they don't complicate matters but surely they could have tried to contact EJ to confirm what they were going to print was correct.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#138

Post by foobarbazetc » Sat, Jul 30, 2011, 6:56 AM UTC

fab13n wrote: post #62

pseudonym wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>or is an amazing liar I know that people were doubting the veracity of the story in the first place, but I think the initial AirBnB PR statement laid that to rest. At this point, what would EJ gain by lying? Anything that's a blatant lie could just be replied with by "Nope" by AirBnB, and she could only hurt her case by lying about anything right now. Honestly, after what appears to be a month with no help, no repl…

(Disclaimer: I'm not saying that she's lying, and I see no element that makes me believe that she lies. I don't even see any concrete element pointing to a conspiracy, I'm merely pondering how credible it might be). > what would EJ gain by lying? AirBnB has the potential to become very disruptive for the whole hostel industry. This means that there are people, some of them with deep pockets, some of them less than ho…

Way to go with the empathy. You'd make a great AirBnb spokesman. :)

I don't think EJ gives a flying monkey's back side about how "disruptive" AirBnb is, or has spent any time thinking about how her story would impact their financing and business model. Because, really, who thinks like that?

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#139

Post by psykotic » Sat, Jul 30, 2011, 7:47 AM UTC

jordanb wrote: post #134

pinko wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But the sheer levels of emotion she's experiencing over an event where, basically, her stuff got trashed, suggests to me that she probably had so many emotional stability issues to begin with that..." Being traumatized by someone violating your home, privacy, and personal life is not evidence of "emotional stability issues", it's a perfectly natural and common reaction. I think you're seriously overestimating the ex…

I'm not arguing that it's not uncommon to be upset after a break-in. I'm saying that the levels of emotional response she's describing are so over-the-top that I find it incredibly difficult to identify with them. An inability to return to the place due to panic (five weeks after the incident, no less)... lying in a fetal position outside the door.. these are not the actions of a well-balanced person who is in a diff…

> I'm saying that the levels of emotional response she's describing are so over-the-top that I find it incredibly difficult to identify with them. [...] These are not the actions of a well-balanced person who is in a difficult emotional state due to circumstances. These are the actions of someone who really needs some serious help.

What's not the action of a well-balanced person is telling her or anyone else how they should feel in response to traumatic events. There are many, many people--men as well as women, so you can't write this off as some kind of weak-minded feminine hysteria--who are mugged, for example, and consequently develop serious neuroses that take them years to overcome. A former school mate of mine, an ex-special-forces martial arts bad-ass who you'd think would be fearless, had that happen to him and could barely get himself to leave his apartment for an entire year. That kind of response isn't based on a calm and rational risk assessment, but that doesn't make it any less genuine and deeply felt. Sufferers are often aware on a conscious rational level that they're overreacting, but that doesn't make the problem magically vanish.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#140

Post by hussong » Sat, Jul 30, 2011, 11:11 AM UTC

bignoggins wrote: post #3

I'm using airbnb in Berlin right now. Two days ago I received a knock on my door. Turns out it was the real owner of the apartment and he had the Paperwork to prove it. Fortunately he was nice enough to let us stay without compensation. When I went to the airbnb website to try and call them all I got was a web message box. I filled out a message and sent it on its way but that's a pretty lousy system. Luckily for me…

Something similar happened to us when we were staying in Mountain View for YCS09. We had found a cheap furnished apartment sublet via Craigslist. A couple weeks in, I had a friend visiting from Germany and we were having lunch at our place with a lady that he had met the night before through plentyoffish (good times).

It was a hot summer day, we had the door open to get a cool breeze going and hadn't noticed the apartment manager fixing some lamps in the hallway. Suddenly he pops his head in, surprised to see a bunch of folks he'd never seen before instead of the tenant and asks "Are you the tenants? If you are staying here, I need your name on the lease!".

Turns out our landlady wasn't supposed to sublet in the first place and hadn't told the manager about it (she had always paid the rent though). Fortunately, the situation could be rectified and we could stay for the rest of the summer as subtenants.

We figured the manager was cool with us when he realized we were behaving well (in contrast to some of the deadbeats in the complex like the dude next door who scammed one of our guys out of a hundred bucks, or the lady across the hallway who had just gotten out of jail and whose nutjob sister would yell around for hours threatening to call the police when she wouldn't open the door for her).