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Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”

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Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”

#171

Post by rdouble »

rbanffy wrote: post #166
rdouble wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apartment in San Francisco was burglarized in a similar manner,without the assistance of AirBnB. I did not develop PTSD. Based off my own experience, I also find that something seems off about EJ's story. I've found the internet's response at least strange as the incident itself.

Would you mind telling your story?

My landlady saw a crackhead in our yard but since SF is filled with zorched looking lurkers she didn't think much of it and just told him to leave. I came home from work, and noticed my apartment was a real mess and my TV was missing. Went to the closet and noticed everything was dumped out and an old laptop was missing. I actually found the laptop in a garbage can next to the house. The thieves did a few weird things like steal my pillows and dump out items from the fridge. I went down to the cop shop and they said there was a string of burglaries where the thieves were using dudes from the park to act as lookouts and then take the blame later. My landlady and I actually went down to the park and found the crackhead guy riding around on a kid's BMX bike. He said he didn't do it but that he did know where my TV was.

Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”

#172

Post by daemin »

djjose wrote: post #150
rdouble wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apartment in San Francisco was burglarized in a similar manner,without the assistance of AirBnB. I did not develop PTSD. Based off my own experience, I also find that something seems off about EJ's story. I've found the internet's response at least strange as the incident itself.

Everyone is different. I had my place burglarized some years back and I never felt safe again in the place. I suffered many sleepless nights and would awaken at any sound. This was no way to live "at home" so I moved out and have since lived in "more secure" buildings (condos). It's not a fun experience so I can empathize with anyone that has been through it and isn't the same after. In effect you really do feel viol…

Yes it can happen and people deal with it differently. Though I would assume in your case that you didn't hand over the keys of your house to the burglars.

Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”

#173

Post by rbanffy »

rdouble wrote: post #171
rbanffy wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind telling your story?

My landlady saw a crackhead in our yard but since SF is filled with zorched looking lurkers she didn't think much of it and just told him to leave. I came home from work, and noticed my apartment was a real mess and my TV was missing. Went to the closet and noticed everything was dumped out and an old laptop was missing. I actually found the laptop in a garbage can next to the house. The thieves did a few weird thing…

Her case was a bit different. During the stay, she developed a relationship with the guest, exchanging e-mail messages while her home was carefully vandalized and her valuables stolen. I can see it could be a very traumatic experience.

I once was robbed at gunpoint and it took me weeks to get back to nomal. I am still very careful when I have my notebook in my backpack.

Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”

#174

Post by tptacek »

pbreit wrote: post #170
tptacek wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you meant to say this to the parent comment, which suggested "EJ" might be scared because the thieves still had her keys.

Well who knows what keys they might still have? Everyone i know has lots of keys and doesn't get all of them changed immediately.

Then they have the keys to a set of locks that have since been changed.

Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”

#175

Post by rdouble »

rbanffy wrote: post #173
rdouble wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My landlady saw a crackhead in our yard but since SF is filled with zorched looking lurkers she didn't think much of it and just told him to leave. I came home from work, and noticed my apartment was a real mess and my TV was missing. Went to the closet and noticed everything was dumped out and an old laptop was missing. I actually found the laptop in a garbage can next to the house. The thieves did a few weird thing…

Her case was a bit different. During the stay, she developed a relationship with the guest, exchanging e-mail messages while her home was carefully vandalized and her valuables stolen. I can see it could be a very traumatic experience. I once was robbed at gunpoint and it took me weeks to get back to nomal. I am still very careful when I have my notebook in my backpack.

Yeah it was different, but my home in SF was ransacked and guys on drugs were involved, so it was also "similar."

I have been robbed at gunpoint in Emeryville too, that was a worse experience.

Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”

#176

Post by rglover »

After reading EJ's story and now this, I think it's safe to say that although what's taken place is unfortunate, it's really up to the person renting out their place to protect themselves. If Airbnb absolves themselves in their policy docs, then there's not much they have to do if something bad happens. On the contrary, however, they obviously need to have a serious overhaul of how they portray security to customers, as well as the vetting process for renters. Also, developing some sort of insurance program will help to skirt some major issues. I'm glad this is happening now, though, before someone gets hurt. Hopefully Airbnb will look at these events as warnings and take the necessary steps to refine how they protect themselves and their customers.

Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”

#177

Post by dasht »

jjmaxwell4 wrote: post #165
dasht wrote: post #152

There is a deep ethical problem with starting or funding airbnb, in my opinion: The fraction of people with enough sophistication and resources to be good, safe, hosts and guests is a tiny, tiny fraction of the people in the world. It is absurd to think that airbnb could ever scale to justify its investments if only those sophisticated users were customers. The model relies, therefore, on large numbers of hosts and g…

What about all of the good that AirBnB does for the large majority of people who use the site? Is there a deep ethical problem with letting people supplement their income, while also letting travellers have a cheaper option for a night/weeks stay? The vast majority of people who use AirBnb benefit from it.

"The vast majority of the people who use [it] benefit from it" is true of many products that are correctly removed from the market because of the size of the minority that suffer and the scale of their injury -- weighed against the benefit to other users and society as a whole.

More importantly, though, the scope of the risk of airbnb is enormous and past performance is not a reliable indicator of future success. As these two examples of bad experiences have shown, the system can be gamed. As a larger and larger number of bad guys learn that this system can be gamed (and how) -- exploits as a percentage of use and percentage of value received (insofar as you can quantify that) will, it seems to me, almost certainly grow.

Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”

#178

Post by [deleted] »

llambda wrote: post #114
timr wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But there's something "off" about EJ's position here. Why is a vandalized apartment leaving her homeless?" Put yourself in the position of a person who has just had their apartment burglarized (remember: they stole her personal documents and valuables) and their keys stolen by probable drug addicts. Also, remember that the police have arrested one of the vandals, but probably not all of them. Ignoring, for the momen…

A home is invaded; robbed. Personal property is destroyed or stolen in the process. This happens everyday. Homes are cased, the victims watched, their habits noted. Ultimately they're broken into. In some instances criminals look for homes where the victims appear to be on vacation and set up labs. What do rational individuals do? They call the police, they change the locks, and they carry on with their lives. The di…

[deleted]

Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”

#179

Post by xianshou »

Omnipresent wrote: post #158

Arrington, "in his arrington way", is really out to screw AirBnB now.

TechCrunch has always smelled slightly of yellow journalism, but I would say that, on average, they've given Airbnb fair treatment. Arrington and the TC crew have written very enthusiastically about Airbnb in the past, perhaps excessively so, and now they are fulminating about the users who have been mistreated by Airbnb renters, again perhaps excessively so. Still, I would rather that these cases reach a public forum than that Airbnb have carte blanche to whitewash them for the sake of investor happiness.

Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”

#180

Post by Nelson69 »

cletus wrote: post #18

As much as some people might view this as "sometimes things go wrong", which is basically true, that's not the whole story. The story here is that people are doing things that in most jurisdictions are illegal. AirBnB is profiting off this. Do something illegal and you can't insure against any negative consequences. The whole EJ situation is a potential inflection point. Without knowing the full facts (which no one s…

The way this is turning is really ugly. EJ is a victim, plain and simple. And it's not a simple robbery where someone just tossed some drawers and ran through the place, they took their time and found everything you'd not want them to find. There is no rectifying that, she was invaded, there is nothing that will undo that, not money, not new stuff, not anything. That's just how it is. There are police reports, it happened.

Now AirBnB should have known better, should have had a plan in place and should have offered her a very lucrative deal to keep her mouth shut before she thought to open it. They can't put it back in the bottle now. That they didn't, they just look like shmucks. Not just that, now how do you think the negotiation is supposed to go? Shit, I feel sorry for EJ, she's laid this out there and now they're going to try and quantify how she feels and what it's worth, how's that conversation go? Does she open? Maybe a VC partner will talk to her, what if she asks for too much? This is just ugly ugly ugly.

That this happened with another person.. Seems to me like AirBnB needs to get their shit in order in a very serious way. I know they're the darling but turning people's homes in to meth houses? How many others have their been? Did the VCs know this and re-up? Or was this secret?

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