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Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flailing Kickstarter games

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Re: Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flailing Kickstarter games

#81

Post by avalaunch »

andyfortson wrote: post #69
TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #30

What we must have is a network that enables a peer-to-peer trust rating for individuals. Sort of like Yelp, but for people. No doubt such a system would be a huge privacy problem for people as people would say that negative reviews reveal their private facts, or that those reviews are defamation. However, if the network is decentralized, then it might be possible to keep it running even in the face of opposition from…

There's a startup that's trying to do this: https://myrepp.com/ . Not sure why they're not using this case as an opportunity to get some press.

I'm pretty sure they don't allow users to rate one another though as the OP is suggesting. Instead it looks like you can create an account for yourself, verify who you are, and run criminal/sex offender checks against yourself. Then you can share your Repp profile with others (when selling on Craiglist, for exampe) so that others know you aren't a psychopath (or at least not a convicted one). It wouldn't really have prevented the squatter's issue unless the squatter has a criminal record.

Re: Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flailing Kickstarter games

#82

Post by tzs »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #74
gerner wrote: post #19

In some ways, this is the dark side of disrupting established industries: legal protections aren't in place yet; it's not clear what recourse people caught in never before seen corner cases have. We (e.g. HN folks) are quick to applaud people with new ideas that are shaking things up (e.g. Airbnb, Uber, etc.) I suspect this is the sort of scenario detractors (e.g. Seattle City Council re: Uber) are worried about. Ter…

It is unclear to me if one could pull the same thing at an actual hotel or not. Assuming you could find a hotel that had a room available for more than 30 days, would they book you for that long? Or do they already have a policy against that for this very reason? Or do they have some different protection under the law that makes it easier to make you leave when your stay has ended?

There are different rules for hotels/motels. In particular, if the manager has a right of access and control, and all of the following are true:

• occupancy of less than 7 days is allowed (this doesn't mean your occupancy has to be less than 7 days)

• a fireproof safe is provided for residents' use

• it has a central telephone service

• it has maid, mail, and room service

• it has food service provided by a food establishment on or next to the hotel/motel grounds and that is operated in conjunction with the hotel/motel,

then California classifies you as a guest, not a tenant, and no matter how long you stay there you can be kicked out as soon as you fail to pay, with no need for any kind of eviction proceeding.

More details here: http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/whois.shtml

Re: Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flailing Kickstarter games

#83

Post by Steko »

DanBC wrote: post #53
Steko wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The owner is doing exactly the right thing here: turn the media loose & Airbnb will hopefully cover her losses. The scammer - Maksym Pashanin - is essentially trading what was left of his reputation for just a few thousand bucks. Heroin's a hell of a drug. Edit: added scammer's name in case he uses some bullshit right to be forgotten on other articles.

I thought the US inherited all that "innocent until proven guilty" stuff from England.

We did, it applies to courts not public opinion.

Re: Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flailing Kickstarter games

#84

Post by mattdeboard »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #72
gerner wrote: post #19

In some ways, this is the dark side of disrupting established industries: legal protections aren't in place yet; it's not clear what recourse people caught in never before seen corner cases have. We (e.g. HN folks) are quick to applaud people with new ideas that are shaking things up (e.g. Airbnb, Uber, etc.) I suspect this is the sort of scenario detractors (e.g. Seattle City Council re: Uber) are worried about. Ter…

You seem to be confused about what legal protections are or are not in place, and whom the law protects. This isn't some loophole or edge case in the law, this is an explicit protection for lessee which is written into the law for a specific reason. "Legitimate slumlords", if you can tolerate such a concept, are well aware of this provision, and will bodily remove you and your belongings from their flop houses on the…

"Did they break the law? Are they immoral heathens? I'm not saying that the answer to either of these is yes, but isn't it interesting that I'm the only one asking such questions?"

This post is really the ultimate in weasel-y, passive-aggressive muckraking. If you've got a point, make it.

Re: Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flailing Kickstarter games

#85

Post by 7Figures2Commas »

jonnathanson wrote: post #78
7Figures2Commas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In some ways, this is the dark side of disrupting established industries: legal protections aren't in place yet... That's simply not true. The homeowner voluntarily agreed to rent her home to someone for more than 30 days. On the 30th day, that person became a tenant and gained certain rights under the law. The homeowner still has legal rights of her own, but the nature of the rental she agreed to means that she wi…

Airbnb makes it easier for naive or unsophisticated "landlords" to rent out their properties. Yes, those would-be landlords should educate themselves about what they are getting into. But you could argue that Airbnb, by dint of its existence and its success, is lowering the barriers to entry for the would-be landlords of the world -- and thus bears a social and ethical, if not necessarily a legal, responsibility to e…

If you read some of my previous comments[1] on AirBnB, you'll see that I question many of the company's practices. AirBnB has constructive knowledge that some of its "hosts" are violating the law in certain cities where it is well-publicized that short-term rentals are illegal. And it has constructive knowledge that there are virtually no apartment leases that permit renters to turn their apartments into hotel rooms through short-term sublets.

But this story doesn't fall into those categories and your line of reasoning is not convincing. From what has been published, the so-called "victim" purchased a condo hundreds of miles away from her actual residence as an investment with the intention of producing income through vacation rentals. She was marketing its availability on multiple sites, not just AirBnB. AirBnB and the current crop of sites like it didn't create the vacation rental market. This market existed well before the advent of the internet. Before AirBnB emerged, there was no shortage of unsophisticated individuals trying their hand at real estate.

Making the landlord a particularly unsympathetic character here is the fact that, in the original article about this situation, she admitted to seeing warning signs early on. Instead of terminating the rental well before 30 days had elapsed when her gut told her that there was something off about her "guest", she decided to let the guest stay.

There's a saying, "Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered." I have absolutely no doubt that AirBnB could "retool its process" as you suggest and it still wouldn't prevent situations like this because no "process" is going eliminate greed.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7896538

Re: Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flailing Kickstarter games

#86

Post by sanderjd »

_delirium wrote: post #59
sanderjd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every serious party engaged in the rental business is familiar with these laws AirBnB's disruption is to enable unserious parties to engage in the rental business, so the negative effects of unserious parties engaging in the rental business can pretty reasonably be laid at the feet of that disruption.

For really casual renters I can see that: I think the "couchsurfing for money" type of AirBnB really is new, and brings in casual renters looking to rent out a couch or a spare room, or occasionally a spare apartment while they themselves are gone. But dabbling into full-time landlording, where you buy an apartment just to rent it out, is not really new or newly enabled by AirBnB. It's not like VRBO checks your sanit…

Yeah, maybe regulators will be able to figure out how to rein in the second use case without messing up the first. But that sounds pretty idealistic.

Re: Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flailing Kickstarter games

#87

Post by URSpider94 »

thekevan wrote: post #33

This is a bit of a tangent, but what would there be to stop the woman who owns the condo to start signing 28 day leases with hundreds of other people? Imagine if dozens of good citizens showed up to the apartment at once, with a key, any time they wanted. They could just hang out and of course they also had a lease and a legal right to be there, so the original two couldn't do much, could they? That would make it muc…

IANAL, but ...

Courts take a very, very dim view of any act that a landlord takes to harass a tenant, legal or not. Read http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~asucrla/Harassment%20by%20Your%... for example. A landlord who takes any adverse action against a tenant outside the legal eviction process is liable for damages.

Further, those other hundreds of tenants could have a legal claim against the landlord for fraud, since in a lease the landlord has to represent that he/she can deliver the property to the tenant, which is demonstrably not the case.

Re: Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flailing Kickstarter games

#88

Post by URSpider94 »

damian2000 wrote: post #64

If I was the owner, I'd be looking at all the possible ways I could to make their stay less comfortable - music at all hours of the night, faulty hot water system, power outages. Not very ethical, but what these guys are doing isn't ethical either.

That is clearly illegal under California law. In addition to exposing the landlord to civil damages, it's also a pretty clear way to get your eviction suit thrown out.

As I posted in another comment, see http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~asucrla/Harassment%20by%20Your%... for the details of the law.

Re: Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flailing Kickstarter games

#89

Post by thekevan »

_delirium wrote: post #65
thekevan wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That would be illegal in any jurisdiction I know of. I'm renting my current apartment; obviously my landlord cannot rent it out to someone else while I still live here." Right, you probably have a lease. If you had a squatter's lease--or a de facto lease--couldn't she just allow more squatters? I don't think what you say has direct bearing on this situation because you both entered into a specific agreement. There i…

It's not really squatting in this case, which is where someone takes up residence in a property they have never had a contractual right to, like building a log cabin on your farmland, and then living in it for years. That's a different set of laws. This is rather a person who had a legitimate lease, but has violated or exceeded it. Here they clearly had a legal right to lease the apartment for the first 44 days: this…

While it is less like squatting which I should have realized and I'm glad you that pointed out, I wasn't addressing that as much as I should have been. There was an arrangement for X amount of days, which they have overstayed, so I am wondering where California law falls there. Because now they are in a default lease, one exists on the lawbooks. It's enough of a differentiation to possibly give her a little bit more leverage. I wonder what the loopholes are that she could utilize to make life un-enjoyable for them.

Re: Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flailing Kickstarter games

#90

Post by URSpider94 »

fancyketchup wrote: post #62
maxden wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a sms exchange here [0] where he does in fact say he does require electricity, and if they cut it off, he will press charges for blackmail and damages. Unfortunately it seems it will only be resolved with a lengthy eviction process. It is also interesting that there problems within the first few days. [0] http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-host-cant-get-squatter...

I wonder if a whole-house version of a lamp timer would be useful in this situation? Suppose there were a device that turned off power on a schedule, and which could only be reset from inside the apartment. Power would turn off automatically 12 hours after the lease terminates to "save power in an unoccupied unit." That way, the owner isn't turning off power to constructively evict, but the power is off all the same.

Harassment of a tenant, even a tenant whose tenancy is under dispute, is a crime in California. Disruption of power is specifically covered under the law.

See http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~asucrla/Harassment%20by%20Your%...

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