How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#251

Post by alkonaut » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

ThePadawan wrote: post #29

alkonaut wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many cities apartments are normally owned through some kind of co-op with a board that decides things. If that’s the case then I wouldn’t buy one in a building that allows more than temporary subletting. This is the case at least in Sweden, i.e it’s pretty hard to buy-to-let, and that’s normally a good thing (also for price stability).

That's actually really interesting to me! Here in Switzerland (once again, sorry for being generally mixed up with Sweden), most buildings are owned by investment funds, life insurance companies, banks, etc.. So the exact opposite of what you describe happens - to maximize profits at close to zero risk. Cities are having a really hard time keeping a lid on companies that restructure whole buildings to use as short-ti…

I’m only talking about buildings that are owned by the tenant now, not flats for rent. Rented flats are usually too hard to come by to make a business of subletting them.

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#252

Post by alkonaut » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #26

HelloNurse wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't you ring the bell of suspect apartments, verify the presence of illicit renters and call the police? Aren't there fines or worse for the owner?

> and call the police But it's just a civil agreement between property owners, isn't it? Is breaking that civil agreement a criminal matter that needs police attention?

Yes, the landlord should be contacted because of a breach of contract. Not the police

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#253

Post by zild3d » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #62

Hmm .. I had a friend recently who rented out a room on Airbnb and had guests that trashed it. Airbnb did pay damaged on his claim. He rented again and the girl asked if she could rent for a few more months. So they signed a standard city lease outside Airbnb and she hasn't left or paid. He's had to file eviction. That obviously isn't AirBNB's fault, but it's now 2 for 2 bad experiences that started with AirBNB. I wo…

> they signed a standard city lease outside Airbnb and she hasn't left or paid. He's had to file eviction. That obviously isn't AirBNB's fault, but it's now 2 for 2 bad experiences that started with AirBNB.

That seems like a point for AirBnB to me. This happened by going outside of AirBnB and doing a normal lease, which has those risks. If a guest is somehow avoiding paying, that is AirBnB's problem to deal with

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#254

Post by bassman9000 » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

noxToken wrote: post #174

terryf wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the reasons I don't stay in airbnbs - the system breaks the social contract. The reason hotels are more expensive is because they have to follow a bunch of rules that makes everyone's life a bit better by having insurance for risks and zoning and so on. However you have to pay a bit more. So, if you ever find yourself complaining "I wish people did something in a not the absolute cheapest and effortles…

>This is one of the reasons I don't stay in airbnbs - the system breaks the social contract. But it doesn't. People are breaking the social contract by not respecting the area. If I invite friends from out of town over for the weekend, is that breaking the social contract? If I'm going away for 2 weeks, and I have friends house sit for the duration, is that breaking the social contract? Tourists and visitors existing…

* If I invite friends from out of town over for the weekend, is that breaking the social contract? If I'm going away for 2 weeks, and I have friends house sit for the duration, is that breaking the social contract?*

Do you charge them? I guess not. And it's one of the reasons why they'll do their best to honor your trust and reputation, aside from, obviously, your friendship, given you trust them.

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#255

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

georgespencer wrote: post #247

JacKTrocinskI wrote: post #6

Or just go to a hotel! I have a condo in a building where most of the units are listed on Airbnb or Booking.com, quality of life for residents like me has been drastically reduced by noisy tourists that come for a weekend trip and have no regard for keeping it quiet or keeping the shared spaces clean. I hope more cities begin to ban Airbnb. Tourists belong in hotels not in buildings where families try to live their d…

Wouldn't it be better to find some way to incentivise good behaviour from people instead of banning something which often allows cheaper, more comfortable stays than hotels, whilst also providing homeowners with a way of making money efficiently from their property?

It would be, but it's not the world we live in.

It's hard to make people behave well (for any definition of "well"), and the way it's usually done involves community - a social structure composed of people who spend significant time together, and which evolves and maintains its own code of conduct.

It's easier to mitigate bad behavior. That's why legit hospitality businesses are structured and regulated in a way that "eats" the consequences of bad conduct and doesn't let them leak out. AirBnB did nothing to "find some way to incentivise good behaviour from people"[0], but unleashed those people onto communities that were unprepared to handle the bad behaviour.

It's kind of like - wouldn't it be better to find a way to neuter nuclear waste so that it's not dangerous? Yes, it would. But we don't know how to do that, so the next best alternative is to box it up in designated storage locations. AirBnB is essentially letting anyone with a house become a nuclear storage facility, with no care for safe storage.

--

[0] - well, they made a rating system, but I think that in 2019, it's universally recognized that rating systems are trivially gameable and generally don't work too well.

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#256

Post by exergy » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #202

exergy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your definition. Here in Switzerland, the expectations go as far as aksing you NOT to use toilets after a reasonable hour in the evening because the sound through the water pipes can disturb people. Now, it's not as draconian as it sounds, and from time to time you are welcome to use the toilet, obviously. Similarly, in some villages, you are NOT welcome to tear down an old building and build a modern mons…

People in Switzerland don't have to pee in the middle of the night?

They do and they do. Hence the caveat in my post.

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#257

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:20 PM UTC

jkoudys wrote: post #223

mrfusion wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another option. What if we banned the disruptive behavior? Maybe neighbors can leave reviews on guests? Maybe a unit can be forced to be delisted with enough complaints? Who knows but automatically banning things isn’t always the answer.

What's definitely not the answer is leaving valuable real estate empty. I'm out of town a couple weekends a month, and travel to visit the wife's family overseas for around a month every year. No way to do short term rentals (our building has a 6mo minimum), so a property that could be generating almost $9k/y for us is instead a liability. Extremely frustrating when we're new parents just getting by, and a bunch of w…

The problem being solved by a 6mo minimum isn't you renting out your spot for a month every year to help make ends meet. The problem is your slightly wealthier neighbor buying a spare apartment or two in your building in order to run a pirate hotel in it all year long. Unfortunately, it's hard to prevent the latter without blocking the former...

... at least legally. I assume you could work something out for your case with people you know who are in need of a place to stay for vacation, or - at a higher risk - with second-degree connections, or even complete strangers. It's not a perfect solution but it does place the risk where it belongs - on you. You have to make absolutely sure that the guests you invite aren't causing problems, or else someone will rat you out.

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#258

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:24 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #102

danaris wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and there's likely more of them than hotels in any given place. Not in America. You might find a few in & near major cities, but hotels and motels are everywhere , bed & breakfasts are fairly common, and AirBnBs are plentiful.

So what's the correct term for "a cheap hotel, usually without a minibar in the room"? Because that's what we call a "hostel" over where I live, and I assume in the rest of Europe.

[deleted]

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#259

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #152

TeMPOraL wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is going to be a pretty blow-below-the-belt suggestion for our (Polish) sensibilities, but since I have very little charity for antisocial behavior - especially of the "I profit, I don't care" kind, and doubly so when coordinated by a multinational corp pretending to be a hip tech company: I wonder if the owner is paying correct taxes on the money made from AirBnB leases. It would be a shame if the Revenue Servi…

Considering that airbnb payments come through wire transfer (or SEPA), you'd have to be pretty dumb to evade taxes.

Yes and no. Are regular AirBnB hosts actually forming businesses, or are they reporting this as private income and hope the tax man doesn't have time to notice?

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#260

Post by dec0dedab0de » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

jkoudys wrote: post #215

dylan604 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However you have to pay a bit more. I've been looking into AirBnB for certain situations, and because people tell me they are cheaper than hotels. However, I have found that in a lot of cases, hotels end up being cheaper. The big gotcha is the prices shown are the fee for the room (or house or whatever), but then at the end they tack on exorbitant "cleaning" fees that I have found to be greater than the rental fee.…

Yeah those cleaning fees are bullshit. I don't want to see the prices of only one item on a list shown on the map, I want to see how much it actually costs to stay there. tbf you'll see this on a lot of hotel bookings too. We just got back from a week in NYC, and most booking systems (either hotels or airbnbs) were a massive slog. Try to airbnb an okay place in the Bronx for $110/night? Click through and see an $80 c…

Really not loving all these systems that go out of there way to confuse me into paying more money.

When you think about it the cleaning fee really does need to be separate because it's a one time fee. So with your scheme it's $190 for one night, but but $121 a night for a week.

That said I used AirBnB for the first time last month, and I was very confused by the different pricing on different pages. The UI did seem to be purposely confusing. It should have been listed as total price for the dates I am searching for.