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Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

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Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#51

Post by samtho »

digging wrote: post #12

Making small changes to policy like this will continue to have no effect on the negative externalities of AirBNB rentals. Will this improve guest privacy? No, hidden cameras are too difficult to detect and too easy to install. Will this prevent AirBNBs becoming party houses/apartments in residential areas? No, obviously not, since that's apparently already banned. Will this collect commercial taxes from investment pr…

This does give AirBnB a reason enshrined in policy to take consistent action against misbehaving hosts, something that was lacking previously.

Also, I am not sure why you are conflating AirBnB’s authority with a local government - or course AirBnB won’t address the issues you cite in your last paragraphs as that is not their job and to think it should be is totally ridiculous. We have local and state governance to pass laws regulating behavior that is not good for society at large. AirBnB’s job is to generate value for shareholders all while operating within those bounds.

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#52

Post by casenmgreen »

bombcar wrote: post #21
endisneigh wrote: post #17

In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available. Back to the topic - removing listings isn’t a sufficient enough punishment imho. And how would you even prove it from the guests side? Take a picture I suppose? But how do you stop bad actors? Not sure what the correct solution is. Someone who wants to spy can purchase a spy camera which is very abundant these days.

AirBNB "when it started" was quite likely to find you quirky and cheap options. Now it's commoditized and a business, and the quirky and cheap options are few and far between. Part of the degradation is both the company, the sellers, and the buyers - back in the very beginning it wasn't well known and most of the customers were well behaved - I'm not sure that's entirely the case now, as the customer base has grown.

I'm a digital nomad.

One luggage, no permanent home, been fifteen years.

I used to use AirBnB all the time.

They gradually become more and more, well, "large company".

Governments gradually made AirBnB illegal or effectively illegal, largely or wholly killing off AirBnB in given cities, or countries.

For example, it used to be about impossible to get into Amsterdam, because of rent control and renting regulations; no supply of places to let. Then AirBnB came along, and everyone and their dog let places on AirBnB. You could get in, and at a good price. Then AirBnB was essentially banned, and now you can't get into Amsterdam.

It was always that there were a lot of people offering places who didn't know how to price what they had; so you'd see a lot of properties, but a lot were crazy money. Still, if there were enough, there would be enough places at sane prices you'd get somewhere.

These days, I still look at AirBnB, but I see that their fees have continually risen over time, and are now like 10% or 15%, and there's just no content. I was in Paris last couple of months. There was nothing viable on AirBnB, unless you wanted to pay several thousand a month. There was one what I concluded was a scam, a very dodgy letting agency, who had lots of apartments, all with no ratings, but very bad reviews on-line. I think they were continually deleting and remaking their lets on AirBnB, to get rid of negative reviews.

Finally, AirBnB itself, regarding "large company", became unreliable as a service, in that I never knew, when I came to us it, if log-in would still work.

I recall the first time log-in failed for no obvious reason, and the and the only option was "email support and we'll contact you in a few days" - and I was looking to move in about two weeks time.

After that, I put up my own HTTPS proxy, which I now use whenever I use AirBnB, to avoid AirBnB suspending my account for a few days, until support get back to me.

I also recall one episode about ten years ago where I had to phone support. It was a three hour long screaming nightmare of hell and madness.

So - fees are now rather high, support don't bother - anything but support - I had to backdoor my own net traffic to use the service, no viable apartments in most locations.

It was great, but now it's really not.

The one and critical thing AirBnB got right was building into their platform the expectation owners would offer discounts for stays over a week, or over a month.

I don't see this on other platforms, and it makes pricing on other platforms crazy. If I come and stay for three months, I expect a discount for giving full occupancy over that time. If you don't offer that, you're off the menu.

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#53

Post by standardUser »

mholt wrote: post #22

I'm worried this ban will only affect honest hosts. Anyway, what Airbnb should really ban is hosts charging a mandatory cleaning fee when also requiring their guests to do the cleaning. We just stayed at one this weekend, and like almost all our previous bookings, the host asked us to: - Take off all bedding and towels and start a load of laundry - Do all the dishes and start the dishwasher (but required to hand-wash…

I've stayed at dozens of AirBnBs and I've never had an onerous list of chores or a noticeably high cleaning fee, so these complaints always baffle me a little. Are people reading the listing thoroughly? Are they choosing a place with lots of ratings and reading all of the reviews? I've definitely had some bad AirBnbs over the years despite my careful selection process, but my complains are usually about noise or a lack of supplies (extra towels and blankets for example).

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#55

Post by tentacleuno »

_yb2s wrote: post #48
mholt wrote: post #22

I'm worried this ban will only affect honest hosts. Anyway, what Airbnb should really ban is hosts charging a mandatory cleaning fee when also requiring their guests to do the cleaning. We just stayed at one this weekend, and like almost all our previous bookings, the host asked us to: - Take off all bedding and towels and start a load of laundry - Do all the dishes and start the dishwasher (but required to hand-wash…

At this point the cleaning fees are just a scam to make the listing fee seem artificially lower. People did the same thing on eBay by making the items almost free but the shipping expensive, until they fixed the eBay interface, e.g. by letting you sort by price + shipping and showing shipping fees before you click.

No, they've worked around that too -- now sellers typically include a [completely unrelated] 0.99p item as an option in the listing, which then moves them to the top of the price-sorted view.

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#56

Post by Scoundreller »

neom wrote: post #19
baby wrote: post #11

I had one once in my living room. I was pissed. The host told me it had written about it in the description. Sure enough it was there when I looked carefully. Still what the heck. In a Boston Airbnb with my parents visiting from abroad. I ended up leaving a one star review, and he begged for me to take it down. I explained long and large how wrong what he did was and left my one star review. Felt good.

I had this happen in Seoul, the host messages me and asked me to not leave the AC on when I went out (it was a 10-minute walk down to the corner store) - I was a little confused how they knew I'd left it on, so I purposefully left it on and went out, sure enough I got a message as soon as I left. I messaged back and said it wasn't on, and they said they had a camera and could see it's on. I contacted Airbnb and they…

Had an airbnb that locked out its thermostat within a range outside our preferences.

Nothing an ice pack wrapped in a kitchen towel on top of said thermostat couldn’t resolve.

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#57

Post by FireBeyond »

ohnoitsahuman wrote: post #26
mholt wrote: post #22

I'm worried this ban will only affect honest hosts. Anyway, what Airbnb should really ban is hosts charging a mandatory cleaning fee when also requiring their guests to do the cleaning. We just stayed at one this weekend, and like almost all our previous bookings, the host asked us to: - Take off all bedding and towels and start a load of laundry - Do all the dishes and start the dishwasher (but required to hand-wash…

It's hard to gauge cleaning effort: if a guest uses every dish in the kitchen without doing a wash up, they cleaning crew could be there for hours. But if a guest is tidy, then the cleaning fee should be nothing. The hard part is that you need to reserve and pay for a cleaning crew as if it was always a disaster.

I pay a housecleaning company come every two weeks. Two people, sometimes three, between 2 and 3 hours. $150. Or $200 if it's been longer.

I regularly see $300 cleaning fees.

And when I've had limited options and paid those cleaning fees, I think "I'd have fired my housecleaners if this was what I was getting for my money, every week, sometimes twice a week".

Let's be brutally honest - the hosts using professional cleaners are only paying for an hour or two. And oftentimes, I expect that their "cleaners" are the host's kids being handed a tub of sanitizing wipes.

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#58

Post by alistairSH »

bombcar wrote: post #33
vundercind wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnbs are amazing for: - Group get-aways where the point is being together at the place, not seeing the sights of whatever area you’re in. - Families traveling, especially when not staying in a city core - Trial runs at living in a place - Areas poorly served by decent hotels They’re bad for lots of other scenarios. [edit] oh and the less time you’re staying the worse they tend to be—stuff like cleaning fees and ha…

I've often felt a bunch of the "love" for AirBNB comes from people who didn't realize that you could do short-term rentals of entire properties before it hit the market (and where you'd go for those).

It was easy enough in normal "vacation" areas. Like the NC beaches. Or ski resort areas. But, those were largely location-specific listing services - Airbnb have us one site for the world. There's no longer a need to call a travel agent if you're visiting a new area.

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#59

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

endisneigh wrote: post #17

In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available. Back to the topic - removing listings isn’t a sufficient enough punishment imho. And how would you even prove it from the guests side? Take a picture I suppose? But how do you stop bad actors? Not sure what the correct solution is. Someone who wants to spy can purchase a spy camera which is very abundant these days.

> In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available.

I think it depends. For relatively short stays of one or two people, a hotel is nearly always a better deal in my opinion (for short stays the cleaning fee alone can be a big percentage of the total price).

But for week or longer stays with a family or larger, they usually come out ahead given multiple bedrooms and the fact that the cleaning fee is amortized over more nights (not to mention access to a kitchen can save a ton of money). In this segment, though, they're really no different from VRBO or a host of other vacation rental providers that have been around for a long time.

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#60

Post by kube-system »

mholt wrote: post #22

I'm worried this ban will only affect honest hosts. Anyway, what Airbnb should really ban is hosts charging a mandatory cleaning fee when also requiring their guests to do the cleaning. We just stayed at one this weekend, and like almost all our previous bookings, the host asked us to: - Take off all bedding and towels and start a load of laundry - Do all the dishes and start the dishwasher (but required to hand-wash…

Honestly I think those requirements are perfectly reasonable for the originally intended purpose of the site, which is people renting out their personal homes. I have stayed in several Airbnbs that had the owner's clothes in the closet and pictures of their kids on the wall, and in those situations, it just seems rude to leave dirty dishes in the sink. These places aren't hotels.

I agree that doing laundry is a bit onerous in clearly dedicated rentals, but in my experience those tend to have fewer requirements and tend to not care if you miss a couple steps unless you trash the place.

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