HN Explorer

Ask HN: How Should Airbnb Respond to Trespassing?

6 points by sirrele ↗ HN
I like Airbnb from the viewpoint as a guest. My partner and I were recently talking about doing Airbnb in the new home we are going to be purchasing soon. Our first concern is safety and what a friend of mine has experienced with Airbnb is far from safe.

I traveled for work and stayed with my friend and he is also one of the leaders of our leadership team at MindRight. We got back to Brooklyn from our office in the Audible building in Newark around 4 pm. We both heard cats fighting in the rooms that the Airbnb guest was staying in. The door was locked. There were never keys given to that room.

The Airbnb guest ended up getting back to the apartment around 8 pm. He informed us that he changed the lock. We legitimately were shocked.. imagine someone changing the locks to one of your rooms in your home.

The individual that was asked to leave didn’t agree to give back the keys to the home, the room or the front door. After multiple calls, Airbnb said that they wouldn’t remove the reservation and couldn’t do anything, We called the police.

The police ultimately communicated that he was now trespassing and needed to leave immediately. My friend and his husband offered to allow him to keep all of his stuff (over 20 large black bags that piled over 3 feet into the air on the bed, closet, and floor) and his 4 cats, which he declined.

The last call after 1 am, was the only time Airbnb removed the reservation because we informed them the police were involved and removed the individual. Airbnb informed us that they have seen this type of thing before and leave it up to the host to handle these types of situations.

As a CTO and a leader, I am very understanding of mistakes on all levels of operations, however, they are not ignored. As a soon to be father and homeowner, I can never feel safe doing Airbnb. Airbnb should not feel comfortable with these situations or how they resolved them.

18 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 44.2 ms ] thread
szggzs27
AirBnb is scum and I hope it gets regulated to death.

Two years ago my friend rented her room for two nights. The person who rented it didn't like it, and demanded his money back after the first night. Instead of going through the usual AirBnb route, the man took her keys with him and demanded she goes to meet him at a random hotel with cash to get the keys back.

Airbnb refused to provide any assistance and said that it is within the guests right to do so (lol). Police were called on a premise of extortion to resolve the situation.

I hope Airbnb goes bankrupt.

mytailorisrich
The issue is that using AirBnb to let your home is simple and that people do not do their homework or realise what letting property entails.

AirBnb is only a glorified advertisement and payment platform. They cannot do anything about this sort of issues. There are not a letting agent. They are not a substitute from knowing what letting property entails.

quickthrower2
Airbnb is nothing like letting property though. Letting property involves bonds and background checks. There are no cleaners fees, different people coming and going. Letting a place out is easier than Airbnb and a management agency can do a lot of it for you. It’s also generally a legal thing to do and not in violation of agreements you have with other tenants or management of an apartment block or the council or city.
mytailorisrich
Using Airbnb is letting property. As I commented, owners ignore this at their peril.

If you are bound by covenants not to let or sublet then using AirBnb would definitely be a breach.

quickthrower2
Edit:

You are technically correct. AirBnB is letting/renting in the broad definition. This broad definition also includes renting a Jackhammer from a trade store, or using one of those pay as you go scooters on the street.

However to use such a broad definition, I am not sure what your original point was.

My point is that there is a big difference between "letting" as what it normally refers to in this context - a lease agreement for people to live in a residential property, with tenants rights implied, and some law covering this area and AirBnB which is more like a hotel service.

vectorEQ
agree. what do ppl expect? that airbnb sends by some bouncers to kick the dude out?? what the hell. even if they would take down some contract or reservation, there's no guarantee that will do anything for the situation. the person is already clearly disregarding these kinds of agreements in the first place :S
buboard
in other words, airbnb externalizes the cost of whatever dispute to the public services, and only accepts responsibility for things like payment disputes. Just like how uber externalizes the cost of dangerous drivers to the police , or how airlines externalize pollution

When these costs become significant, regulation should make landlords responsible or taxable to recover the costs.

mytailorisrich
No, they don't externalise anything since that's not their responsibility to start with.

There is no passing the buck to public services either. Laws varies per jurisdiction, in general it is for landlords to pay and hopefully recover costs from tenants.

The issue discussed here is not specific to AirBnb and is a well-known issue in property law.

buboard
Countries with socialized care tax alcohol and cigarettes because their use costs a lot to the public. Airbnb allows these kind of disputes to multiply like flies, so their line of business, which in some places is very large, will have to be taxed eventually. Whether the tax falls on landlords or airbnb remains to be seen
buboard
I m not sure i understand what happened. The story is written badly. who s mindright? What does Audible have to do with it? Did your friend rent a house in airbnb? who was asked to leave?
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partisan
It’s really quite simple. The author of the post, CTO at Mindright in the Audible building in Newark, was staying with a friend who is a leader of the leadership team of Mindright who also happens to rent his bedrooms out on AirBnb. That friend had a guest who overstayed their welcome. This happened in Brooklyn at 4pm, but it wasn’t until 1am that the police removed the guest. Four cats remained in the rented room and we aren’t sure what happened to them as of yet.
malux85
> The author of the post, CTO at Mindright in the Audible building in Newark, was staying with a friend who is a leader of the leadership team of Mindright who also happens to rent his bedrooms out on AirBnb

It could have been clearer, we don't need all that irrelevant detail. "Staying with a friend" would suffice -

"in the Audible building in Newark" was totally irrelevant

sergiotapia
As a father, why the hell would you invite strangers into your home with your children in it? It's not like you make bank with Airbnb.

Don't do it.

kleer001
This sounds worthy of a news story. Get it printed so others know.
gt2
Sounds scary, but you have to be prepared for situations like this if you are getting roommates in your house (through AirBNB or otherwise, same thing).

I agree with someone else that the story isn't entirely clearly written but I think I get it.

Really be interested to know-- did the renter actually leave their cats and bags there?

wallflower
What an unpleasant host experience!

What level of vetting does your friend do with accepting guest reservations? Do they communicate with the guest before allowing a reservation? Or was it a “reserve now at this price” deal? The more experienced Airbnb hosts usually check a guest’s subjective “rating” (via previous host’s comments) and their rental history.

ufmace
AirBnB has issues yeah, but I'm not sure what you expect them to do there. They have no ability to physically remove people from property - only the Police can do that. They have no authority to tell the Police what to do either, since they don't own the property or have any particular rights to it. Changing either of those would be profoundly weird. Is removing their reservation on the AirBnB system really important in that situation?