I'm sort of hesitant to use Gawker as an authoritative news source, but I'm willing to trust them that they do not entirely manufacture quotes from PR reps.
Whether or not this is the same person or an imposter? Who knows. But it wouldn't be surprising.
If true, it's entirely possible that Airbnb is more concerned about setting a precedent for any and all auxiliary damages that go along with a bad stay. What happens when someone gets kicked out of their apartment because a guest accidentally tipped off management that they were an Airbnb renter?
He doesn't seem to act like that at all. He's acting like signing up for AirBNB doesn't mean you expect this to happen. He refers to some AirBNB guarantee, although I'm not sure what it says. In any case, I think it's reasonable to assume that signing up for AirBNB won't make you homeless.
Interesting, their guarantee is explicitly worth 20% less in Australia... because the .au site specifies AUD, which is 20% less than the USD (their US site also says $1M)...
Signing up for AirBnB exposes you to the same risks as if you sublet your living space the same way it would in a traditional transaction. Rent to shitty people? You're responsible. AirBnB does not guarantee a pleasant experience, nor is it required to make this person whole by getting them removed from whatever tenant blacklist they're on.
Welcome to bumps on the "sharing economy" road.
Edit: it appears property management companies are using public court records to screen this person, preventing them from renting. That's not an AirBnB problem, that's a fair housing legislation problem.
Is it really a problem? I'd argue that it should be a matter of public record that this guy was evicted for (indirectly) causing $23k in property damage, and it seems entirely reasonable for landlords to screen tenants based on prior evictions and other housing court judgements.
I don't think it shouldn't be public record, but I do believe you shouldn't be able to reject someone outright due to one event.
I foreclosed on my underwater town home. Should I need to live in my car because my credit report has one negative item on it in 16 years? (Rentals of course pull your credit)
Housing is a regulated industry for good reason. Property managers are free to use data sources such as in this case, but there needs to be an appeal process. Otherwise, we'll start to have a class of people who a defacto homeless due solely to historical data.
This is a multi-part series; if you're not familiar with the story the "fait-accompli" tone of this post isn't going to sound melodious. AirBnB screwed this guy over more than a year ago, and a great deal of evidence was posted regarding how exactly things went down, and it certainly sounded like malfeasance on their part. If you just go to dearairbnb.tumblr.com there's a lot more info.
Please please tell me how to get anyone "directed to" me via airbnb... I always thought it's a marketplace where two parties meet and service has no role of "directing". Why is everyone repeating this bullshit Telman wrote!?
Is eviction not a form of property damage? In the best case a move costs money. In the worst case it's not even possible to find an appartment at comparable prices.
Eviction is not damage to "your property", which is what the airbnb guarantee protects. (It is the termination of a subordinate interest in real property by the person whose property it actually is, but that's a different thing altogether. It seems particularly risky to use AirBnB to rent out someone else's property.)
This happened a year ago and AirBNB paid him $23,000 for the damages at the time. His new complaint is that he has been blacklisted from renting in NYC.
AirBnB probably don't have standing to file a suit to have him removed. I suppose they could fund him to file a suit against the blacklist agencies - assuming that there's a valid case. Alternatively he could sue ABnB for further damages due to ending up on the blacklist, though he might not be able to do that due to previous settlements, arbitration, etc.
He was renting an apartment and he listed it on AirBNB, which was almost certainly a violation of his lease agreement (and poor judgement on his part). The blacklisting, if it exists as he says it does, is entirely his own fault.
AirBnB doesn't seem to take reasonable steps to protect either side. I remember I rented out a place and I had no hot water for a week and the place was filthy. AirBnB's response was along the lines of, sorry, good luck finding a better host next time!
Maybe AirBnB needs to create educational video instructions on how to act as both a Host and a Guest. Hosts and Guests seem to be uninformed on how to behave and these common sense practices don't really seem to be common, for whatever reason.
While I agree with the tone of the message, I don't agree with how he tries to spin the ball. The constant repetition of 'You need to fix thix' feels really childish and finger-pointy.
Does anyone exactly what AirBnB's legal requirements/jib-jab is on this stuff?
He probably doesn't have legal ground to stand on. I mean, every single place I've ever rented, write in bold that I cannot, without explicit accept from the owner, rent it to other people.
I understand why he was blacklisted, and if his contract is anything like I suspect, it's his own fault. He can buy a place and rent it out instead, but doing it with other peoples property without their concent is asking for trouble.
Your experience matches mine as well. Hell, my current home doesn't allow subletting. (I'm only allowed to lease the _whole house_ as a unit, and it has to be for a full year minimum). Local laws, zoning... and all that good stuff.
Just because you have a valid cause of action doesn't mean it's worth pursuing in court. Will you be able to inexpensively serve the defendant? Will you be able to win? And if you win, will you be able to cost-effectively enforce the judgment? And even if you can, does the defendant have enough money to pay? Enough to make to make it worth all the attorney and court fees? And it still won't fix his real problem: no one will ever lease to him because it's still public record that he has blatant disregard for the law and his rental agreement.
Irrespective of legal requirements, Airbnb's messaging is certainly that you shouldn't have to worry about stuff like this.
_The_ barrier to Airbnb being effective in the first place was people being comfortable with frequent, low barrier transactions where they let strangers into their house. I would agree with the poster, Airbnb does need to fix this. It's core to their model.
People who rent out apartments they don't own fully deserve to get blacklisted.
The author dares to call it "my apartment", but you don't get evicted from your own apartment. He is the one who abused someone else's property in the first place.
Edit: I truly don't understand all the downvotes. Here's someone who illegally exploits someone else's apartment for profit, and clearly feels no responsibility for his role in the whole affair. What is so abnormal about the fact that no one wants to rent to this person anymore?
If I borrow your car, rent it to someone I don't know who then proceeds to crash it, would you then consider met the victim or the a-hole who abused your trust to make fast buck and got your car totalled?
Unfortunately, there's a reason why subletting for less than 30 days is _illegal_ in New York City. Because you attract a crowd of people who like to do Sex Orgies in stranger's houses.
At the end of the day, it was a mistake for the author to use AirBNB, and now he is paying the price.
There are plenty of people that need short-term housing that don't also think that a surprise sex orgy is an appropriate thing to do in a stranger's home.
Why should regular people not be able to rent out the space they don't need to regular people that need it?
The people who thought it was appropriate to trash the place should be made to cover the damage they wrought to the OP's life. That is the fairest solution.
> Why should regular people not be able to rent out the space they don't need to regular people that need it?
Because he doesn't own the property. I severely doubt that his landlord is letting him sublet his apartment for less than 30 days.
Why not? It doesn't matter. If you don't _own_ the land, you don't make the rules. Hell, even in my townhome that I own, my HOA / local laws do not allow me to sublet due to zoning restrictions.
If I didn't agree to the law, I could have bought a different house. But I like the location, so I agreed to it. (I don't really care for AirBNB or subletting anyway). But these are the sorts of things you need to take responsibility for if you want to be a functioning adult.
That's what ownership means. A renter had exactly the rights to property mandated in law or contacted in the rental agreement. That's what they paid for and the owner aged to transfer. If they wanted the right to use AirBnB or similar services to sublet the apartment, without consequences from bad subtenants, they should have contacted for that. The property owner, had they been willing to provide such rights, would probably have charged substantially higher rent -- out required larger damage deposit or insurance purchase by the tenant -- to do so.
Does it really provide net good in the world that your HOA is preventing you from negotiating an agreement with another person that could live in that space?
I can think of at least one thing my neighborhood doesn't have to worry about... Sex Orgies coming in through AirBNB.
Another note is that AirBnB doesn't make it easy to track sex criminals. My neighborhood has published the location of all sex offenders and we've got that covered. If you have people moving in / out every week or so, you won't offer those kinds of guarantees in the neighborhood.
Furthermore, parking is limited and is better distributed amongst the neighbors when subletting is not allowed. Finally, by encouraging only long-term leases (1-year or longer), the neighborhood attracts high-quality tenants who tend to care about their neighbors.
They probably weren't thinking "sex orgies", but they probably were thinking "illegal prostitution".
There's a reason why zoning laws exist. In particular, hotels and other temporary arrangements attract drug deals, prostitution, and other unsavory characters.
I can guarantee you that "illegal prostitution" was on the mind of city planners when they zoned out the place. Maybe not quite "sex orgies", but it'd be within the neighborhood (oh I'm so punny...)
Absolutely correct, but there is also room for criticism of AirBnb. The business model is largely based on that kind of recklessness with other people's property.
It seems like the issue here should be that rentals/hotels are discriminating based on whether someone operates as an AirBnB host or not. Other renter's who do the same without such a notable 'incident' are the same level of risk. It is quite unfair I believe that this person is unable to find a rental. Rental agencies should figure out their stance and make it clear and unilateral.
He broke the terms of his lease so he could make hundreds of dollars a night. Rental agencies aren't in the business of leasing to people with a record of violating lease agreements.
The guy has reportedly received $23k from Airbnb following the orgy, sued his condo for its super's disparaging comments, a doctor for misdiagnosing him, and is sued by some other guy for defamation in an unrelated issue.
That seems pretty harsh--another way of framing it is that he's spreading the information about a potential risk.
In the end, AirBnB's message has to be "we make renting to strangers safe" or else nobody would rent with then. But a lot of people in this thread are saying "he took the risk and paid the price". So which should a potential renter believe?
How is Airbnb screwing him over? Their host guarantee says they'll pay for property damage, and they did. Ari's problem is that he got evicted for allowing the damage to happen on his watch.
I wouldn't rent to someone that sue-happy either. The reason these databases exist is it's impossible to get rid of a problem tenant in places where they have too many rights.
It also implies if he had a snowball's chance in hell of prevailing in a lawsuit against AirBNB he'd have filed it.
this is tongue in cheek but given that airbnb does not concern itself with the NYC tenant blacklists this might be one of few viable options for this guy.
Does anyone know how he plotted where he slept on a map like that? I am assuming he did not hand enter it into some API maps tool, but rather, an app he has marks his location.
I would like an app like this in the event I ever need to prove my location. And I think it would be cool to see where I go on a map.
<snark>Doesn't [Google|Facebook] do that for you already?</snark>
But, all joking aside, "For the increasingly few of us who haven't used a Google account on a smartphone (or who currently haven't signed in), what you'd be looking at is your Location History plotted on a map. Unless you've actively taken steps to stop it, Google has been automatically recording of your location every 45 seconds and time stamping each coordinate." [0]
I'm not sure why he wants AirBnB to fix the blacklist issue. I mean, sure, the situation sucks for him and he was put there partially because of renting his place via AirBnB. But he can't realistically expect AirBnB to fix this issue.
According to this [1]:
> The blacklist is actually a database of suits filed by landlords and compiled by tenant screening companies.
So it's basically the same as Experian, Equifax, and other credit rating agencies. And it's the same kind of scam in the end.
What AirBnB could potentially do is get together with him to figure out how to appeal the entry based on the applicable regulations. But that's not what I'd call them fixing the issue.
There likely won't be any legal options to get him out of the tracking databases, after all he was responsible for the damages and violated his rental contract.
But Airbnb should have e.g. rented a hotel room for him until the situation is resolved, and they didn't do it...
Hmm, an interesting and different perspective! Thank you for sharing.
If I were to consider renting my place on AirBnB, I would consider the people staying here to be my guests, not ABnB's. While I believe there is some concern with how the company represents themselves, the fact remains that it's his apartment he chose to rent out. Illegally, I might add.
If you rented a room to someone referred by a friend, and that guest trashed your place... would you expect your friend to make restitution? (Personally, I would downgrade my trust in that friend's opinion, but I don't think I would hold them liable...)
No, I wouldn't expect a friend to make restitution at all - unless, of course, my friend had done this sort of thing millions of times, knew I was likely subjecting myself to the risk of eviction (probably completely inadvertently), and didn't bother to say a damn thing to me.
If, instead of warning me about the stupid risk I was taking, my friend highlighted things designed to make my behavior seem risk-free (like, say, a million-dollar property damage guarantee), well, then I might feel a little differently. If my friend had built a multi-billion-dollar business off of the risky behavior of me and others like me, then I know I would feel differently.
But this is a moot point, because friends don't let their friends engage in risky behavior without at least making them aware of those risks. Someone that does that isn't your friend at all.
Because AirBnB has no control over the blacklist. He doesn't really mention whether the original contract allowed him to sublet though.
If it did, then his issue should be with: the owner suing him and the companies linking his case to the blacklist. AirBnB could help him out with place to stay, court costs, etc. - but you can't expect them to "just fix" it. They've got the guarantee and as far as I know, he got the money to compensate for the incident itself.
If it didn't, then... the blacklist works. I don't approve of how it works, but these are the current rules. Effectively the party is irrelevant - he's on the blacklist for breaking the subletting rules.
FWIW, I couldn't quite piece together what happened from that post, since he never actually gives a chronology, just a list of how Airbnb responded at some stage of the controversy.
Before your post, my best guest was that they damaged his apartment, costing him money that he couldn't recover, and when he tried to get Airbnb's help, they sent out word that he was uncooperative and got him blacklisted.
Was the author sub-letting his apartment on a temporary basis via air bnb? Would that be legal in NYC? Maybe the fact his landlord found out and blacklisted him for illegal sub-letting is the bigger problem...
I was once an illegal subletter. The actual tenant moved out, and so notified me that I was being evicted. I protested to the apartment manager, who told me that I could not possibly be subletting, because subletting was contractually forbidden.
"That may be true, but even so I was subletting."
The tenant left a huge mess when he moved out. I told the manager that I removed everything from the fridge, cleaned it thoroughly then put back in the fridge everything that did not belong to me.
I was invited to rent some other apartment in the same complex but oddly was not permitted to stay in the apartment I was subletting.
A couple weeks later the tenant called me on the phone to demand compensation for all the cleaning, hauling and dump fees he had to pay.
"I had to sell my truck," he said.
"I removed everything from the apartment that belonged to me," I replied.
"I understand" he said woefully. I never heard from him again.
This experience made me a lot wiser about how I search for housing. There were many red flags such as his response to my requirement that my new place be near public transit.
"There's a bus stop nearby, I'll pick you up in my truck."
"nearby" in truck miles is a lot closer than in walking miles.
I don't understand how AirBnB is responsible here. You're obviously taking a risk when you hand over the keys to your apartment to a stranger. This is the same risk that landlords take when they lease the unit in the first place; hence why these blacklists exist: to minimize risk. The difference is that the landlord is at least leasing what is his to lease. Renting your apartment on AirBnB is prohibited by just about every lease, and is flat-out illegal in NYC. He broke the terms of his lease and the law to make hundreds of dollars a night, trusted a stranger that a website connected him with, and got busted. He could try to sue the guy that threw the orgy, just like landlords can try to sue deadbeat tenants; but just like the landlords, he'll probably get nowhere. The law can't protect you from your own poor decision-making. Would you want to rent your property to this guy?
I don't understand how AirBnB is responsible here. ... trusted a stranger that a website connected him with
You answered your own question here. It's a bit mystifying why you're giving AirBNB a complete pass here when they were the ones that set up the connection.
This is an issue, though, if AirBNB is encouraging people to break the law, and simply sees the occasional payout as "insurance" when someone gets caught.
It reminds me of the recall formula outlined in Fight Club.
AirBnB is pretty transparent about how their verification--or rather, the lack thereof--of tenant trustworthiness works. Can you hold Tinder responsible for matching you with someone that then goes on to rob your house?
Tinder is a (generally free) 'meet a person' app, not an 'invite a person into your house' service that charges fees, and AirBnB is acting more like a broker than a matchmaker. There isn't an explicit expectation that the person you're joined up with on Tinder must be allowed into your house.
AirBNB does take responsibility for the uncertainties brought on by the renting with strangers. By covering property damage. That sounds solidly responsible.
AirBNB should not be responsible for controlling a vague group of data trackers, rental and management companies, and landowners, and what secret lists they create. How are you supposed to stop somebody from creating a list?
And we don't actually know why this man has been blacklisted. Is it perhaps because nobody wants to get involved with somebody with a history for negative media exposure?
If its illegal by practically every lease out there, are AirBnB then encouraging people to break the law?
There is this site where people put movies and films they have got a license to see but not a license to distribute. That site got busted for assisting in the illegal activity that their users did, primary because they turned a blind eye to the problem.
A lease doesn't get to make the law, so it's not "illegal", it's simply "non-contractual". Breaking the contact means you'll get evicted, but there's no law-breaking occurring.
Yes indeed, and while it's not "practically every lease" it's obviously highly relevant. It's worth noting that subletting a room is legal in NYC providing the actual resident is present in the apartment too, so it's certainly possible to have legal AirBnB in NYC.
If you search AirBnB for rentals in New York City where you have the whole place to yourself, you'll find thousands of listings for unquestionably illegal rentals. I wonder whether it's legal for AirBnB to do this, and I have mixed feelings about whether it should be. By taking a commission and providing insurance, they're involving themselves intimately in clearly illegal transactions. I'm guessing it would hinge on the exact way NYC law is written and on jurisdictional issues. Either way, this doesn't absolve people violating their leases by subletting on AirBnB. You're responsible for abiding by your contracts the same way that you're responsible for abiding by the law. The fact that someone helped you carry out your malfeasance doesn't change that.
He obviously made a bad decision to rent out his apartment. This isn't AirBnb's problem.
Look through my previous comments. I'm no fan of AB or most of the sharing economy's big players, but this is the sort of thing that will continue to happen and why basing a business model on the backs of people's bad risk evaluations is tenuous. These models won't hold up without the downside being felt directly by the app providers. But, then where's the fun/money?
As the occasional host in SF, I do get extremely paranoid about guests, and only accept requests from guests who have had an account for more than a year, who have 100% positive reviews, and has at least 2 reviews in the last 6 months. Obviously I reject a lot of requests. Even then I did have one unfortunate incident involving a guest bringing home another guest that stole something even though I explicitly said "no guests."
My perspective from the host POV is that you really have to do your own vetting of guests beyond anything AirBnB will provide. AirBnB provides barebones proof of ID, but that's it.
Ultimately, I find AirBnB's business to be 100x "crazier" than other "sharing" companies like, say, Uber. At least with Uber there is a more regimented process for vetting and onboarding drivers. With AirBnB it is still a free-for-all on both sides.
At the end of the day, you're letting a total stranger into your house. Where you sleep and have all your things. It's a risk and everyone who uses AirBnB should be aware of it.
AirBnB could easily prevent such issues by explicitly requiring people to confirm they're not subject to a lease that prohibits short-term rentals and therefore not at risk of eviction -- before they can list a property for rent. No doubt they'll get right on that.
Kidding aside, not making people aware of these risks and trumpeting a '$1,000,000 Guarantee' (that only happens to cover property damage) just creates an illusion of risklessness -- one that takes advantage of the greedy and stupid.
Normally when a company takes advantage of the greedy and stupid, most of HN pitches a fit. What's different this time?
This guy had a duty to his landlord to abide by his lease. The fact that AirBnB helped him violate his lease does not give him any cause of action. That would be like suing The Pirate Bay because the MPAA sued you for downloading movies through them. The landlord could perhaps sue AirBnB for tortious interference, but they probably don't care enough to go through the trouble.
> '$1,000,000 Guarantee' (that only happens to cover property damage)
Well is there a problem with that? What would you do with the guarantee to improve things? Even if they gave him some extra money as an apology it wouldn't help his being blacklisted.
I feel like the real problem here is the same problem that exists in all of these situations where the law hasn't caught up to technology: someone is being made an example of.
When a few people pay a huge price for something that "everyone" is doing, it is simply unfair. The people who have been sued for downloading music are a similar example.
In my opinion, AirBNB should fix this situation because they can. It isn't fair for one renter to bear the brunt of the pushback while the company continues to make huge profit.
It isn't about blame, it's about each side's ability to right what is an unfair situation.
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[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 249 ms ] threadhttp://dearairbnb.tumblr.com/
I'm sort of hesitant to use Gawker as an authoritative news source, but I'm willing to trust them that they do not entirely manufacture quotes from PR reps.
http://gawker.com/man-unwittingly-rents-out-apartment-on-air...
Whether or not this is the same person or an imposter? Who knows. But it wouldn't be surprising.
If true, it's entirely possible that Airbnb is more concerned about setting a precedent for any and all auxiliary damages that go along with a bad stay. What happens when someone gets kicked out of their apartment because a guest accidentally tipped off management that they were an Airbnb renter?
Welcome to bumps on the "sharing economy" road.
Edit: it appears property management companies are using public court records to screen this person, preventing them from renting. That's not an AirBnB problem, that's a fair housing legislation problem.
I foreclosed on my underwater town home. Should I need to live in my car because my credit report has one negative item on it in 16 years? (Rentals of course pull your credit)
Housing is a regulated industry for good reason. Property managers are free to use data sources such as in this case, but there needs to be an appeal process. Otherwise, we'll start to have a class of people who a defacto homeless due solely to historical data.
The investors in ABNB will eventually probably raise a toast in memoriam of those caught up in the disruption.
Maybe AirBnB needs to create educational video instructions on how to act as both a Host and a Guest. Hosts and Guests seem to be uninformed on how to behave and these common sense practices don't really seem to be common, for whatever reason.
For Hosts:
How to Violate Your Lease Agreement by Renting Out Your Apartment the Right Way
Dealing with Cockroach Infestations
For Guests:
How to Clean Up Properly After an Orgy
How to Blend In at an Apartment Community You Don't Belong At
Does anyone exactly what AirBnB's legal requirements/jib-jab is on this stuff?
Now the question is why hasn't he sued the crap out of the tenant who lied to him and decided to have a sex orgy in his apartment?
I'd say that's a pretty penny. Certainly a non-trivial amount. Further damages to "reputation" can probably be tacked on.
I understand why he was blacklisted, and if his contract is anything like I suspect, it's his own fault. He can buy a place and rent it out instead, but doing it with other peoples property without their concent is asking for trouble.
This is absolutely reckless.
Also, the use of the word "you" isn't quite appropriate, since I've never used these websites. One should use an indefinite article.
THE dildo, never... YOUR dildo.
_The_ barrier to Airbnb being effective in the first place was people being comfortable with frequent, low barrier transactions where they let strangers into their house. I would agree with the poster, Airbnb does need to fix this. It's core to their model.
The author dares to call it "my apartment", but you don't get evicted from your own apartment. He is the one who abused someone else's property in the first place.
Edit: I truly don't understand all the downvotes. Here's someone who illegally exploits someone else's apartment for profit, and clearly feels no responsibility for his role in the whole affair. What is so abnormal about the fact that no one wants to rent to this person anymore?
If I borrow your car, rent it to someone I don't know who then proceeds to crash it, would you then consider met the victim or the a-hole who abused your trust to make fast buck and got your car totalled?
Thanks for propagating the mythos.
At the end of the day, it was a mistake for the author to use AirBNB, and now he is paying the price.
Why should regular people not be able to rent out the space they don't need to regular people that need it?
The people who thought it was appropriate to trash the place should be made to cover the damage they wrought to the OP's life. That is the fairest solution.
Because he doesn't own the property. I severely doubt that his landlord is letting him sublet his apartment for less than 30 days.
Why not? It doesn't matter. If you don't _own_ the land, you don't make the rules. Hell, even in my townhome that I own, my HOA / local laws do not allow me to sublet due to zoning restrictions.
If I didn't agree to the law, I could have bought a different house. But I like the location, so I agreed to it. (I don't really care for AirBNB or subletting anyway). But these are the sorts of things you need to take responsibility for if you want to be a functioning adult.
If you're gonna waste my time, I'm not gonna bother with a serious response.
I can think of at least one thing my neighborhood doesn't have to worry about... Sex Orgies coming in through AirBNB.
Another note is that AirBnB doesn't make it easy to track sex criminals. My neighborhood has published the location of all sex offenders and we've got that covered. If you have people moving in / out every week or so, you won't offer those kinds of guarantees in the neighborhood.
Furthermore, parking is limited and is better distributed amongst the neighbors when subletting is not allowed. Finally, by encouraging only long-term leases (1-year or longer), the neighborhood attracts high-quality tenants who tend to care about their neighbors.
There's a reason why zoning laws exist. In particular, hotels and other temporary arrangements attract drug deals, prostitution, and other unsavory characters.
I can guarantee you that "illegal prostitution" was on the mind of city planners when they zoned out the place. Maybe not quite "sex orgies", but it'd be within the neighborhood (oh I'm so punny...)
It seems as though he's in the right, and that AirBNB is still screwing him over, so why mention those things?
The AirBnB Tenant screwed him over. Why would AirBnB have any responsibility over the tenants?
Because there's a person in between there. The one at fault is the murderer: the man holding the gun. NOT the gunsmith.
Similarly, AirBNB is not responsible for the tenant's misbehavior. What am I missing here?
They may not have any legal responsibility.
But consider the message sent to potential renters. Does AirBnB really want this horror story out there, scaring away customers?
In the end, AirBnB's message has to be "we make renting to strangers safe" or else nobody would rent with then. But a lot of people in this thread are saying "he took the risk and paid the price". So which should a potential renter believe?
It also implies if he had a snowball's chance in hell of prevailing in a lawsuit against AirBNB he'd have filed it.
...oh wait
What a terrible company.
I would like an app like this in the event I ever need to prove my location. And I think it would be cool to see where I go on a map.
But, all joking aside, "For the increasingly few of us who haven't used a Google account on a smartphone (or who currently haven't signed in), what you'd be looking at is your Location History plotted on a map. Unless you've actively taken steps to stop it, Google has been automatically recording of your location every 45 seconds and time stamping each coordinate." [0]
[0] http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2015/02/19/4183553...
If you've got the right version of android and the right settings, go here: https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0
More: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687?source=gs...
According to this [1]:
> The blacklist is actually a database of suits filed by landlords and compiled by tenant screening companies.
So it's basically the same as Experian, Equifax, and other credit rating agencies. And it's the same kind of scam in the end.
What AirBnB could potentially do is get together with him to figure out how to appeal the entry based on the applicable regulations. But that's not what I'd call them fixing the issue.
[1] http://www.npr.org/2014/12/14/367833532/tenant-blacklist-can...
But Airbnb should have e.g. rented a hotel room for him until the situation is resolved, and they didn't do it...
I'm not sure why you find that hard to understand. It was obvious from the post.
Not that I would ever let strangers stay in my place, but I would expect the same thing.
If I were to consider renting my place on AirBnB, I would consider the people staying here to be my guests, not ABnB's. While I believe there is some concern with how the company represents themselves, the fact remains that it's his apartment he chose to rent out. Illegally, I might add.
If you rented a room to someone referred by a friend, and that guest trashed your place... would you expect your friend to make restitution? (Personally, I would downgrade my trust in that friend's opinion, but I don't think I would hold them liable...)
No, I wouldn't expect a friend to make restitution at all - unless, of course, my friend had done this sort of thing millions of times, knew I was likely subjecting myself to the risk of eviction (probably completely inadvertently), and didn't bother to say a damn thing to me.
If, instead of warning me about the stupid risk I was taking, my friend highlighted things designed to make my behavior seem risk-free (like, say, a million-dollar property damage guarantee), well, then I might feel a little differently. If my friend had built a multi-billion-dollar business off of the risky behavior of me and others like me, then I know I would feel differently.
But this is a moot point, because friends don't let their friends engage in risky behavior without at least making them aware of those risks. Someone that does that isn't your friend at all.
If it did, then his issue should be with: the owner suing him and the companies linking his case to the blacklist. AirBnB could help him out with place to stay, court costs, etc. - but you can't expect them to "just fix" it. They've got the guarantee and as far as I know, he got the money to compensate for the incident itself.
If it didn't, then... the blacklist works. I don't approve of how it works, but these are the current rules. Effectively the party is irrelevant - he's on the blacklist for breaking the subletting rules.
Before your post, my best guest was that they damaged his apartment, costing him money that he couldn't recover, and when he tried to get Airbnb's help, they sent out word that he was uncooperative and got him blacklisted.
The XXX Freak Fest is not the problem, and AirBnB already compensated for that, which is why the post is not entirely obvious.
That and the... interesting writing style.
"That may be true, but even so I was subletting."
The tenant left a huge mess when he moved out. I told the manager that I removed everything from the fridge, cleaned it thoroughly then put back in the fridge everything that did not belong to me.
I was invited to rent some other apartment in the same complex but oddly was not permitted to stay in the apartment I was subletting.
A couple weeks later the tenant called me on the phone to demand compensation for all the cleaning, hauling and dump fees he had to pay.
"I had to sell my truck," he said.
"I removed everything from the apartment that belonged to me," I replied.
"I understand" he said woefully. I never heard from him again.
This experience made me a lot wiser about how I search for housing. There were many red flags such as his response to my requirement that my new place be near public transit.
"There's a bus stop nearby, I'll pick you up in my truck."
"nearby" in truck miles is a lot closer than in walking miles.
You answered your own question here. It's a bit mystifying why you're giving AirBNB a complete pass here when they were the ones that set up the connection.
It's possible for both parties to be at fault.
It reminds me of the recall formula outlined in Fight Club.
edit: clarification
AirBNB should not be responsible for controlling a vague group of data trackers, rental and management companies, and landowners, and what secret lists they create. How are you supposed to stop somebody from creating a list?
And we don't actually know why this man has been blacklisted. Is it perhaps because nobody wants to get involved with somebody with a history for negative media exposure?
There is this site where people put movies and films they have got a license to see but not a license to distribute. That site got busted for assisting in the illegal activity that their users did, primary because they turned a blind eye to the problem.
Look through my previous comments. I'm no fan of AB or most of the sharing economy's big players, but this is the sort of thing that will continue to happen and why basing a business model on the backs of people's bad risk evaluations is tenuous. These models won't hold up without the downside being felt directly by the app providers. But, then where's the fun/money?
My perspective from the host POV is that you really have to do your own vetting of guests beyond anything AirBnB will provide. AirBnB provides barebones proof of ID, but that's it.
Ultimately, I find AirBnB's business to be 100x "crazier" than other "sharing" companies like, say, Uber. At least with Uber there is a more regimented process for vetting and onboarding drivers. With AirBnB it is still a free-for-all on both sides.
At the end of the day, you're letting a total stranger into your house. Where you sleep and have all your things. It's a risk and everyone who uses AirBnB should be aware of it.
Kidding aside, not making people aware of these risks and trumpeting a '$1,000,000 Guarantee' (that only happens to cover property damage) just creates an illusion of risklessness -- one that takes advantage of the greedy and stupid.
Normally when a company takes advantage of the greedy and stupid, most of HN pitches a fit. What's different this time?
Well is there a problem with that? What would you do with the guarantee to improve things? Even if they gave him some extra money as an apology it wouldn't help his being blacklisted.
http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2012/03/23/the-strange-tal...
When a few people pay a huge price for something that "everyone" is doing, it is simply unfair. The people who have been sued for downloading music are a similar example.
In my opinion, AirBNB should fix this situation because they can. It isn't fair for one renter to bear the brunt of the pushback while the company continues to make huge profit.
It isn't about blame, it's about each side's ability to right what is an unfair situation.