Fuck Airbnb

[canadagoose]

I hate it. Absolute worst of capitalism. Is your flat empty for a bit? Why not subject your neighbours to hours of drunken noise from some random arseholes every weekend! After all, it's more dosh. Urghhhhhh

[New Jack]

I look at airbnbs in England for a laugh.

Laughter dried up quick. One was literally a garage, with a sofa in it

[Sebastian Cobb]

I look at airbnbs in England for a laugh.

Laughter dried up quick. One was literally a garage, with a sofa in it

Then sir, I have just the thing for you:
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/topic/london-rental-opportunity-of-the-week

[New Jack]

Then sir, I have just the thing for you:
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/topic/london-rental-opportunity-of-the-week

That floats my boat! Or rents out my apartment, to coin a new phrase

Arf, this converted shed in Dublin is one for the Desolation thread
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/negk8g/london-rental-opportunity-week-shed-alleyway-dublin

[Uncle TechTip]

Letting out your home for short term periods like a hotel is probably against the law, they could crack down on it if they really wanted to. Have they got insurance, do they complete all compliance duties. I bet they fucking do.

[Dex Sawash]

[tag] gig economy "out of control" [/tag]

[Bennett Brauer]

Treat my toilet like a cunt. £800 p/w

[New Jack]

Treat my cunt like a toilet. £800 p/w

Will

[Ferris]

Me and Mrs Ferris use it more or less exclusively now. We don't own any property though so not like we have any stake in the economy. Fuck 'em.

(Also we're quiet mild-mannered middle class types who play board games for a laugh so don't think we're the reason it has a bad name.)

[Pijlstaart]

If it's a slum landlord trying to profit by undercutting hotels, then I try to avoid it, there are more ethical airbnbs I've stayed in, mostly in people's guest rooms. One was a hippy-dippy family who listened to native american burble music and had an excellent deadpan cat who played as the only sane man. Stayed in another house that was scheduled for demolition for a while, un-rentable, but there was an indian man there who didn't flush his toilet paper and kept it in an overflowing bin by the toilet, and it was pretty gnarly stuff, niche, fetish even, his poo had a real oppressive presence. There was also a lady with a furry dog, and the poo had wicked into the dog's fur and the dog might have eaten some of the poo. I would never eat the poo. Hope it is demolished now, with them inside it, and I am the only survivor to chronicle the terrible things that happened.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I use booking.com usually and although have used Airbnb in the past successfully I have found it isn't great value these days and has got overhyped. Also their app and all the various files were suspiciously difficult to remove from my phone (see also Dropbox). 

[imitationleather]

Most of them aren't even people's homes anymore. They're flats bought specifically for use as AirBnB rentals and maintained by companies who deal with all the admin and cleaning.

They're convenient, yes. But they are a scourge on society and arguably an even worse cancer on the housing market than buy to let.

AIRBNB GET IN GRAVE

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

However, given they are trying to meet/cash in on demand, and assuming that demand isn't going away, what else do you suggest?

[imitationleather]

However, given they are trying to meet/cash in on demand, and assuming that demand isn't going away, what else do you suggest?

We should all stay indoors with a bucket on our head.

[imitationleather]

I am of course a massive hypocrite because I far prefer staying in an AirBnB compared to the other options when I go away.

I'm fully prepared to be judged very harshly when the Rapture happens. Bring it on.

[MoonDust]

Isn't another argument against AirBnB that it contributes to the lack of available housing out there? Like the owners of property who never step foot in the place so it's constantly available on AirBnB. Arseholes. Rent it out to tenants who actually need a place to live.

It's also a major problem in some places for this reason. Isn't it particularly bad in Barcelona? Also because Barcelona has a fairly high number of homeless people. Further feeds in to the resentment Barcelona residents feel towards tourists.

Mrs. MoonDust sometimes wants to go AirBnB for short breaks and so I have done it, but the more I've read about it I just couldn't do that anymore. The guilt would be too much.

It's bourgeois decadence. Don't fully understand the want to have a home away from home when on holiday. Part of the holiday experience is not having a kitchen and going out. It feels like the 21st century equivalent of Victorian upper class folk who would bring a cartload of furniture to a camping spot. Getting a servant to carry their chandelier to hang inside the tent.

[Darles Chickens]

However, given they are trying to meet/cash in on demand, and assuming that demand isn't going away, what else do you suggest?

Regulation. Where I live (Palma de Mallorca), the nominally socialist local government are clamping down on AirBnB. You have to have a licence to be allowed to rent property short term, and the number of licences issued is limited,  and some will be revoked in a few years. There are huge fines for offenders so it's just not worth the risk.

It was becoming a huge problem here because regular rent prices were rocketing due to lack of availability, and public services were being stretched to breaking point with the extra tourist numbers. Not to mention complaints from neighbours with pissed up strangers regularly walking around shared spaces in private buildings.

We used to use AirBnB in the early days when it really was someone's house, and before it became a slick operation run by a company with loads of properties and robot-like staff pretending they owned the place. Now it can get in grave, even though staying in a hotel is never really quite so comfortable.

[Darles Chickens]

The other plus point of requiring a licence, of course, is that it holds renters to a certain standard. The other dodgy aspect with companies using AirBnB is that it exempts them from having to meet safety standards required by hotels. So essentially, it's a hotel, but if you die from carbon monoxide emissions, not my problem mate.

[nugget]

I've used Airbnb quite a lot for work when I've needed somewhere for medium to long-term stays, since you can usually get a fully equipped flat for less than the price for a typical hotel room and it's great to have all the facilities you'd normally have at home. Most of the flats I've stayed in have clearly been full-time AirBnbs though, which I understand would be a problem in many cities where rents are increasing due to lack of availability. I don't feel great about that but it has been extremely useful to me as a traveler so I have continued to use it. I'd be fully behind any regulation to limit the spread of full-time AirBnbs though. The original concept where people would just use Airbnb to rent out their unused spaces seems pretty harmless but it's inevitable that people will exploit it given the opportunity unless there are regulations to keep it in check.

[Emma Raducanu]

I've used Airbnb once. We stayed in a self contained place within a couple's home. They were lovely people who stocked our fridge with loads of fruit and gave us olive oil and wine. We could eat with them in the evenings in the garden; all freshly prepared and grown right there. They were wonderful with our daughter and the guy would push her on a swing he'd made between two trees.

When it was time to leave they drove us to the port, waved us off and bid us farewell.

[Blinder Data]

I've used Airbnb once. We stayed in a self contained place within a couple's home. They were lovely people who stocked our fridge with loads of fruit and gave us olive oil and wine. We could eat with them in the evenings in the garden; all freshly prepared and grown right there. They were wonderful with our daughter and the guy would push her on a swing he'd made between two trees.

When it was time to leave they drove us to the port, waved us off and bid us farewell.

I'm afraid you're doing Airbandb wrong. You should be squeezing into a two bedroom flat in Lisbon with six of your pals, come home really drunk, ring the wrong buzzer and laugh loudly at your hilarious holiday japes in the corridor. At 3am on a Wednesday.

My sympathies, canadagoose. I understand Edinburgh suffers it particularly badly. When you're in someone else's house and they're there, Airbandb is great. But obviously thoughtless landlords (and the company itself of course) have created an intolerable situation. People are buying flats only to realise (or, over time, for it to turn out) that nearly every other flat is Airbandb so the holiday japes never ends for residents. I'm surprised there haven't been any high-profile neighbour-tourist murders as a result.

It should be regulated to fuck but like all the other "disruptors" like Uber, Deliveroo, etc. that would like harsh our buzz and is just not compatible with our unique business model, yeah?

Btw I have given up using Airbanb to rent out flats, in case I'm accused of sanctimony

[Sebastian Cobb]

Like most of these 'game-changing' technical solutions it's great for the consumer on the surface but destroys the local environment and resources. Of course a lot of it is just exacerbating existing problems. I think it was a big problem in Berlin, but the authorities are really cracking down on it.

All it needs is a bit of regulation in densely populated areas; I'd be happy to use it for getting an independent, locally owned place in a remote place or a holiday area as an alternative to lining the pockets of bastard hotel or holiday home chains.

I've never actually used it, I've tried to when travelling solo but the options seemed worse if you're on your own, either a spare room or a whole flat when you just want to get your head down after going to a gig and getting smashed. Staying in a strangers spare room in those circumstances seem awful, imagine if they were still pottering about when you came back?

[Shit Good Nose]

It definitely has its place - if it wasn't for Airbnb I wouldn't have been able to go to my mate's wedding in Glasgow last summer without forking out hundreds just for a two night stay.  Ditto for when we go to our niece's 18th birthday bash in Cardiff centre next January.  Okay, the rooms were and are very basic, but when all you need them for is to sleep, piss (possibly shit) and wash, they're absolutely fine for a couple of nights.

Obviously there's cunts - there's always going to be - and it could do with regulation, BUT I wonder if regulation would just turn the whole thing into A N Other hotel/B&B type deal, which will then just push prices up.  That's exactly what's happened with Uber.

[New Jack]

It's probably not true in the least that it's any better for the cultural and local housing issues, but I went with Homeaway over Airbnb because they seem to be a wee bit tighter on the leaser
actually owning the property, rather than a massive company shilling box rooms:

HomeAway operates in the same fashion as Airbnb with one key exception - they primarily offer only rentals of entire properties. In this regard, it is mainly individuals or property management companies that create listings on their website for guests seeking vacation rental. In addition, HomeAway currently charges those looking to subscribe an annual fee of 349 USD. When it comes to the host fee, HomeAway's fee is at 5% - two percentage points higher than Airbnb

Used Airbnb twice before that. The first, in Porto, my room got robbed on the last day while I was out getting breakfast. There were no signs of a break in, I believe they had a key. Boy, if the Portuguese police can't find a tiny blonde girl, you reckon they were arsed about my wallet?

In Lisbon it was fine, no problemo. Though my mate allowed a kid to hug him the first morning he left the flat, and yoink, wallet gone! Let's blame AirBnb for that, as it would be on topic.

[New Jack]

Strange. I've never experienced problems

This is exactly the attitude that cost you your nursing career

[Replies From View]

I don't understand the name "AirBnB".  Not all of them are bed and breakfasts, and not all of them are air-based.

[Dex Sawash]

All of them have guffs in them

[Sebastian Cobb]

Of course they've all got guffs in them by the time Chuck Berry's finished with them.

[Replies From View]

All of them have guffs in them

I'd be happy for them to be called "GuffBnB" but not all of them are bed and breakfasts.

Call them "GuffB".  Let the B stand for bed or breakfast, without promising both.

[New Jack]

I've had a wank in every AirBnb I've been in!

The unfamiliarity and fact it's owned by someone else gave it a frisson of excitement. Also the foreigns were well fit, and one must pay tribute when you travel. My flag is always full mast for the ladies of where I roam: Barcelona. New York. North Acton.

And secure in the knowledge I wasn't going to be the one who broke the chain. Everyone wanks in AirBnb.

That flat in Madrid you've booked for two days? They might do 100 other bookings a year. Better hope they open a window

And you know what, if I get reincarnated as a child-desperate scheming woman with a spare flat in a holiday destination and a lot of time on my hands, I'd see about exploiting AirBnb to catch tons of sperm using a method I won't detail right now, and then use it to get up the duff I expect