Fuck Airbnb

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

at least Airbnb isn't the completely nihilistic ecocide of flying, if we're doing tourism ethics.

Having looked at car emissions, diesel for example, the per passenger output isn't that much more, while long haul journeys can end up less efficient than flying. For example, my Dad has always driven to France and Italy instead of flying.

As I don't own a car or need to commute I feel - if not okay with the 14-20 flights I take a year, then relieved I don't drive every day, in the knowledge of how much damage that causes.

Nihilistic ecocide is a hysterical term to aim at most people who go on holiday abroad maybe 2-3 times a year at most, yet will produce more carbon many times over during their day by day activities.

It's also in my opinion up to government and corporations to act to subsidise green tech and outlaw bad tech. As consumers, most people will continue taking the actions that give them their desires while paying the bills, so guilt-tripping only works up to a point.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The vast majority of flights are for regular business flyers but any attempt to stem them involves regressive policy aimed at stopping holiday fights, removing low-middle earners of another small avenue of pleasure they've probably been looking forward to for half the year. Meetings are basically pointless. Replace them with Skype or something.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

The vast majority of flights are for regular business flyers but any attempt to stem them involves regressive policy aimed at stopping holiday fights, removing low-middle earners of another small avenue of pleasure they've probably been looking forward to for half the year. Meetings are basically pointless. Replace them with Skype or something.

Fully agree re: meetings. Businesses should be fined or taxed for environmentally damaging non-essential activity. Shoveling the moral responsibility on tourists when everyday commute involves car journeys and so much business involves eg. flying to and from Leeds to Belfast for a two hour meeting that could have been done on video isn't just hypocritical but poor use of data.

[imitationleather]

As with pretty much every large net business I'm guessing the big driver is avoiding tax and typical standards.

I stayed in an AirBnB in Dublin that was a big house that had been converted into about ten different AirBnB apartments. It struck me as being like a hotel, but without any on-site staff or the usual safety standards a hotel has to comply to. When the wifi wasn't working I had to ring the "host", who turned out to be someone in an office, no doubt managing numerous of these places, based somewhere in England. She even asked me if I was with BT and could use their network of hotspots instead. Not a fucking clue. I was like "I ain't in the Britain, darling. We're are full!"

Berlin has the right idea about all this.

That said, they are convenient. But so is everything that fucks up the local property market provided it benefits you.

[Icehaven]

What are the rules about living full time in one? I've vaguely heard of some places having laws limiting the number of days a property can be used as one but not everywhere has that rule, and even places that do, how is it policed, if it even is?

[imitationleather]

What are the rules about living full time in one? I've vaguely heard of some places having laws limiting the number of days a property can be used as one but not everywhere has that rule, and even places that do, how is it policed, if it even is?

Wouldn't living in one be incredibly expensive?

[Icehaven]

Wouldn't living in one be incredibly expensive?

Well yeah, I just wondered theoretically if it was allowed. I mean if you rent a place out and include all bills it's effectively the same thing, so given the only the difference between that and an Air B&B is that your tenants change every week or so are the rules different? The large house turned in to separate Air B&B apartments you described above just sounds like a HMO/houseshare by another name.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I guess the neighbouring residents of that property wouldn't consider that the only difference.

[ersatz99]

I guess it depends on how the property income is classified by the owner; rental property or furnished holiday let. In the UK the latter has tax advantages of claiming depreciation of furnishings against income but has restrictions on tenancy duration (30 days). Owners also usually build bills into the price.  Straight up rental property doesnt have such allowances or restrictions.

[Paul Calf]

Well yeah, I just wondered theoretically if it was allowed. I mean if you rent a place out and include all bills it's effectively the same thing, so given the only the difference between that and an Air B&B is that your tenants change every week or so are the rules different? The large house turned in to separate Air B&B apartments you described above just sounds like a HMO/houseshare by another name.

It's not an Assured Shorthold Tenancy, which is an important distinction both in law and as regards things like tenants' and landlords' rights and responsibilities. AirBnB letting would be a licence for landlords to fuck their tenants with no legal redress.

You can guarantee someone's thought of it though, and is trying to make it happen even as we type.

[imitationleather]

I lived on a nice street in upmarket and expensive Dublin and suddenly next door turned in to a ten-bedroom bastard house for stag and hen weekends I would get so NIMBY the local council meetings (if they have those in Ireland, I am not entirely sure they've reached that level of development yet - they did have roads when I last visited at least, I guess) would not know what had hit them.

[Icehaven]

I guess the neighbouring residents of that property wouldn't consider that the only difference.

I daresay, I just wondered how/what the legal differences are between renting a property out to the same person or a series of people, but this

I guess it depends on how the property income is classified by the owner; rental property or furnished holiday let. In the UK the latter has tax advantages of claiming depreciation of furnishings against income but has restrictions on tenancy duration (30 days). Owners also usually build bills into the price.  Straight up rental property doesnt have such allowances or restrictions.

pretty much answers it.

[buzby]

The flat underneath mine is an Airbnb and seems to have one of these. It's very loud and also makes the floor vibrate, several times a night. It took me a while to figure out what it was... is this a sign that the owner can't be arsed with proper maintenance and rarely pops in to clean the bathroom, then?

Normally the prescence of a macerator is the sign that an extra bathroom or bog has been put into a property (usually as part of dividing it up to sublet) and the owner was too tight to have a proper 110mm soil pipe extension put in for it (or it was physically impossible if it's on an internal wall). The macerator slurries the waste which allows it to be pumped out via standard 22mm or 32mm sink waste pipes.

[Paul Calf]

Buzby, is there any aspect of engineering on which you have a less-than-firm grasp?

Karmas+9000 for buzzers.

[Janie Jones]

I know! Music as well. We are lucky to have you, buzby. I've genuinely astounded friends and family with things I've learned from your neatly explained posts.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Has anyone else added 'do a shit big enough to jam a macerator' to their bucket list?

Might get Geoff Capes in an Airbnb to test the water.

[BlodwynPig]

I know! Music as well. We are lucky to have you, buzby. I've genuinely astounded friends and family with things I've learned from your neatly explained posts.

This latest one will have the crowds in awe as they eat their cocktail sausages and drink their mocha cocktails

[ColinPopshed]

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

Err... you don't happen to live in a residential street on the south coast do you? If so I do apologise.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

We have an airbnb in our building and it's awful, like having a single hotel room in amongst 20 flats. Most of the time its fine but occasionally you get someone who is in London to party on weekdays and comes home and wakes everyone up with loud music or being a loud arsehole in the balcony.

It should be fucking banned. It's also contributed to the absolutely insane numbers of clueless tourists you get wandering round London these days too.

[Blue Jam]

Yesssss... More of this sort of thing please:

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/politics/airbnb-ban-for-edinburgh-flats-after-campaign-1-4835789

Documents submitted on behalf of Mr and Mrs Barnes said their two-bedroomed flat can accommodate up to four guests but was not a "party flat".

They bought it two years ago and pointed out it sits in the Capital's "Pubic Triangle, an area characterised by busy pubs and bars, lap dancing clubs, and a needle exchange, and is notorious for being associated with the seedier side of the city".

But they insisted their customers were "older guests and families" who were helping local businesses and not rowdies.

I used to live on Bread Street, and trust me, it is not a destination for "older guests and families". The packs of Legend Garys on stag dos were the reason I decided I wanted to live on the other side of Edinburgh- it's a nice area with theatres, book shops, nice pubs and cute little cafes but it's spoiled by drunk men making creepy comments at passing resident, puking in doorways and ringing intercoms at 3am. I dread to think how much worse the situation must be now.

[Paul Calf]

Is there still a needle exchange in Bread Street? I thought that closed in the early 1990s.

[canadagoose]

Is there still a needle exchange in Bread Street? I thought that closed in the early 1990s.

It's on Lady Lawson Street now. (I work very near there.) And I'd agree with Blue Jam - it's a pain in the arse at weekends. Anything that hinders the spread of Airbnb is a good thing IMO.

[Epic Bisto]

Me, Mrs Bisto and Little Bisto booked a week in someone's little cottage at a holiday park near Looe via someone on AirBnB. I was a bit sceptical at first but it was lovely.  It was really nice and pleasant, quietly tucked away with no grotty families next door to us. I think the guy works abroad most of the time but stocked the cottage with some cool stuff.  The bedrooms were a little musty but otherwise it was fine.

That's all I've got.

[kngen]

You'd have to presume that if you, say, set about a noisy AirBnb-er with a hammer in the stairwell, it'd surely pop up in their review of the flat a couple of days later. Then you just let bad publicity do the rest.

[Retinend]

My fiancee and I generally use it on holiday and have mostly had good experiences for good prices. 

My problem is that if you stay in a hotel you save a lot more precious time for only a slightly higher price, since you are always stuck out somwhere that isn't the centre, and since you're spending so much money on a break, you should spend a little more money on being right there where you're holidaying.

Whether it is bad for the local economy: the argument goes that since Airbnb is so successful at attracting applicants that landlords will be able to rent out rooms to travellers at a better rate of profit than merely renting the flat to a person living there; that this is bad because people who live somewhere permanently have more right to a property than someone who wants it for a less permanent amount of time, or rather just a few days. There's also the argument from "insufficient paperwork" which seems to me a motivated attack, not a principled one (who thinks that buskers should pay taxes or be forced to get a license?)

Firstly, I doubt the premise: will Airbnb remain popular enough over the long-term to make it a viable income stream for landlords in comparison to the sure thing of receiving monthly rent? Will it remain attractive to the landlords as a going concern, given the behaviour of short-term stayers? I've noticed that in Paris, they are almost all asking for massive deposits - no doubt in reaction to hellraisers leaving their property in a state, entailing unpredictable costs which they do not have the resources or knowhow of the big hotels to account for.

Secondly, I doubt the judgement: do out-of-towners deserve accommodation less than people who live there? It is a kind of hypocrisy for locals to benefit from a local economy supported by tourists, but to want those tourists to have absolutely 0 impact on housing prices - given that they are human beings who need to be housed somewhere for the duration of their stay. What's more, it is expected that tourists will pay more - a hell of a lot more - for their accomodation, and Airbnb is no exception. For everything the tourist takes from the city, he gladly pays more than adequate compensation for. Meanwhile, if he was to suddenly leave en masse, though housing prices might plummet, so would employment in the city.

Thirdly, I think it is wrong to believe that money that goes to Airbnb landlords - surely those more likely to be locals - by tourists is any worse than the money of those same people going to hotel chains - who surely will not be. And that's ignoring all the "true" Airbnbers who are merely waiters or teachers or students with a spare room.

[Icehaven]

Nice little horror story;

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/dec/28/experience-my-airbnb-guests-threw-a-party-for-300-people

Well sort of anyway, sounds like he must be minted anyway to be able to afford that house in the first place so I'm not entirely sure why he rented it out on Airbnb so much, given he and his kids actually live there.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Nice little horror story;

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/dec/28/experience-my-airbnb-guests-threw-a-party-for-300-people

Well sort of anyway, sounds like he must be minted anyway to be able to afford that house in the first place so I'm not entirely sure why he rented it out on Airbnb so much, given he and his kids actually live there.

He also sounds like quite a forgiving soul, to be fair.

[BlodwynPig]

Another fake lifestyle story from the guardian

[Paul Calf]

Nice little horror story;

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/dec/28/experience-my-airbnb-guests-threw-a-party-for-300-people

Well sort of anyway, sounds like he must be minted anyway to be able to afford that house in the first place so I'm not entirely sure why he rented it out on Airbnb so much, given he and his kids actually live there.

I bought my home, with three bedrooms and views of New York's Hudson River, at the end of 2016. It represented a new chapter for me. Its contemporary architecture isn't for everyone, but I was seeking to simplify my life.

I hope they shat on his bed.

[BlodwynPig]

He doesn't exist. He's an archetype for preening liberal guardian readers dreaming of becoming the next big heige man on wall street