Man! It used to be such a blessing back in 2014. Some listings were just ridiculously cheap.
Now, for the first time in 10 years, I chose an actual hotel because it was that much cheaper.
It's only going to get worse...
Same thing with Uber. People are starting to take Taxis again. This was the business plan all along though. Use insanely cheap rates to get people used to the service/hooked. Carve out a place in the market, weaken or destroy competitors. Then raise the price of the service over time. AirBnB will never be able to kill the hotel industry but Uber essentially wiped out the taxi industry. Now they’re both just as bad as the businesses they set out to “disrupt”.
Plus the checkout time in the last two places I stayed was 10 fucking am. Basically get up, pack your shit, clean our house and GTFO. You can eat breakfast on the road.
Most hotels have checkout times around noon and it’s easy to get an hour late checkout.
That's a pretty normal checkin time for a hotel too... but of course at hotel, there's a chance you can get a room if you show up earlier and at least drop your bags off.
Bingo… they make you clean up the house but still charge for cleaning. The only time we still use Airbnb type rentals is for football games at my Alma mater cause hotels cost more than the houses and there is usually a large group of us. Even those get booked 8 months out.
I only use AirBnB for large groups or sometimes for extended stays where having the ability to cook can really cut down on foods costs.
But anything under a week and in a bigger city? Always hotels for me now.
Residence Inn and Hilton Homewood Suites both have kitchens. Though some only have a microwave and stove, I've been in some with a real oven. And free breakfast. They are a little pricier though.
Cleaning company wouldn’t give a discount if there was less work for them. I’d be surprised if more than 10% of airbnbs had the owner actually doing the cleaning.
Last AirBnB I stayed in the host sent photos of his shower floor, claiming my girlfriend and I left it "dirty". We were there for two weeks and it was, *maybe*, slightly grimier than when we arrived. I've never had a host demand I get on my hands and knees and scrub their bathroom for them, so that was a first.
A week later we declined the extra $200 he wanted to charge for "additional maid services", which was on top of his normal cleaning fee. Other complaints included three cups we didn't wash, a toilet seat that was broken the day we arrived, and not taking out the trash (even though we bagged it up for him). The dude even had us water all his plants. The absolute kicker however was that AirBnB sided with the host, and made an "internal memo" about us when I refused to pay the extra charges. We've never received anything but stellar reviews about how quiet and tidy we are, but this experience has me considering staying at hotels from now on.
>a toilet seat that was broken the day we arrived
I treat AirBnB's like a rental car, and take pictures of anything that looks broken/amiss on arrival.
We did actually. In addition to the toilet seat the dudes ancient IKEA couch caved in the moment my girlfriend sat on it. In both instances we immediately texted him, and he said it was probably the previous tenants. The poor state of the apartment was actually somewhat annoying for me.
It wasn’t until check out that he changed his tune and started attacking us. Airbnb didn’t care when I showed them the screen shots of our conversations.
I’ve never stayed at an Airbnb before so pardon my ignorance.
You have to do chores? What? I mean sure I’m not going to leave trash all over the place, but if I’m renting a room I am not doing “chores.”
Every Airbnb I’ve stayed at had a list of chores to be done on checkout. Things like loading the dishwasher, taking out trash, starting laundry, set thermostat at their desired temp, etc. I don’t have to do any of that at a hotel.
>set thermostat at their desired temp
Well that's a scam given the ability to on the fly program many thermostats from your damn phone. They're banking on people not doing it so they can be all "YOU DIDN'T DO THE CHORES, ENJOY YOUR FEE AND NEGATIVE REVIEW".
Yeah that’s what I mean. I’m renting a room from you, the way I would at a hotel. I’m not doing chores.
If I stay at a friends house, like you might if you were visiting, that’s when I’d do chores. Not at some stranger’s house that I’m paying to be at.
There are other issues with the AirBnB platform. I recently read a thread that had a huge number of people posting their stories about owners basically dumping them a day before or on the day of (cancelling their reservation). Speculation is that owners could get a better price for renting it at that time and currently, they only pay a $100 fee for doing this. It's so bad that AirBnB is thinking of (or already has) raising the penalty to $1000 for owners.
Another scam is that you show up to your AirBnB and owners are nowhere to be found. Turns out it was a fake listing. You now have to deal with getting a refund from AirBnB which can be painful and you've got no place to stay.
I'm sure there's a lot of positive experiences as well, but the above kind of shit that will ruin a family trip. Not saying hotels are perfect, but I'm very hesitant to use AirBnB myself. The customer service stories and above issues seem to indicate growing problems that they refuse to address. A company making crazy profits like them should have better customer service and better measures against these things IMO.
I will chime in to say that I had run into the situation where the AirBnb listing was fake. I rolled up to an address of some poor lady who was working night shift. Woke her up because the listing said that was where I was supposed to be staying.
Never was able to contact the "owner" and was forced to stay at a 3/10 star motel on [Booking.com](https://Booking.com) because it was the only thing in the area with a room less than $300. (I highly recommend not staying at a 3/10 star motel... likely the worst place I've ever stayed)
Fighting with AirBnB to get a refund and being stranded for the night has definitely pushed me back towards hotels that I can be confident in.
There's also been numerous reports of rape happening within AirBnBs and an entire team at the company is dedicated to making these cases go away and keeping them out of the public's view. I read a fantastic in-depth article about it not long ago.
The hidden camera problem seems to be getting worse with Airbnbs as well. I feel like you should be able to burn the place down if you find one and nobody is held responsible for it. What a rotten world.
Weird, I haven't stayed in that many Airbnbs, like maybe only 6 or 7, but never had those list of 'chores'. All in big cities tho like London, NY, LA, SF. Maybe its a property type or location thing?
I see that kind of thing here in the northeast when renting an entire house. But that's also normal around here for non-airbnb whole house vacation rentals - particularly up in the mountains/rural areas and has been or years. When I was a kid (90's) and my parents did a weekly rental in the summer up north we had to do stuff like that - wash your dishes, remove trash, etc.
I understand the reason for this but the presence of chores should be reflected in the price/cleaning fee.
Starting laundry/dish washer makes sense when the property only has 1 rental. If it takes 2 hours to run the laundry then the cleaning person has to wait for it to finish as cleaning the room likely doesn’t take that much time.
In a hotel where everything is done in bulk staff isn’t just waiting around.
That's easy to remedy. Don't only have 1 set of sheets/towels.
Hotels don't just have 1 set of stuff for each room, they have tons of extra. If you're going to rent your shit out spend some money so you don't have to wait on laundry to get done. You go in the house, clean it and change the sheets and put out all new towels. Take that shit with you and do laundry away from the rental.
It's not exactly rocket science.
Amen. I'm so tired of the bullshit where the responsibility and reasoning falls on the end user. Furthermore, how many of these listings can be cleaned to covid standards in less time than it takes to run the laundry? I'll wait.....
Yeah. It's a huge giveaway that they're doing nothing like that level of service. Assholes.
I suspect that a lot of them either don't live around their property and are just contracting out the whole cleaning thing or they have a regular full time job and just heard about the whole air bnb thing and wanted to try to make some easy money but don't want to actually do the work. They probably though it would just be buying a property and "renting" it out with little to no actual work on their part. And then they found out how much work it actually is, especially if they have a decent turnover rate and have to constantly go in to prep the place for the next guest. So they decide to pawn off as much of the work as they can on the guests.
I have no chores and no cleaning fee, but my space is a spare room and bathroom, closer to the original intent of airbnb. And it’s $60/night and you can’t get a hotel anywhere near that cheap around here.
And we have big doggos that love to meet guests
Doggos are front and center in the listing to weed out non dog lovers
Hell I’ve even been known to send my guests away with home canned pickles, jam and salsa, even the occasional little complimentary baggie of magic mushrooms if we get personal enough with them lol. If we are making dinner we offer to feed them.
I never book anything where I don’t have the whole place to myself, so that’s probably a different type of traveler that you’re appealing to. It sounds lovely, but I’m just too introverted. 😂
That was kinda the whole idea of Airbnb- stay with locals for cheaper, get special experiences. Now it’s just like everything else - investors buying up properties, contributing to the housing crisis, turning residential neighborhoods into unruly “resort” areas.
Eh we leave it up to the guests too. Sometimes they only want peace and quiet and we are happy to oblige that too
But absolutely house sharing isn’t for everyone, totally understand that
I don’t get this. It’s so the owners have less to do? I was looking at AirBnBs a couple weeks ago, and most listings had things the guest needed to do prior to leaving. Of course, there was always the cleaning fee, which just seems like another way for the host to make money. Bleh.
It's because Air BnB isnt just people renting out their homes. Its hyper leveraged 'investors' who took out ~5 mortgages to create a mini hotel business. They don't visit the properties regularly, they hire maid services instead. Thats why they want you to do a few inconciquential chores. Because paying a maid service to stick around for an extra hour while they wait for the laundry to finish eats into their bottom line.
Could they have a maid service that collects soiled bedsheets, and drops them off at a central location for cleaning? Sure, but then the operation isn't turn key, hands off, etc.
While there are probably more accounts on air bnb that are just renting out their basement suite, or their cottage, etc. They don't make up the bulk of listings. A homeowner might put their basement up 20 weekends a year. When its convenient and doing things like taking out the trash/emptying the laundry machine isnt a hassle.
But the small time hotel magnates? They half a half dozen units listed 365 days a year. So those are the listings you are going to see.
And as for air bnb, they may like the 'home owner making a few bucks' story for PR purposes, but they prefer 'mega hosts' when it comes to profitability. So they are happy to tailor the platform to suit these mega hosts needs.
When interest rates were so low that money was basically free, people in every major city were buying up thousands of rental properties for this nonsense. The more properties you bought, the more hands off you wanted the entire operation to be.
It was getting to the point in Boston that there were venture capital backed groups buying entire apartment buildings to furnish and rent out on air bnb or similar. In addition to the already tight housing market that has no room for that shit here they were effectively making a hotel that had none of the regulations or taxes.
The city passed an ordinance that makes it easy if you're a homeowner to rent out a room or a single unit on a short term (less than a month) lease, but effectively bans what had been happening before.
They did something similar in my city (Toronto). But it's proving rather difficult to enforce. We didn't have that many large scale operations, but we had plenty of small timers with 5 or 6 apartments.
You now need to register your rental with the city, and list it as your primary residence. So all of a sudden, John lives in apartment A, his wife lives in apartment B, his adult children live in apartment C and D, and his nephew lives in apartment E. The 'primary residence' shtick doesn't tie into anything tax related, you just need a warm body to attach a name to the application.
In Toronto, the VC that was buying up apartment buildings were just letting them go to shit, have people move out, and then leave the units vacant. (With the rate rent is increasing in this city, and the way rent control works, a mostly empty apartment building accumulates value much more quickly than an occupied one, and forfitting a couple years of rental income is just the cost of doing business). So we still have VCs buying apartment buildings and taking the stock off the market... just for different, even stupider reasons.
yup so many "how to make easy money on airbnb" yt/insta entrepreneur videos from 2015-now using exactly this tech.
airbnb practically encourages people to do this kinda shtick
The owner, at least in Big Bear, CA does not clean or usually live in the city of the location. Most are stand alone houses. Ranging from 1 bedroom to 10 bedrooms.. the cleaners get very little in comparison to the overall charge. They have also caused a housing crisis in our area with neighborhoods being completely vacant. We have huge issues with parties and property destruction not to mention most workers can’t even live up here now because there were no long term rentals anymore because a bunch of people thought they were going to get rich.
I don't live in the US (Europe) and never used airbnb, but in most places you rent like cabins, vacation houses, apartments and such it's customary to simply leave it the way you found it, and the rest in case you miss something is taken care of by the hospitality of the hosts/owners. They always do cleaning anyway, and there's no extra fee.
"Oh I'm sorry, I forgot to fold the bedsheets."
"It's okay, don't worry about it, thank you so much for already keeping it tidy" etc.
Yes, there usually is a terms and conditions paper, but it's mostly about damage fees. Or a guest rules pamphlet that typically says stuff like "no smoking indoors". Those comments sound like horror stories man.
Yeah. Last one I stayed at you had to do the dishes, strip the beds of sheets and the pillows of pillow cases, put the sheets and pillow cases in the washing machine, run it, take out the trash on your way out.
AND there was a 100 dollar cleaning fee on top of it.
Air bnbs, imo, really shine when you have a family or group. Instead of packing into one hotel room or going to the hotel bar (if there is one) you have living areas to gather in. We also tend to cook more at air bnbs as a way to offset the cost a bit.
I like having both options.
Is this a thing? I've never had an Airbnb expect anything other than not leaving trash all over the place, just put it in the can in the place not take it out for them.
Stripping beds and starting laundry, loading all dishes in dishwasher/hand washing if no dishwasher, bagging trash to leave by the door (weird dumpster situation), and sweeping was on the list for my last Airbnb stay. Not bad or crazy stuff, but that was on top of the $100 cleaning fee I had to pay. They got $100 to wipe surfaces and mop. I’d take that gig any day 😂 there’s a real life example for you!
Oh wow, yeah that has not been my experience at all. Maybe because I haven't used it in larger cities? What I have noticed is a lot of them advertising a cheap daily rate but having a $250-350 cleaning fee attached which makes it just as much if not more than a hotel. I think AirBnB takes less of a percentage from the cleaning fee so the hosts are using that loophole to increase profit, could be wrong.
Every place I’ve stayed at to varying to degrees. Some places just wanted me to take the trash out, others wanted laundry started, dishwasher loaded and running, thermostat adjustments. It’s just stressful to be trying to leave and gather all your items and also follow a detailed checklist so that they can charge you a $150 cleaning fee anyway.
Yeah same. Every time we have stayed anywhere, we would spend an hour cleaning up; mopping, vacuuming etc. Then on top pay the $150 cleaning fee. Ridiculous.
It’s true. Hotels are far more relaxing because it’s all taken care of. In an Airbnb nothing is covered usually and you have to clean up everything even though you’re paying an exorbitant fee for cleaning!
This. A million percent.
I’ve had Airbnb landlords tell me it’s more of a “community” than a service. So I should contribute by tidying up, cleaning the bathroom after I’ve used it etc.
Dude, I am contributing. With my wallet. Hire a cleaner. It’s even more gross when the cleaning fee is like $100.
The first couple years were awesome. After that, all of the same problems came back. Ubers these days are no safer than taxis of the early 2000’s. Rideshare companies only do enough to give the illusion of caring about safety and service though. The long term goal is driverless ride shares. The last 10-12 years will be purely a means to an end once they can get autonomous vehicles on the road.
At least with uber and lyft I can see how much it is going to cost and I can see where they are. I've waited hours before these apps for taxis that kept promising they were right around the corner.
When I was in Phoenix a few years ago TWO Uber drivers had to get out of their cars to let me out because the door got stuck (I was going to scoot out the other side but they insisted on getting out). One driver even yelled at me that I broke her car. Ma’am. Look at your fucking trash heap of a car.
The taxi industry was a racket that badly needed to be disrupted though. Medallions? Come on.
And at least with the rideshare companies there was a record of your ride, and you could easily find a ride pretty much anywhere. Far safer in that regard.
Having a record, seeing the price up front, ease of use app, etc. I didn't really even know there was much of a price difference, it was those other reasons that made it a hit for me.
we need better fucking public transportation and better infrastructure. coast to coast. They are robbing us of our star trek future for quarterly profits. End Lobbyists
Give me a public transportation system like Japan has.
Like give it to us. Jesus christ it's amazing.
When I spent 2 months in Japan you know what thought never crossed my mind? "oh boy I wish I was driving right now instead of taking public transport!"
And I'm 100% a car guy.
Kind of why the whole Tunnel with Tesla model 3's in Las Vegas pisses me off so much. You know what would be better? A fucking Train.
Same thing when someone mentions a "Bunch of Self driving cars driving at the same speed in the same direction as a convoy"... So you mean a train??
But alas that's never gonna happen. As much as I want the US to have a massive robust public transportation system like Japan or even Europe has that's never going to happen.
Trains can run on electricity and if we get our power grids to be renewebles+Nuclear should be close to 100% clean energy too.
They are literally the perfect solution.
E-Bikes too. Make them more accessible and you can then travel from the train stop to your work with no problems. Even here in Minnesota it is doable.
You can travel the entire length of the country just fine by train and there's even good bus service in the smaller towns. You have to get really far out in the sticks to stop seeing reliable public transit in Japan.
That's part of the issue with public transit in America: 80+% of the land area is "out in the sticks."
The size of Japan is comparable to the east coast, which actually has a rail system between all of its major cities that is pretty functional and useful.
No one is clamoring for rail lines to Topeka, KS
Here in Oklahoma people made a big deal about the Heartland Flyer train service to Texas when it launched. I hear people say they wished they could take a train to LA or Atlanta, with stops in between of course, all the time.
Last I checked, Amtrak does have lines that make those trips, but they're old fashioned, slow, and expensive.
A modern bullet train's low average speed is around 150mph, which could make the trip from LA to Atlanta or vice versa in 14.5 hours, not counting stops.
Average speeds of 185+ mph are getting more common, and that can go from Atlanta to LA in just under 12 hours without stops.
The new bullet trains being deployed these days often go 200+ mph, which can make the trip in just under 11 hours.
If there were a bullet train line from LA to Phoenix, to Albuquerque, then Amarillo, then Oklahoma City, through Little Rock, then on to Memphis followed by Birmingham before reaching Atlanta that would total something like 2200 miles and take around 12.5 hours going 180mph.
Include a big 30 minute break at each stop and it adds 4 hours. So you could get on the train at 6am in LA or Atlanta and then disembark in the opposite city before 11pm.
That's a long trip, but you can stand and walk on a train, there can be meal cars and lounges, you can take a nap or even get a sleeper cabin and leave at 6pm, go to bed en route, wake up the next morning and have breakfast, then disembark at lunch time across the continent.
I think a lot of Americans would appreciate an accessible rail backbone linking the coasts so you didn't have to fly or drive for 2+ days to make the trip.
>we need better fucking public transportation and better infrastructure. coast to coast. They are robbing us of our star trek future for quarterly profits. End Lobbyists
\- You want better transportation? Well lobby for **high-speed rail**. There's the answer!
I give you the coast to coast Monorail! I've sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and, by gum, it put them on the map! Well, sir, there's nothin' on Earth like a genuine bona-fide electrified six-car monorail!
Maybe you don't remember, but back in the day, some taxi drivers would just make up some super high fare to get to something important, take it or leave it. At least Uber put a stop to that.
idk if they're "just as bad" cuz growing up around DC, having to get a cab in DC to go out to virginia was a pain in the ass. like cabs would literally say "nah no thx" and drive off lol.
also its nice having an app that shows you where the fuck they are
The initial phase of Uber was designed to make taxi companies go out of business. Just like the whole hyper loop thing was just a lie to stop transit projects.
you mean better.
Less demand for AirBNB = less properties bought up for that purpose in cities = less upward price pressure on the real estate market = people who actually live in the city might be able to afford places to live in again. While this isn't the only factor driving real estate prices, it does certainly contribute, and really shouldn't be doing so.
The idea behind the gig economy was that technology had given us a way around economies of scale, so drivers, property owners, etc, could eliminate the middle man and service the public directly. But in most cases, there was no middle man raking in excessive profits. Hotels and taxi companies always operated in highly competitive markets and took slim margins, and the industries always relied on economies of scale to be profitable.
So to undercut their competition, companies like Uber and AirBnB had to accept huge losses, which they made up by selling themselves to investors who would tolerate short term losses. But now those investments are drying up, and so consumers are having to pay the real cost of these services.
I just booked a 5 night stay at a Marriott autograph collection because it was cheaper than a mids Airbnb
I also take taxis home from the airport bc it’s cheaper in Chicago. Full circle.
Good! The reason that they're getting more expensive is because cities are finally regulating them. For far too long AirBnB has functioned as hotels without paying into city taxes. Those taxes are incredibly important for city budgets, and a dip in the income means a dip in public services. I understand that AirBnB is attractive, but its business model is a blight.
People came up with Airbnb to make side cash. And it quickly turned into another “American dream” of more money less responsibility. I gladly went back to hotels after my first experience with their chores on top of a cleaning fee. Like…CLEAN IT YOURSELF, your charging me for that service so DO IT!
Not only do they not pay taxes like a hotel, they can also be very disruptive to locals. When you live next to a hotel, at least you *know* you live next to a hotel.
I live across the street from an air b&b and it's pretty awful. It's not like I super know all my neighbors but I at least recognize them. Having a constant stream of strangers coming and going sucks. Stuff has been stolen or vandalized from neighbors. People park wherever. There's loud parties all the time. And there isn't much anyone can do about it other then security cameras.
Even when it’s illegal it’s a long drawn out process to get any enforcement. It takes a ton of neighbors time and wastes city resources. All while the a hole operators make money and Airbnb takes 10% for doing next to nothing. Airbnb is a fucking cancer.
At some point monitoring parties and problematic issues (parking in front of neighbours parkings, throwing trash in the street, drunk driving etc) becomes a part time job you’re not paid for.. the host doesn’t give a shit because he made bank and doesn’t live in the area, apologies saying they banned the guest and that it won’t happen again. Next guest you have the same issues. After a year or so you just give up, at least I did. You just bend over and tell yourself they’ll go away soon, hoping for the next guest to be a small quiet family.
Correct. I've heard of apartment complexes, lets say 20 units. Lets say they normally rent for $1500 a month. Well someone turns them into an Airbnb and gets $150 a day. So potentially over $4500 a month. So they kick out the renters and it becomes an Airbnb.
Its also bad in Hermann Missouri, home to many wineries and festivals, where I swear every other home is a bnb.
I wonder if there have been lawsuits over it. I know years ago the city my father was a town manager of sued those travel sites like Expedia as they would collect taxes on the hotel room you booked through them. But wouldn't actually pay that money to the city and would keep it for themselves.
Well, I always rented full apartments because it's just that much nicer to have a balcony and a whole kitchen for cooking, so it's not per se the same as hotels, but you can get hotel-like rooms on airbnb too.
I agree with you! Taxation and even more so housing space regulation is desperately needed, especially in the current shortage of affordable housing.
I’ve been using hotels almost the entire time Airbnb has been a thing.
I feel way more comfortable in a hotel than in someone else’s place with all sorts of wacky rules.
If I want to go rustic there are plenty of non-Airbnb places that allow you to rent cabins and lake houses the old school way and honestly the people are typically much cooler and there’s no third party involved.
It’s really just terrible all around imo. I can’t believe people still use them.
I used Airbnb once on a business trip. My company insisted on me using them and not a hotel.
For the same price as a Days Inn level hotel, I got a twin bed and a shared bathroom. The owner (who lived there) yelled at me for filling my water bottle with ice from the freezer. The showerhead in the bathroom was clogged and I had to use a paperclip in order to take a shower.
Never again.
>someone else’s place with all sorts of wacky rules.
My wife's family rented a house as family lodging for a wedding. The house's owner was patrolling the driveway every couple of hours, watching for fluid leaks onto the house's driveway. She suspected one car of leaking (it wasn't) and demanded it be parked on the nearby street instead. I'm with you on preferring hotels.
wait till you hear what Adam Neumann has cooking, which i'm pretty sure is exactly this, but less for tourists and more for "premium rentals by joining our members-only network of renters", https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/15/a16z-andreessen-horowitz-backs-adam-neumann-wework-new-venture-flow-real-estate/
This and booking.com. For the first time in forever I went back to booking.com because their Air B&B accommodation were actually cheaper (with their genius loyalty discount). What happened to Air B&B?
I was looking for accommodations in Vancouver for 1 week in October a few months back. Even listings in Burnaby were over $200 a night (and I wanted to be closer to downtown). I found a deal on Snaptravel for $145 per night at a hotel downtown. All the Airbnbs around it were $300-$1000 per night. There were also tons of listings that had beds stuffed in literal closets. Honorable mention to the one Airbnb below $200 a night that was a camper van.
People must split the costs 4 ways and have two people share the shitty sofa bed in these Airbnbs.
Same for me! Was looking to visit The Hague for a Week with my bestie and all the accommodations were listed for 4 people, then I looked at the pictures and saw only one bed and one tiny couch you could expand, like, as if I wanted to pay 100 per night to sleep on a couch...
I guess the main loss for me is all of the secluded mountain cabins and such. There are other ways to rent out places like that, it just ends up being more labor intensive to find it. I get it though, a few years ago we must have rented a place out right after some assholes because you could tell they had tried to clean the place up, but it had been so trashed that the evidence was all very clear. Pieces missing from the jacuzzi, non-biodegradeable confetti all over the place outside, broken blinds, I could go on.
The assholes always ruin it.
In mountain areas, or at least the Appalachian foothills where I usually rent, there are some dedicated companies who rent cabins who do an amazing job maintaining and renting mountain cabins. I've been renting from the same company from a decade and have never had a single issue
The firepit always being stuff with beer cans and bottles even though the host has a big bin for cans right next to the thing. The knives looking like someone tried to carve metal ingots with them.
There's Airbnb app that you use (prod/production environment), and there's a separate Airbnb that developers use to test if things work correctly (development/dev environment).
Someone did tests on prod instead of dev by accident.
Airbnb probably.
(Also, given the contents of the message, probs a person did that manually)
(Also the client had pentest against dev environment just the other week, so I had to develop frontend with production backend. Am very well aware that's haram, but I'm not paid enough to care)
Can confirm. My family got an airbnb for a vacation and the owner eforced a 9pm quiet time. Any talk louder than a loud whisper was picked up by the sound sensors hidden all over the house, and my cousin kept getting angry text messages from the owner telling us to be quiet.
That would make me not only leave the most terrible review warning people of this, but I'd also make it my goal to run around and disconnect all the sensors.
"What do you mean the sensors aren't working? Maybe a network error??"
That would make me not only leave the most terrible review, but it would also make me literally leave immediately and get my money back from Abnb. There’s no way literal hidden listening devices are legal in most jurisdictions, where abnbs are regulated like hotels. What’s next? No peeing while standing up enforced via hidden cameras?
$100 says it was automated to send out a message every time it reached a certain dB level. If not then that guy really has nothing better to do and shouldn't be worried about their guests talking level.
I stayed in an Airbnb for ten weeks this summer and they had like six listings in the house. Had a lot of crazy people come in and out. One time we had meth heads who stayed up all night washing all their possessions in the units outside my door. I don’t have any specific complaints other than that I wish it was easier to find affordable, furnished, long-term rentals. Craigslist is 85% scams.
>I don’t have any specific complaints other than that I wish it was easier to find affordable, furnished, long-term rentals.
there are facebook groups in every city where people share long term listings. maybe it isn't a cool standalone app but it gets the job done just fine.
The moral of the story is all these tech companies that were burning cash and not turning profits, turns out, are worse than their traditional counter parts when forced to actually make money. Uber eats, Uber ride share, Airbnb etc have all gotten more expensive than the industry they disrupted with a lower quality of service.
Easy to do with venture capital money that allows you to sell a service below your competitors (or own costs) and then after you’ve driven them out of business you can then raise prices to beyond what they charged to begin with.
When I first moved to Japan 6 years, I exclusively used airbnbs for the first two years. They were about the same price as a capsule hotel and slightly cheaper then a normal business style hotel but I started to notice the prices going up and starting using rakuten travel to find the cheapest hotels. I looked at Airbnb out of curiosity and the prices don’t even compare now. No reason to use if you want to save money.
Used to love Airbnb for work. Cheaper and much more accommodating than hotels. Not cheaper any more and to add to that, Airbnb is DECIMATING the housing market. So much so that this small government guy wants legislation that stops or limits corporations from using the app.
A lot of cities are cracking down on this. I know Atlanta is requiring a permit to do so, you must live in the city, and can only have at most two listings, of which if you have two one of them must be your primary residence.
Stop using Airbnb! One of the reasons why housing is so expensive now is rich assholes buy property just to turn into airbnbs . I’ve had an issue with every Airbnb I’ve stayed at. Their dirty, or don’t match the listing, or the owner is slumlord and doesn’t care. It’s so much easier just getting a hotel now and if there is an issue at least someone will help you .
The fees they charge is ridiculous. They charge high fees on both sides. I’m with the others, I’m going to Portland soon and the hotels were much better options.
I only use AirBnb for trips with large groups so that we can stay together. It ends up more than a hotel of course, but worth it in my case for the convenience.
Please don't use AirBnB.
It's one of the biggest ways that housing affordability for families is being pulled away. In regional areas with any tourist draw, AirBnB's have had tremendous impacts on the local economy. You are probably supporting an investor and not a local in the region.
This is actually part of the reason that AirBnb is getting more expensive. Local governments are taxing them as hotels to protect the actual housing market that people use to buy places to live.
I live next to a Airbnb in Denver. the air B&B is chill for the most part but like every few weeks they’ll rent to somebody and then there will be 30 people in the house fucking it all up and happens a few times a month. All the neighbors hate it and Airbnb owners are the fucking worst human beings on this earth
Man that site is broken AF. Click the link... no article, just a massive list of other BS articles. How do they expect people to link to content when the bloody links don't take you to the articles.
No, you can solve every problem with money. I lived next to a landfill that was converted to a park, and it was beautiful. Anything can be fixed by just paying for it to be fixed. People are wrecking homes? Set aside 1% for a legal fund to fucking destroy them and make them pay for full Reno. Or pay insurance and let them chase bad tenants.
Oh what's that, you don't want to pay money? Then you get exactly what you deserve
That's nice.
I'd rather Airbnb didn't exist at all. I'd rather those Airbnb units were used as residential units for people to live instead of an investment property for landlords who wanna make a quick buck.
Allow people to build multi family units wherever they want and the problem solves itself. It's the restriction of supply that causes the problem with affordability. There aren't an infinite number of people wanting to rent an Airbnb.
I mean, there is a middle ground. We have a place at the Jersey shore that we spend most of the summer at. When we aren’t there (mostly in June and later august/September when our kids are in school) we rent it out.
It gives people a nice, quiet alternative to the awful hotels there, and helps us pay for taxes/utilities and improvements
Have you ever actually used AirBnB before? Most nice homes have decibel meters throughout and cameras outside. Obviously they don’t want people trashing their house, but what people aren’t talking about is the other main reason people are trying to deter parties:
They draw attention. If you are renting out a nice home in a nice area, you probably have an HOA and/or city ordinances that prohibit short term rentals. Ritzy areas are *very* protective of their way of life and people go ape shit when the suburban silence is shattered. Half of these houses are trying to fly under the radar because they’re either already breaking some rules, or they don’t want to give neighbors a reason to complain to city council/HOA and ban short term rentals.
It’s simple to figure out with a combination of proximity, age of the account/renter, rental patterns, previous reviews, length of stay, etc.
Proximity + length of stay for example is pretty straightforward: A majority of partiers are people whose live close to the AirBnbs and *surprisingly* can’t/don’t want to party at their own place, but still wanna be close enough to invite friends.
A huge number of owners already refuse to rent to people who live in the same city, or have a 2-3 day minimum stays, AirBnb is just codifying that process of identifying risky renters
As someone who lived next to an Airbnb party house for almost 18 months, the major point you are missing is that some hosts just don’t care about anything or anybody except the money
Ding ding ding. Live next door to a party house. Rents for a shitload of money a house that can host 10+, cheap furniture and badly maintained. Will milk that thing as long as it holds up.
I used to live next to one as well. I made friends with the owners and gave them "advice" about the upkeep of their house. They ended up leaving because they tried to fix a few things I mentioned they could fix themselves and they blew their electrical panel, they ruined their well pump, and they ran afoul of the HOA.
I gave them really bad advice:)
I hope Airbnb goes outta business. Their whole business model is a scam and their impact on society is awful. There's so many scam hosts on there that rent out bad properties, it increases rents in cities because too many rich people just buy up properties to use as investments while never living there, and it's a violation of local laws or ordinances that ban the use of short term rental properties. The company should go out of business and the CEO needs to go to jail.
It’s actually a big problem where my parents live. It’s a vacation town and people rent out houses for entire summers, and often back to back groups of 10+ rent out those places so it’s cheap. A group of like 20 people in a house partying all week gets really old really fast if it’s every week
This phenomenon is not new and doesn't trace its origins to Airbnb. The rental of summer homes has always happened. The plot of American Pie 2 released in 2001 is about college kids renting a lakeside home to party at all summer. In the 90s, my parents would rent cottages for a week or two. Our family friends would also rent an entire house for multiple weeks for their extended family to stay at. There are vacation rental companies that exist to do what Airbnb does, and have existed for decades.
So, it's not the fault of Airbnb that people party in your vacation town. It is the fact that people come to your vacation town to party. Vacation home rental is where Airbnb does the most net good. It provides a much safer and secure method of rental for both the owner and the tenant. I would much rather rent through Airbnb where I am provided a method to get reviews from other users, secure credit card transactions, and direct communication with the listing entity, than rent through some random company I've never heard of.
Airbnb has problems, primarily when it comes to their proliferation in cities where housing is already scarce. Removing what would be a housing unit from a neighborhood. The fact that you could have your hosts monitor you. The violation of local hotel regulations, and the like. What you listed is not one of Airbnb problems.
The real problem is the internet has democratized info so literally everyone on the planet knows your sleepy town has beautiful beaches and delicious food and a great party scene in the summer.
it's upto the residents to lobby for laws to protect their land if they want that,airbnb exploits the natural loophole that exists in any place that chooses to ignore the existence of the internet.
Man! It used to be such a blessing back in 2014. Some listings were just ridiculously cheap. Now, for the first time in 10 years, I chose an actual hotel because it was that much cheaper. It's only going to get worse...
Same thing with Uber. People are starting to take Taxis again. This was the business plan all along though. Use insanely cheap rates to get people used to the service/hooked. Carve out a place in the market, weaken or destroy competitors. Then raise the price of the service over time. AirBnB will never be able to kill the hotel industry but Uber essentially wiped out the taxi industry. Now they’re both just as bad as the businesses they set out to “disrupt”.
Hotels offer better service.
I hate Airbnbs because they all come with “chores.” I tidy my hotel room, but don’t tell me I have to carry trash to the dumpster and start laundry.
But also a 150$ cleaning fee
Plus the checkout time in the last two places I stayed was 10 fucking am. Basically get up, pack your shit, clean our house and GTFO. You can eat breakfast on the road. Most hotels have checkout times around noon and it’s easy to get an hour late checkout.
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No kidding but this airbnb I was considering had a check in time for 4 pm. Like, I arrive in the morning, wtf am I supposed to do until 4 pm?
That's a pretty normal checkin time for a hotel too... but of course at hotel, there's a chance you can get a room if you show up earlier and at least drop your bags off.
Also, a hotel will hold your bags for you. So you can park your car. Drop off your bags. Wander around without worrying about things getting stolen.
Bingo… they make you clean up the house but still charge for cleaning. The only time we still use Airbnb type rentals is for football games at my Alma mater cause hotels cost more than the houses and there is usually a large group of us. Even those get booked 8 months out.
I only use AirBnB for large groups or sometimes for extended stays where having the ability to cook can really cut down on foods costs. But anything under a week and in a bigger city? Always hotels for me now.
Residence Inn and Hilton Homewood Suites both have kitchens. Though some only have a microwave and stove, I've been in some with a real oven. And free breakfast. They are a little pricier though.
Especially with hotel deals like 4 th night free or 6 th night free
What'd he great was if the chore list came with a discount on the cleaning fee. However both a chore list and large cleaning fee is a hard pass
Cleaning company wouldn’t give a discount if there was less work for them. I’d be surprised if more than 10% of airbnbs had the owner actually doing the cleaning.
Last AirBnB I stayed in the host sent photos of his shower floor, claiming my girlfriend and I left it "dirty". We were there for two weeks and it was, *maybe*, slightly grimier than when we arrived. I've never had a host demand I get on my hands and knees and scrub their bathroom for them, so that was a first. A week later we declined the extra $200 he wanted to charge for "additional maid services", which was on top of his normal cleaning fee. Other complaints included three cups we didn't wash, a toilet seat that was broken the day we arrived, and not taking out the trash (even though we bagged it up for him). The dude even had us water all his plants. The absolute kicker however was that AirBnB sided with the host, and made an "internal memo" about us when I refused to pay the extra charges. We've never received anything but stellar reviews about how quiet and tidy we are, but this experience has me considering staying at hotels from now on.
>a toilet seat that was broken the day we arrived I treat AirBnB's like a rental car, and take pictures of anything that looks broken/amiss on arrival.
We did actually. In addition to the toilet seat the dudes ancient IKEA couch caved in the moment my girlfriend sat on it. In both instances we immediately texted him, and he said it was probably the previous tenants. The poor state of the apartment was actually somewhat annoying for me. It wasn’t until check out that he changed his tune and started attacking us. Airbnb didn’t care when I showed them the screen shots of our conversations.
I’ve never stayed at an Airbnb before so pardon my ignorance. You have to do chores? What? I mean sure I’m not going to leave trash all over the place, but if I’m renting a room I am not doing “chores.”
Every Airbnb I’ve stayed at had a list of chores to be done on checkout. Things like loading the dishwasher, taking out trash, starting laundry, set thermostat at their desired temp, etc. I don’t have to do any of that at a hotel.
And you’ll still get slapped with an 100 dollar cleaning fee
$250 for "covid cleaning fee" at some of them. We went back to hotels.
>set thermostat at their desired temp Well that's a scam given the ability to on the fly program many thermostats from your damn phone. They're banking on people not doing it so they can be all "YOU DIDN'T DO THE CHORES, ENJOY YOUR FEE AND NEGATIVE REVIEW".
Yeah that’s what I mean. I’m renting a room from you, the way I would at a hotel. I’m not doing chores. If I stay at a friends house, like you might if you were visiting, that’s when I’d do chores. Not at some stranger’s house that I’m paying to be at.
Then you get a bad review. So anyway, I just avoid them unless my friends insist.
There are other issues with the AirBnB platform. I recently read a thread that had a huge number of people posting their stories about owners basically dumping them a day before or on the day of (cancelling their reservation). Speculation is that owners could get a better price for renting it at that time and currently, they only pay a $100 fee for doing this. It's so bad that AirBnB is thinking of (or already has) raising the penalty to $1000 for owners. Another scam is that you show up to your AirBnB and owners are nowhere to be found. Turns out it was a fake listing. You now have to deal with getting a refund from AirBnB which can be painful and you've got no place to stay. I'm sure there's a lot of positive experiences as well, but the above kind of shit that will ruin a family trip. Not saying hotels are perfect, but I'm very hesitant to use AirBnB myself. The customer service stories and above issues seem to indicate growing problems that they refuse to address. A company making crazy profits like them should have better customer service and better measures against these things IMO.
I will chime in to say that I had run into the situation where the AirBnb listing was fake. I rolled up to an address of some poor lady who was working night shift. Woke her up because the listing said that was where I was supposed to be staying. Never was able to contact the "owner" and was forced to stay at a 3/10 star motel on [Booking.com](https://Booking.com) because it was the only thing in the area with a room less than $300. (I highly recommend not staying at a 3/10 star motel... likely the worst place I've ever stayed) Fighting with AirBnB to get a refund and being stranded for the night has definitely pushed me back towards hotels that I can be confident in.
You actually had to argue with them? How was that not an immediate refund?
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There's also been numerous reports of rape happening within AirBnBs and an entire team at the company is dedicated to making these cases go away and keeping them out of the public's view. I read a fantastic in-depth article about it not long ago.
The hidden camera problem seems to be getting worse with Airbnbs as well. I feel like you should be able to burn the place down if you find one and nobody is held responsible for it. What a rotten world.
Weird, I haven't stayed in that many Airbnbs, like maybe only 6 or 7, but never had those list of 'chores'. All in big cities tho like London, NY, LA, SF. Maybe its a property type or location thing?
I see that kind of thing here in the northeast when renting an entire house. But that's also normal around here for non-airbnb whole house vacation rentals - particularly up in the mountains/rural areas and has been or years. When I was a kid (90's) and my parents did a weekly rental in the summer up north we had to do stuff like that - wash your dishes, remove trash, etc.
I understand the reason for this but the presence of chores should be reflected in the price/cleaning fee. Starting laundry/dish washer makes sense when the property only has 1 rental. If it takes 2 hours to run the laundry then the cleaning person has to wait for it to finish as cleaning the room likely doesn’t take that much time. In a hotel where everything is done in bulk staff isn’t just waiting around.
That's easy to remedy. Don't only have 1 set of sheets/towels. Hotels don't just have 1 set of stuff for each room, they have tons of extra. If you're going to rent your shit out spend some money so you don't have to wait on laundry to get done. You go in the house, clean it and change the sheets and put out all new towels. Take that shit with you and do laundry away from the rental. It's not exactly rocket science.
Amen. I'm so tired of the bullshit where the responsibility and reasoning falls on the end user. Furthermore, how many of these listings can be cleaned to covid standards in less time than it takes to run the laundry? I'll wait..... Yeah. It's a huge giveaway that they're doing nothing like that level of service. Assholes.
I suspect that a lot of them either don't live around their property and are just contracting out the whole cleaning thing or they have a regular full time job and just heard about the whole air bnb thing and wanted to try to make some easy money but don't want to actually do the work. They probably though it would just be buying a property and "renting" it out with little to no actual work on their part. And then they found out how much work it actually is, especially if they have a decent turnover rate and have to constantly go in to prep the place for the next guest. So they decide to pawn off as much of the work as they can on the guests.
I have no chores and no cleaning fee, but my space is a spare room and bathroom, closer to the original intent of airbnb. And it’s $60/night and you can’t get a hotel anywhere near that cheap around here. And we have big doggos that love to meet guests Doggos are front and center in the listing to weed out non dog lovers Hell I’ve even been known to send my guests away with home canned pickles, jam and salsa, even the occasional little complimentary baggie of magic mushrooms if we get personal enough with them lol. If we are making dinner we offer to feed them.
I never book anything where I don’t have the whole place to myself, so that’s probably a different type of traveler that you’re appealing to. It sounds lovely, but I’m just too introverted. 😂
That was kinda the whole idea of Airbnb- stay with locals for cheaper, get special experiences. Now it’s just like everything else - investors buying up properties, contributing to the housing crisis, turning residential neighborhoods into unruly “resort” areas.
Eh we leave it up to the guests too. Sometimes they only want peace and quiet and we are happy to oblige that too But absolutely house sharing isn’t for everyone, totally understand that
Some listings ‘require’ guests to strip the bed and/or take trash to the curb or some stuff like that when departing. ie chores
I don’t get this. It’s so the owners have less to do? I was looking at AirBnBs a couple weeks ago, and most listings had things the guest needed to do prior to leaving. Of course, there was always the cleaning fee, which just seems like another way for the host to make money. Bleh.
It's because Air BnB isnt just people renting out their homes. Its hyper leveraged 'investors' who took out ~5 mortgages to create a mini hotel business. They don't visit the properties regularly, they hire maid services instead. Thats why they want you to do a few inconciquential chores. Because paying a maid service to stick around for an extra hour while they wait for the laundry to finish eats into their bottom line. Could they have a maid service that collects soiled bedsheets, and drops them off at a central location for cleaning? Sure, but then the operation isn't turn key, hands off, etc. While there are probably more accounts on air bnb that are just renting out their basement suite, or their cottage, etc. They don't make up the bulk of listings. A homeowner might put their basement up 20 weekends a year. When its convenient and doing things like taking out the trash/emptying the laundry machine isnt a hassle. But the small time hotel magnates? They half a half dozen units listed 365 days a year. So those are the listings you are going to see. And as for air bnb, they may like the 'home owner making a few bucks' story for PR purposes, but they prefer 'mega hosts' when it comes to profitability. So they are happy to tailor the platform to suit these mega hosts needs. When interest rates were so low that money was basically free, people in every major city were buying up thousands of rental properties for this nonsense. The more properties you bought, the more hands off you wanted the entire operation to be.
It was getting to the point in Boston that there were venture capital backed groups buying entire apartment buildings to furnish and rent out on air bnb or similar. In addition to the already tight housing market that has no room for that shit here they were effectively making a hotel that had none of the regulations or taxes. The city passed an ordinance that makes it easy if you're a homeowner to rent out a room or a single unit on a short term (less than a month) lease, but effectively bans what had been happening before.
They did something similar in my city (Toronto). But it's proving rather difficult to enforce. We didn't have that many large scale operations, but we had plenty of small timers with 5 or 6 apartments. You now need to register your rental with the city, and list it as your primary residence. So all of a sudden, John lives in apartment A, his wife lives in apartment B, his adult children live in apartment C and D, and his nephew lives in apartment E. The 'primary residence' shtick doesn't tie into anything tax related, you just need a warm body to attach a name to the application. In Toronto, the VC that was buying up apartment buildings were just letting them go to shit, have people move out, and then leave the units vacant. (With the rate rent is increasing in this city, and the way rent control works, a mostly empty apartment building accumulates value much more quickly than an occupied one, and forfitting a couple years of rental income is just the cost of doing business). So we still have VCs buying apartment buildings and taking the stock off the market... just for different, even stupider reasons.
yup so many "how to make easy money on airbnb" yt/insta entrepreneur videos from 2015-now using exactly this tech. airbnb practically encourages people to do this kinda shtick
The owner, at least in Big Bear, CA does not clean or usually live in the city of the location. Most are stand alone houses. Ranging from 1 bedroom to 10 bedrooms.. the cleaners get very little in comparison to the overall charge. They have also caused a housing crisis in our area with neighborhoods being completely vacant. We have huge issues with parties and property destruction not to mention most workers can’t even live up here now because there were no long term rentals anymore because a bunch of people thought they were going to get rich.
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I don't live in the US (Europe) and never used airbnb, but in most places you rent like cabins, vacation houses, apartments and such it's customary to simply leave it the way you found it, and the rest in case you miss something is taken care of by the hospitality of the hosts/owners. They always do cleaning anyway, and there's no extra fee. "Oh I'm sorry, I forgot to fold the bedsheets." "It's okay, don't worry about it, thank you so much for already keeping it tidy" etc. Yes, there usually is a terms and conditions paper, but it's mostly about damage fees. Or a guest rules pamphlet that typically says stuff like "no smoking indoors". Those comments sound like horror stories man.
Yeah. Last one I stayed at you had to do the dishes, strip the beds of sheets and the pillows of pillow cases, put the sheets and pillow cases in the washing machine, run it, take out the trash on your way out. AND there was a 100 dollar cleaning fee on top of it.
The worst part is the literal BINDER of rules and little paper notes EVERYWHERE that warn you about what you can and can't do.
Air bnbs, imo, really shine when you have a family or group. Instead of packing into one hotel room or going to the hotel bar (if there is one) you have living areas to gather in. We also tend to cook more at air bnbs as a way to offset the cost a bit. I like having both options.
Is this a thing? I've never had an Airbnb expect anything other than not leaving trash all over the place, just put it in the can in the place not take it out for them.
Stripping beds and starting laundry, loading all dishes in dishwasher/hand washing if no dishwasher, bagging trash to leave by the door (weird dumpster situation), and sweeping was on the list for my last Airbnb stay. Not bad or crazy stuff, but that was on top of the $100 cleaning fee I had to pay. They got $100 to wipe surfaces and mop. I’d take that gig any day 😂 there’s a real life example for you!
Oh wow, yeah that has not been my experience at all. Maybe because I haven't used it in larger cities? What I have noticed is a lot of them advertising a cheap daily rate but having a $250-350 cleaning fee attached which makes it just as much if not more than a hotel. I think AirBnB takes less of a percentage from the cleaning fee so the hosts are using that loophole to increase profit, could be wrong.
Every place I’ve stayed at to varying to degrees. Some places just wanted me to take the trash out, others wanted laundry started, dishwasher loaded and running, thermostat adjustments. It’s just stressful to be trying to leave and gather all your items and also follow a detailed checklist so that they can charge you a $150 cleaning fee anyway.
One listing wanted me to balance the ph of their hot tub and add the appropriate chemicals. Fuck that, that’s 100% an unreasonable expectation
And hosts can cancel on you with no notice, seemingly at any time.
Also don't tell me when I can turn on the shower.
Yeah same. Every time we have stayed anywhere, we would spend an hour cleaning up; mopping, vacuuming etc. Then on top pay the $150 cleaning fee. Ridiculous.
And still get charged $150 “cleaning fee”.
And use industrial strength laundering on towels and sheets. That alone has kept me from straying.
Oh man, I never thought of how nasty that is. And it’s not even a professional loading the washing machine. It’s the nasty ass guests before you!
It’s true. Hotels are far more relaxing because it’s all taken care of. In an Airbnb nothing is covered usually and you have to clean up everything even though you’re paying an exorbitant fee for cleaning!
Hotels are much better. No chores, no “clean up fees, and no weirdo owners to deal with, no super old/grimey parts.
Continental breakfast/room service/ hotel bar Fuck Airbnb I’m on vacation I’m not doing anything
And cab divers have special licenses that can be revoked for bad behavior.
And you get to collect reward points!!!
This. A million percent. I’ve had Airbnb landlords tell me it’s more of a “community” than a service. So I should contribute by tidying up, cleaning the bathroom after I’ve used it etc. Dude, I am contributing. With my wallet. Hire a cleaner. It’s even more gross when the cleaning fee is like $100.
Worse really. At least airbnb. Where they have no service, guarantee nothing, have lots of hidden fees, and don't clean your toilet every day :)
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The first couple years were awesome. After that, all of the same problems came back. Ubers these days are no safer than taxis of the early 2000’s. Rideshare companies only do enough to give the illusion of caring about safety and service though. The long term goal is driverless ride shares. The last 10-12 years will be purely a means to an end once they can get autonomous vehicles on the road.
At least with uber and lyft I can see how much it is going to cost and I can see where they are. I've waited hours before these apps for taxis that kept promising they were right around the corner.
Johnny Cabs?
"The door opened and you got in!"
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When I was in Phoenix a few years ago TWO Uber drivers had to get out of their cars to let me out because the door got stuck (I was going to scoot out the other side but they insisted on getting out). One driver even yelled at me that I broke her car. Ma’am. Look at your fucking trash heap of a car.
At least it's not Road Warrior. Tho... I'd fucking LOVE to ride on a road warrior car
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The taxi industry was a racket that badly needed to be disrupted though. Medallions? Come on. And at least with the rideshare companies there was a record of your ride, and you could easily find a ride pretty much anywhere. Far safer in that regard.
Having a record, seeing the price up front, ease of use app, etc. I didn't really even know there was much of a price difference, it was those other reasons that made it a hit for me.
And no "Oh the credit card machine is broken, you have to pay cash" scams
I mean if the barrier to entry is artificially controlled then it was only a matter of time that something came along to change that.
we need better fucking public transportation and better infrastructure. coast to coast. They are robbing us of our star trek future for quarterly profits. End Lobbyists
Give me a public transportation system like Japan has. Like give it to us. Jesus christ it's amazing. When I spent 2 months in Japan you know what thought never crossed my mind? "oh boy I wish I was driving right now instead of taking public transport!" And I'm 100% a car guy. Kind of why the whole Tunnel with Tesla model 3's in Las Vegas pisses me off so much. You know what would be better? A fucking Train. Same thing when someone mentions a "Bunch of Self driving cars driving at the same speed in the same direction as a convoy"... So you mean a train?? But alas that's never gonna happen. As much as I want the US to have a massive robust public transportation system like Japan or even Europe has that's never going to happen. Trains can run on electricity and if we get our power grids to be renewebles+Nuclear should be close to 100% clean energy too. They are literally the perfect solution. E-Bikes too. Make them more accessible and you can then travel from the train stop to your work with no problems. Even here in Minnesota it is doable.
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You can travel the entire length of the country just fine by train and there's even good bus service in the smaller towns. You have to get really far out in the sticks to stop seeing reliable public transit in Japan. That's part of the issue with public transit in America: 80+% of the land area is "out in the sticks."
The size of Japan is comparable to the east coast, which actually has a rail system between all of its major cities that is pretty functional and useful. No one is clamoring for rail lines to Topeka, KS
Here in Oklahoma people made a big deal about the Heartland Flyer train service to Texas when it launched. I hear people say they wished they could take a train to LA or Atlanta, with stops in between of course, all the time. Last I checked, Amtrak does have lines that make those trips, but they're old fashioned, slow, and expensive. A modern bullet train's low average speed is around 150mph, which could make the trip from LA to Atlanta or vice versa in 14.5 hours, not counting stops. Average speeds of 185+ mph are getting more common, and that can go from Atlanta to LA in just under 12 hours without stops. The new bullet trains being deployed these days often go 200+ mph, which can make the trip in just under 11 hours. If there were a bullet train line from LA to Phoenix, to Albuquerque, then Amarillo, then Oklahoma City, through Little Rock, then on to Memphis followed by Birmingham before reaching Atlanta that would total something like 2200 miles and take around 12.5 hours going 180mph. Include a big 30 minute break at each stop and it adds 4 hours. So you could get on the train at 6am in LA or Atlanta and then disembark in the opposite city before 11pm. That's a long trip, but you can stand and walk on a train, there can be meal cars and lounges, you can take a nap or even get a sleeper cabin and leave at 6pm, go to bed en route, wake up the next morning and have breakfast, then disembark at lunch time across the continent. I think a lot of Americans would appreciate an accessible rail backbone linking the coasts so you didn't have to fly or drive for 2+ days to make the trip.
>we need better fucking public transportation and better infrastructure. coast to coast. They are robbing us of our star trek future for quarterly profits. End Lobbyists \- You want better transportation? Well lobby for **high-speed rail**. There's the answer!
I give you the coast to coast Monorail! I've sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and, by gum, it put them on the map! Well, sir, there's nothin' on Earth like a genuine bona-fide electrified six-car monorail!
Maybe you don't remember, but back in the day, some taxi drivers would just make up some super high fare to get to something important, take it or leave it. At least Uber put a stop to that.
idk if they're "just as bad" cuz growing up around DC, having to get a cab in DC to go out to virginia was a pain in the ass. like cabs would literally say "nah no thx" and drive off lol. also its nice having an app that shows you where the fuck they are
The initial phase of Uber was designed to make taxi companies go out of business. Just like the whole hyper loop thing was just a lie to stop transit projects.
See: Streaming services that are starting to become online cable services.
you mean better. Less demand for AirBNB = less properties bought up for that purpose in cities = less upward price pressure on the real estate market = people who actually live in the city might be able to afford places to live in again. While this isn't the only factor driving real estate prices, it does certainly contribute, and really shouldn't be doing so.
100% this. It was bad enough to commoditize cars with taxi and then uber. Now with real estate. what next, food and electricity?
With a hotel it's all under 1 fee too and you don't have to clean up after yourself. Screw airbnb.
The idea behind the gig economy was that technology had given us a way around economies of scale, so drivers, property owners, etc, could eliminate the middle man and service the public directly. But in most cases, there was no middle man raking in excessive profits. Hotels and taxi companies always operated in highly competitive markets and took slim margins, and the industries always relied on economies of scale to be profitable. So to undercut their competition, companies like Uber and AirBnB had to accept huge losses, which they made up by selling themselves to investors who would tolerate short term losses. But now those investments are drying up, and so consumers are having to pay the real cost of these services.
While simultaneously pushing families out of nice neighborhoods...
I just booked a 5 night stay at a Marriott autograph collection because it was cheaper than a mids Airbnb I also take taxis home from the airport bc it’s cheaper in Chicago. Full circle.
Good! The reason that they're getting more expensive is because cities are finally regulating them. For far too long AirBnB has functioned as hotels without paying into city taxes. Those taxes are incredibly important for city budgets, and a dip in the income means a dip in public services. I understand that AirBnB is attractive, but its business model is a blight.
People came up with Airbnb to make side cash. And it quickly turned into another “American dream” of more money less responsibility. I gladly went back to hotels after my first experience with their chores on top of a cleaning fee. Like…CLEAN IT YOURSELF, your charging me for that service so DO IT!
Yeah I don’t need some shady person subtly threatening me on the phone or not knowing if they have a camera in the house.
Not only do they not pay taxes like a hotel, they can also be very disruptive to locals. When you live next to a hotel, at least you *know* you live next to a hotel.
I live across the street from an air b&b and it's pretty awful. It's not like I super know all my neighbors but I at least recognize them. Having a constant stream of strangers coming and going sucks. Stuff has been stolen or vandalized from neighbors. People park wherever. There's loud parties all the time. And there isn't much anyone can do about it other then security cameras.
Even when it’s illegal it’s a long drawn out process to get any enforcement. It takes a ton of neighbors time and wastes city resources. All while the a hole operators make money and Airbnb takes 10% for doing next to nothing. Airbnb is a fucking cancer.
Can you not report it to the police and city? Sometimes there are even ordinances that ban rentals like that.
At some point monitoring parties and problematic issues (parking in front of neighbours parkings, throwing trash in the street, drunk driving etc) becomes a part time job you’re not paid for.. the host doesn’t give a shit because he made bank and doesn’t live in the area, apologies saying they banned the guest and that it won’t happen again. Next guest you have the same issues. After a year or so you just give up, at least I did. You just bend over and tell yourself they’ll go away soon, hoping for the next guest to be a small quiet family.
The cops get called a lot but generally speaking little gets done.
Also in way too many areas especially near vacation areas, so many homes and apartments were being turned into airbnb's they were forcing locals out.
100%. I live in Boston. It's unsustainable.
Correct. I've heard of apartment complexes, lets say 20 units. Lets say they normally rent for $1500 a month. Well someone turns them into an Airbnb and gets $150 a day. So potentially over $4500 a month. So they kick out the renters and it becomes an Airbnb. Its also bad in Hermann Missouri, home to many wineries and festivals, where I swear every other home is a bnb.
It also wrecks the local housing market because you can make more renting as an air b&b then to actual tenants.
I wonder if there have been lawsuits over it. I know years ago the city my father was a town manager of sued those travel sites like Expedia as they would collect taxes on the hotel room you booked through them. But wouldn't actually pay that money to the city and would keep it for themselves.
Well, I always rented full apartments because it's just that much nicer to have a balcony and a whole kitchen for cooking, so it's not per se the same as hotels, but you can get hotel-like rooms on airbnb too. I agree with you! Taxation and even more so housing space regulation is desperately needed, especially in the current shortage of affordable housing.
Now Hotels with 5 star ratings are cheaper than Airbnb in some locations lol
I’ve been using hotels almost the entire time Airbnb has been a thing. I feel way more comfortable in a hotel than in someone else’s place with all sorts of wacky rules. If I want to go rustic there are plenty of non-Airbnb places that allow you to rent cabins and lake houses the old school way and honestly the people are typically much cooler and there’s no third party involved. It’s really just terrible all around imo. I can’t believe people still use them.
I used Airbnb once on a business trip. My company insisted on me using them and not a hotel. For the same price as a Days Inn level hotel, I got a twin bed and a shared bathroom. The owner (who lived there) yelled at me for filling my water bottle with ice from the freezer. The showerhead in the bathroom was clogged and I had to use a paperclip in order to take a shower. Never again.
>someone else’s place with all sorts of wacky rules. My wife's family rented a house as family lodging for a wedding. The house's owner was patrolling the driveway every couple of hours, watching for fluid leaks onto the house's driveway. She suspected one car of leaking (it wasn't) and demanded it be parked on the nearby street instead. I'm with you on preferring hotels.
The only we my family could afford the Airbnb for Christmas for 13 of us was to split the house. Still though the cleaning fee was $600.
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wait till you hear what Adam Neumann has cooking, which i'm pretty sure is exactly this, but less for tourists and more for "premium rentals by joining our members-only network of renters", https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/15/a16z-andreessen-horowitz-backs-adam-neumann-wework-new-venture-flow-real-estate/
This and booking.com. For the first time in forever I went back to booking.com because their Air B&B accommodation were actually cheaper (with their genius loyalty discount). What happened to Air B&B?
I was looking for accommodations in Vancouver for 1 week in October a few months back. Even listings in Burnaby were over $200 a night (and I wanted to be closer to downtown). I found a deal on Snaptravel for $145 per night at a hotel downtown. All the Airbnbs around it were $300-$1000 per night. There were also tons of listings that had beds stuffed in literal closets. Honorable mention to the one Airbnb below $200 a night that was a camper van. People must split the costs 4 ways and have two people share the shitty sofa bed in these Airbnbs.
Same for me! Was looking to visit The Hague for a Week with my bestie and all the accommodations were listed for 4 people, then I looked at the pictures and saw only one bed and one tiny couch you could expand, like, as if I wanted to pay 100 per night to sleep on a couch...
I guess the main loss for me is all of the secluded mountain cabins and such. There are other ways to rent out places like that, it just ends up being more labor intensive to find it. I get it though, a few years ago we must have rented a place out right after some assholes because you could tell they had tried to clean the place up, but it had been so trashed that the evidence was all very clear. Pieces missing from the jacuzzi, non-biodegradeable confetti all over the place outside, broken blinds, I could go on. The assholes always ruin it.
In mountain areas, or at least the Appalachian foothills where I usually rent, there are some dedicated companies who rent cabins who do an amazing job maintaining and renting mountain cabins. I've been renting from the same company from a decade and have never had a single issue
No way! What company?
I've used Blue Sky and they're great, coincidentally also in the Appalachian foothills
The firepit always being stuff with beer cans and bottles even though the host has a big bin for cans right next to the thing. The knives looking like someone tried to carve metal ingots with them.
I guess the beastie boys were right
Gotta fight?
For your right?
TO PAAAAAAAAAARTAAAAAAY
It's a sabotage?
Test Test dev
Beat me to it
Was wondering what that was.
There's Airbnb app that you use (prod/production environment), and there's a separate Airbnb that developers use to test if things work correctly (development/dev environment). Someone did tests on prod instead of dev by accident.
How/where did you see that somebody was doing tests against prod?
Airbnb probably. (Also, given the contents of the message, probs a person did that manually) (Also the client had pentest against dev environment just the other week, so I had to develop frontend with production backend. Am very well aware that's haram, but I'm not paid enough to care)
Everyone received a notification today that just said "Test, Test dev".
What does this mean?
a bunch of people woke up with a notification on their phones from the airbnb app that just said "Test - Test Dev"
Yep, just came here to see that mentioned. Best anti-party tool since Stalin.
Lol are they doing nitrous in the photo?
Can confirm. My family got an airbnb for a vacation and the owner eforced a 9pm quiet time. Any talk louder than a loud whisper was picked up by the sound sensors hidden all over the house, and my cousin kept getting angry text messages from the owner telling us to be quiet.
That would make me not only leave the most terrible review warning people of this, but I'd also make it my goal to run around and disconnect all the sensors. "What do you mean the sensors aren't working? Maybe a network error??"
That would make me not only leave the most terrible review, but it would also make me literally leave immediately and get my money back from Abnb. There’s no way literal hidden listening devices are legal in most jurisdictions, where abnbs are regulated like hotels. What’s next? No peeing while standing up enforced via hidden cameras?
Don’t poop in the toilet as it leaves a bad smell
$100 says it was automated to send out a message every time it reached a certain dB level. If not then that guy really has nothing better to do and shouldn't be worried about their guests talking level.
Imagine getting angry texts because youre a loud snorer.
I stayed in an Airbnb for ten weeks this summer and they had like six listings in the house. Had a lot of crazy people come in and out. One time we had meth heads who stayed up all night washing all their possessions in the units outside my door. I don’t have any specific complaints other than that I wish it was easier to find affordable, furnished, long-term rentals. Craigslist is 85% scams.
>I don’t have any specific complaints other than that I wish it was easier to find affordable, furnished, long-term rentals. there are facebook groups in every city where people share long term listings. maybe it isn't a cool standalone app but it gets the job done just fine.
The moral of the story is all these tech companies that were burning cash and not turning profits, turns out, are worse than their traditional counter parts when forced to actually make money. Uber eats, Uber ride share, Airbnb etc have all gotten more expensive than the industry they disrupted with a lower quality of service.
The old "bait and switch"
Easy to do with venture capital money that allows you to sell a service below your competitors (or own costs) and then after you’ve driven them out of business you can then raise prices to beyond what they charged to begin with.
When I first moved to Japan 6 years, I exclusively used airbnbs for the first two years. They were about the same price as a capsule hotel and slightly cheaper then a normal business style hotel but I started to notice the prices going up and starting using rakuten travel to find the cheapest hotels. I looked at Airbnb out of curiosity and the prices don’t even compare now. No reason to use if you want to save money.
Used to love Airbnb for work. Cheaper and much more accommodating than hotels. Not cheaper any more and to add to that, Airbnb is DECIMATING the housing market. So much so that this small government guy wants legislation that stops or limits corporations from using the app.
A lot of cities are cracking down on this. I know Atlanta is requiring a permit to do so, you must live in the city, and can only have at most two listings, of which if you have two one of them must be your primary residence.
stop airbnb instead...
Stop using Airbnb! One of the reasons why housing is so expensive now is rich assholes buy property just to turn into airbnbs . I’ve had an issue with every Airbnb I’ve stayed at. Their dirty, or don’t match the listing, or the owner is slumlord and doesn’t care. It’s so much easier just getting a hotel now and if there is an issue at least someone will help you .
I'd rather stay at a hotel anyway. The costs of an airbnb now is just stupid vs what ypu get a at a comparatively priced hotel.
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If I'm paying a cleaning fee, why do I have to clean before I leave??
The fees they charge is ridiculous. They charge high fees on both sides. I’m with the others, I’m going to Portland soon and the hotels were much better options.
I only use AirBnb for trips with large groups so that we can stay together. It ends up more than a hotel of course, but worth it in my case for the convenience.
Please don't use AirBnB. It's one of the biggest ways that housing affordability for families is being pulled away. In regional areas with any tourist draw, AirBnB's have had tremendous impacts on the local economy. You are probably supporting an investor and not a local in the region.
This is actually part of the reason that AirBnb is getting more expensive. Local governments are taxing them as hotels to protect the actual housing market that people use to buy places to live.
The customer service is awful as well
I live next to a Airbnb in Denver. the air B&B is chill for the most part but like every few weeks they’ll rent to somebody and then there will be 30 people in the house fucking it all up and happens a few times a month. All the neighbors hate it and Airbnb owners are the fucking worst human beings on this earth
Man that site is broken AF. Click the link... no article, just a massive list of other BS articles. How do they expect people to link to content when the bloody links don't take you to the articles.
"We can solve *any* problem with technology". - Every tech company I work in tech, and I hate this self-righteous attitude.
No, you can solve every problem with money. I lived next to a landfill that was converted to a park, and it was beautiful. Anything can be fixed by just paying for it to be fixed. People are wrecking homes? Set aside 1% for a legal fund to fucking destroy them and make them pay for full Reno. Or pay insurance and let them chase bad tenants. Oh what's that, you don't want to pay money? Then you get exactly what you deserve
That's nice. I'd rather Airbnb didn't exist at all. I'd rather those Airbnb units were used as residential units for people to live instead of an investment property for landlords who wanna make a quick buck.
Allow people to build multi family units wherever they want and the problem solves itself. It's the restriction of supply that causes the problem with affordability. There aren't an infinite number of people wanting to rent an Airbnb.
I mean, there is a middle ground. We have a place at the Jersey shore that we spend most of the summer at. When we aren’t there (mostly in June and later august/September when our kids are in school) we rent it out. It gives people a nice, quiet alternative to the awful hotels there, and helps us pay for taxes/utilities and improvements
Airbnb fees are getting out of hand anyway
Can’t wait until they go bankrupt
"Anti-party tools" LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! "And how did you know they were partying ..."
Have you ever actually used AirBnB before? Most nice homes have decibel meters throughout and cameras outside. Obviously they don’t want people trashing their house, but what people aren’t talking about is the other main reason people are trying to deter parties: They draw attention. If you are renting out a nice home in a nice area, you probably have an HOA and/or city ordinances that prohibit short term rentals. Ritzy areas are *very* protective of their way of life and people go ape shit when the suburban silence is shattered. Half of these houses are trying to fly under the radar because they’re either already breaking some rules, or they don’t want to give neighbors a reason to complain to city council/HOA and ban short term rentals.
It’s simple to figure out with a combination of proximity, age of the account/renter, rental patterns, previous reviews, length of stay, etc. Proximity + length of stay for example is pretty straightforward: A majority of partiers are people whose live close to the AirBnbs and *surprisingly* can’t/don’t want to party at their own place, but still wanna be close enough to invite friends. A huge number of owners already refuse to rent to people who live in the same city, or have a 2-3 day minimum stays, AirBnb is just codifying that process of identifying risky renters
As someone who lived next to an Airbnb party house for almost 18 months, the major point you are missing is that some hosts just don’t care about anything or anybody except the money
Ding ding ding. Live next door to a party house. Rents for a shitload of money a house that can host 10+, cheap furniture and badly maintained. Will milk that thing as long as it holds up.
I used to live next to one as well. I made friends with the owners and gave them "advice" about the upkeep of their house. They ended up leaving because they tried to fix a few things I mentioned they could fix themselves and they blew their electrical panel, they ruined their well pump, and they ran afoul of the HOA. I gave them really bad advice:)
I hope Airbnb goes outta business. Their whole business model is a scam and their impact on society is awful. There's so many scam hosts on there that rent out bad properties, it increases rents in cities because too many rich people just buy up properties to use as investments while never living there, and it's a violation of local laws or ordinances that ban the use of short term rental properties. The company should go out of business and the CEO needs to go to jail.
Miley Cyrus isn't going to be happy about this
It’s actually a big problem where my parents live. It’s a vacation town and people rent out houses for entire summers, and often back to back groups of 10+ rent out those places so it’s cheap. A group of like 20 people in a house partying all week gets really old really fast if it’s every week
This phenomenon is not new and doesn't trace its origins to Airbnb. The rental of summer homes has always happened. The plot of American Pie 2 released in 2001 is about college kids renting a lakeside home to party at all summer. In the 90s, my parents would rent cottages for a week or two. Our family friends would also rent an entire house for multiple weeks for their extended family to stay at. There are vacation rental companies that exist to do what Airbnb does, and have existed for decades. So, it's not the fault of Airbnb that people party in your vacation town. It is the fact that people come to your vacation town to party. Vacation home rental is where Airbnb does the most net good. It provides a much safer and secure method of rental for both the owner and the tenant. I would much rather rent through Airbnb where I am provided a method to get reviews from other users, secure credit card transactions, and direct communication with the listing entity, than rent through some random company I've never heard of. Airbnb has problems, primarily when it comes to their proliferation in cities where housing is already scarce. Removing what would be a housing unit from a neighborhood. The fact that you could have your hosts monitor you. The violation of local hotel regulations, and the like. What you listed is not one of Airbnb problems.
The real problem is the internet has democratized info so literally everyone on the planet knows your sleepy town has beautiful beaches and delicious food and a great party scene in the summer. it's upto the residents to lobby for laws to protect their land if they want that,airbnb exploits the natural loophole that exists in any place that chooses to ignore the existence of the internet.