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comment by thenewgreen
thenewgreen  ·  4437 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

Unless the person staying there is unruly or breaking a real law, I don't think this should be enforced. That said, if Airbnb knows that they are providing a service that is illegal in many places they need to make that very clear.





sounds_sound  ·  4437 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Agreed, but even if they haven't been unruly I still think the 'transient hotel' thing is reasonable to not want in your building. I know my neighbors wouldn't exactly feel comfortable if they knew my apartment was being rented out by strangers every month. I think the owner's interest in preventing anything before it happens makes a lot of sense. I live in a 44 unit apartment now. Biggest in my life. And I'll tell you, we've had the lobby x-mas tree stolen. We've had randoms coming in off the street. There is a familiarity with a building and its denizens that one gets when they live in an apartment complex. And with that comes an immeasurable amount of security which is often imperceptible, but valuable nonetheless. This is something that I would have never thought about without my new apartment living experience, but just think back tng to when you lived on Madison. Would you want your neighbors to be renting to different people each weekend? I don't know. Most likely you would meet some cool people and everyone would be copacetic. But for an owner? Not a great idea.

Seems to me that the lessor should put words down in the lease that allows for this type of thing to happen. Perhaps limit the amount of rentable days per year, or even just have it in writing that you've signed off on allowing people to do so. Really, it could be beneficial to them, because the apartment could take a cut of the profit. Which gets me to thinkin'. AirBnB should be soliciting apartment buildings, and setting up check-in counters in condo lobbies to become the standard in transient living accommodation.

user-inactivated  ·  4437 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Agreed, but even if they haven't been unruly I still think the 'transient hotel' thing is reasonable to not want in your building. I know my neighbors wouldn't exactly feel comfortable if they knew my apartment was being rented out by strangers every month.

Especially in a situation where an apartment building might have layered security levels -- everyone can get in the lobby, anyone who lives in building B can get in building B, but only those who live on the third floor can get to the third floor -- and part of subletting your rooms to someone would involve giving them access to certain private areas. That's really the only argument I can see that would make this rationally illegal. I may be missing something.