
DIY B&B - scarmig
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/julyaugust_2012/features/diy_bb038421.php
======
cletus
I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the negative reaction to this here. The HN
demographic is presumably tilted towards young men.

What those criticisms seem to be neglecting is that those--particularly for
apartment buildings--these temporary visitors impact beyond just you.

In Australia, for example, one useful metric used by people when assessing
apartment buildings to buy in is to look at the ratio of owner-occupiers vs
renters. Generally the more owner-occupiers, the better the building.

Renters don't tend to look after properties, tend to be less mindful of
behaviour that impacts the neighbours (parties, etc), etc.

This goes even moreso for really short-term tenants. There have been examples
of this already (like the woman who had her house trashed in SF after renting
it out on AirBnB). Such extreme examples aside, you are raising the risk of
damage or theft to the property of others by bringing a stream of strangers
into your home.

Yes most of the time it works out just fine but sometimes it doesn't and your
neighbours didn't sign up for you opening a hotel.

Would people feel the same way if someone was operating a brothel in their
house or apartment? After all, it's their property and they can do with it as
they please right? What about operating a bar or a club?

This is not as one-sided as some suggest.

~~~
nostromo
You're forgetting that this problem is already solved by contract law.

Tenants sign agreements not to rent out their units all the time. Home owner's
associations often have rules against short-term rentals as well.

If you don't like the idea of short-term rentals in your neighborhood or
building, choose one protected by one of these types of contracts. In fact,
they're so common, you probably already have such protections, even if you
don't know it.

The government making something illegal really should be the last resort for
societal problems. I'm not convinced short-term rentals are really so harmful
as to meet that threshold.

~~~
rprasad
Once you have children (or nieces/nephews), there is a 100% chance that you
will feel differently about short-term rentals.

Long-term rentals indicate tenants that are stable enough to at least afford
the lease. They are subject to at least some vetting (including background
checks) prior to moving in. Short term tenants can be anyone. No background
checks are conducted.

~~~
stephencanon
There's a 100% chance that I won't.

Strangers, even unvetted ones, almost never pose a danger to children. The
vast majority of harm done to children is done by friends and family. Having
more strangers around makes your kids safer, if anything.

~~~
tptacek
This is why, when I need sitting for my middle-school aged kids, I drop them
off in the middle of Union Station instead of bringing them to their
grandparents.

~~~
gcb
At least they won't get fat! Those grandparents...

------
DanielBMarkham
Just about every year for as long as I can remember, my family has taken a
summer vacation at a beach about 300 miles away. We always stay in a hotel.

Over time, the beach has gotten tacky. Big billboards. Lots of nightlife.
Amusement park rides. All kinds of things that reek of Las Vegas, but not so
much a relaxing family vacation.

So this year we decided to try something different. I got onto VRBO online and
picked out a beach house 1000 miles away in Florida. The owner included
pictures, and there were lots of references and reviews for me to assess risk
beforehand. I sent them a check -- which they could have cashed and absconded
with -- and we drove down on the day scheduled.

It was the best beach vacation we've ever had. In addition, it was half or a
third as much as our previous vacations.

Vested interests can fight as much as they want, but this is a done deal:
people own their stuff and they're damn well liable to do what they want to
with it. If I can sell you a 8-passenger airplane without warranty, you can
certainly come stay at my house for an night or two. Laws which were used to
increase the quality of hotel stays back in 1890 have extremely little
applicability today.

I don't know if we're going to use the same house again this year -- the owner
was magnificent, and I'm not about to share where it was! -- but I know that
we'll be sticking to this model for a good while.

~~~
nostromo
> Vested interests can fight as much as they want, but this is a done deal

I think this is absolutely the case. Right now we're seeing what happened in
the early days of Napster. The RIAA and governments were shocked _shocked_ at
the widespread disregard for the law. Now a decade or so later it's common and
widely accepted that breaking copyright is just something that happens.

Airbnb & Homeaway/VRBO & Craigslist are currently the exchanges for a p2p
transaction, like Napster or Kazaa were for music. I suspect they will be
targeted by existing interests and governments and they might even be taken
down in some jurisdictions. But if they do, more will pop up in their place,
as always seems to be the case in distributed p2p markets.

~~~
majormajor
I expect the endgame to be similar. In some number of years, there will be
"legitimate" ways of doing this, that let the governments take taxes easily
and provide some sort of baseline regulation/dispute-settling/insurance, like
how the Napsters and Kazaas paved the way and eventually led to services that
work more inside the system instead of usurping the system. The under-the-
table versions will never go away entirely, but if you can give me a basically
hassle-free way of doing the same thing in a sanctioned manner (were I looking
to rent out some space of my own, I'd greatly prefer a service that took care
of the insurance, liability, and legality issues for me), I'm going to choose
that. The question I'd love to know the answer to is just how much AirBNB
plans on working with governments and insurers.

------
tokenadult
From the article:

"For more than a year now, New York City has been enforcing a new state law
that makes it illegal for homeowners like Hogan to rent out their house or
apartment for less than a month. All across the city, police raids have shut
down hundreds of similar informal bed-and-breakfast establishments, with
nearly 1,900 different violations issued in under twelve months. Often, the
fees associated with the citations stretch into tens of thousands of dollars.
Hogan was threatened with a $25,000 fine—all for marketing the empty rooms in
his house.

. . . .

"The crackdown in New York is similar to ones happening in several major
European cities. Paris, for instance, passed a law in 2005 banning the rental
of any residential property for less than a year, and began enforcing that law
in 2010. London is now engaging in a wave of enforcement in the run-up to the
2012 Summer Olympics."

This is the first journalistic report I have seen of such widespread,
persistent enforcement actions. Is this the general experience of HN
participants (and, especially, Airbnb participants) in your part of the world?
What is your rating of the risk of being cited for a local law violation if
you list your place as a short-term rental online?

~~~
blaines
I had to take my couch offline because my HOA threatened to fine me. No more
visitors, no more foreign friends. :(

It seems the first wave of enforcement has come from HOAs, I've heard of
various people having to remove their listing for that reason. [1]

Now it appears, according to the article above, municipal authorities are
pushing back. Could this be a result of lobbying from hotels? Vacation rentals
is not a new concept, and couchsurfing has been around for years as well. It
seems that just because couchsurfing/vacation rentals are getting a wider
audience that it's now suddenly a problem.

I personally don't want my HOA or government telling me who I can or can not
have over to stay. Their place is not in my home.

1: [http://betabeat.com/2011/05/airbnb-takes-manhattan-
with-2k-b...](http://betabeat.com/2011/05/airbnb-takes-manhattan-
with-2k-bookings-a-night-but-many-listings-may-be-illegal/)

~~~
sliverstorm
_... telling me who I can or can not have over to stay._

They aren't telling you who you can or can not have over, they are prohibiting
you from having temporary guests that pay.

Why? Well, an establishment that houses temporary guests traditionally has to
answer to health & safety codes and regulations. Under-the-radar AirBnB
rentals circumvent that system.

You'd probably get similar kickback if you tried running an informal
restaurant out of your home. "Who is the government to tell me who I can and
can not serve food!" Well, restaurant health codes, that's who.

~~~
blaines
I received an email with my airbnb listing and couchsurfing listing attached
saying I can't keep either online otherwise I'll get a fine.

It wasn't my main source of income, and I'm not running a business. In fact,
I'd rather not have someone on my couch every day, I like my space. I'm saying
it should be my choice to have a kid from Massachusetts, a student from Spain,
or a grandmother from South Carolina, or my family stay.

edit: <http://cookitfor.us/>

~~~
sharkweek
would the loophole here be to just post availability and list an email address
then keep all discussions of payment offline?

------
dmk23
This is a classic example of anti-competitive market fixing, masquerading as a
"regulation to protect consumers" or somesuch.

There is no legitimate justification to infringe on a contract between a
willing buyer and a willing seller, but to actually fight these crackdowns you
have to spend lots of $$$ on local political campaigns in every municipality.
Easier said than done. Unless that massive lobbying investment (or at least a
publicity campaign, like SOPA boycotts) happen the entrenched interests win by
default and lots of peer-to-peer transactions will move to gray/black market.

Prohibition always creates speakeasies and the organized crime to protect
them.

EDIT: To address "devil advocates", yes, most regulation mandated and enforced
by government is a terrible imposition. Self-regulation that preserves
consumer choice is a much better idea. You want to pay extra $$$ for a better
level of service / protection /etc? Make it an optional line item with
explicit cost.

~~~
untog
_There is no legitimate justification to infringe on a contract between a
willing buyer and a willing seller_

Devils advocate: are food standards also a terrible imposition? The government
insists on coming around to all the restaurants in the city and _inspecting_
them to make sure that no-one will be poisoned or killed by the food they eat.
How _dare_ they stand in between a willing buyer and seller. Right? Right?

Food standards, restaurant inspections, building codes, health and safety
codes... the list goes on. Are they all illegitimate attempts to stand between
a willing buyer and seller?

~~~
dreamdu5t
It has little to do with the reasons for regulating food, and everything to do
with the means. In order to keep me from buying soda, you have to forcibly
come between the _peaceful and free association_ of me and another person.

You're not going to convince me that I would still buy raw milk, or that
pasteurized milk would be unavailable, in the absence of FDA regulation.

~~~
untog
How would you know if you were buying raw or pasteurized milk if there were no
food labelling regulations obligating people to label it accordingly?

~~~
dreamdu5t
Just like I do now. I look for milk labeled "pasteurized" and make sure it's
from a trusted vendor/brand or has a trusted certification.

There's a competitive advantage to labeling food, and there's no stopping
companies from labeling food in the absence of food labeling regulations. The
most trusted organic certification is from a for-profit certification company,
Quality Assurance International. McDonald's published nutrition information
before it was required by any law. Intentionally incorrect labeling is already
covered by fraud and tort law.

------
btipling
These laws seems to curb an efficient market process, which I don't like if
true.

Also I think the government loses out on special taxes from Hotel business,
but maybe those taxes could also be collected from these B&B type operations?
Hotels have no business using the law to fight a competitive threat, in my
opinion anyway. Does not seem to make sense to me.

~~~
olefoo
This looks like a classic example of regulatory capture, where the regulator
becomes an effective barrier to new entrants to the market.

Factor in the concentrated nature of the hotel industry (fewer of them, more
at stake) and you can see why they are motivated and able to put pressure on
the bureaucracy.

The whole thing does strike me as morally irresponsible in that a city with a
persistent and undealt with homeless problem should not be limiting the
availability of housing units until the blatant market failure has been dealt
with.

~~~
jtbigwoo
_The whole thing does strike me as morally irresponsible in that a city with a
persistent and undealt with homeless problem should not be limiting the
availability of housing units until the blatant market failure has been dealt
with._

Red herring. These people are not inviting the homeless into their homes. They
are operating a hotel/B&B without following any registration, safety, health,
or tax rules.

~~~
olefoo
It is a related question, there are plenty of people with marginal housing
arrangements who live in weekly rate motels for more than half of each year;
paying more for housing that would cost them less if they had the economic
stability to rent those same rooms by the month. So at the margin, the
availability and constraints on the supply of housing units do directly affect
some people who are homeless.

------
jtbigwoo
Despite the touching stories about financial ruin, the government has a
legitimate interest in making sure B&B's are minimally safe and operate
without disturbing neighbors. All of these "It's my property!" arguments are
supremely disingenuous.

~~~
hell0_th3r3
and in any case you are not even legally a owner

you are a TENANT.

before downvoting me, go and look at your deed. find the term "owner" anywhere
on it.

yes folks, the county has permitted you to enter into an agreement to make
improvements on the land and resell that right to others. the county "owns"
the land. most first-time home buyers are surprised to find out that they
actually are only considered tenants

~~~
sureshv
You still own the improvements (Home or other structures), if any on the land
- hence homeowner...

~~~
hell0_th3r3
yes, you own the improvements, but the point of stipulating you as a TENANT is
to permit the county to make and enforce rules, since your improvement is
ultimately on their land. not much to argue here, counties have been making
and enforcing rules for centuries, there is no loophole to exploit

this is why, for example, foreclosure evictions often involve the sheriff's
office - the county is protecting their own property rights. also, mineral
rights, right to dispose of hazardous waste, etc etc

~~~
sureshv
'Tenant' is not mentioned anywhere in my deed but perhaps California limits
what the government can claim about my property. Were I to own a home on land
restricted by a lease then perhaps you would have a legitimate point. I pay
property tax and parcel tax on property assigned to me by the deed; the deed
assigns ownership to me not the state.

------
sadga
The startup opportunity here is to streamline the process of registering a
legal and proper B&B.

AirBnB should be doing this already to clear the cloud around their business,
but doing so would be an admission that their current practices are abetting
illegal activity.

~~~
tgrass
Agreed. And AirBnB would be wise to get involved politically on that front.
There are the armchair ideals of unregulated markets, and then there is the
reality of politically connected interests pushing legislation.

------
marcojgm
I have rented out my place (which I own) numerous times. I pay my income taxes
through the 1099 Airbnb issues. Since I've started renting, I've made numerous
friends I keep in touch with, have had invitations to visit Turkey,
Singapore... it has helped me pay my bills... and I've never had a
disturbance, nor have my neighbors ever had a problem. I realize not all cases
are like this, but Airbnb has truly made my life easier, made me a proud host
and broadened my horizons. As a guest I have gotten under the skin of
neighborhoods in a matter of days (one time I ate at 3 fancy restaurants in a
weekend all of which had month long reservation lists because my host is
embedded in the local community)

The beauty of Airbnb and other community marketplaces is that I'm incentivized
to make sure things go well. If my neighbors complain, it will become hard to
host. If my guests complain, it will become hard to host. If I complain at a
hotel? No one cares.

I would happily pay a flat yearly tax to register as a short term rental host.
I won't however spend 10s of hours working through ridiculous paperwork,
spending thousands of $s to get onside of this antiquated system. We should be
thankful of companies like Airbnb, like SideCar, Uber, TaskRabbit, Exec,
pushing our outdated world forward.

Just my $.02

------
joebottherobot
I've been a host since I joined Airbnb as an engineer two years ago. During my
interview I had an "AHA!" moment when I saw a letter pinned on the wall. It
was from someone affected by the financial crisis who had been able to avoid
foreclosure by renting their place on Airbnb. The letter expressed unending
gratitude for how Airbnb had helped her through the most difficult time of her
life. It completely changed how I thought about the company and ultimately led
me to join.

Since then I've realized that the positive impact goes far deeper. For
example, as a host I tell every guest about my favorite local establishments.
Not only am I exposing my guests to true San Francisco flavor, I'm also
helping local businesses that don't traditionally see tourism dollars.

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't hear about how we've helped
someone, both travelers and hosts.

~~~
jquery
Well, here's a counterpoint. A bunch of people in my building use AirBnB to
rent out units. These transient tenants are often noisy, dirty, and in one
recent case, outright frightening, threatening long-term tenants (security had
to kick him out of the building). Hotels are zoned differently than
residential units for good reasons, it's not just big business squeezing out
the small fries.

That's not to say I don't have full respect for you as a company. Just want
you to be aware there is a counterpoint, and that people using your service
should be following local regulations and leases. When they don't, it creates
headaches for neighbors and resentment towards your company.

------
josephs
As an Airbnb host I would add that there's more to renting out your home than
just the money. You can really see how you're helping people travel or visit
their family or company headquarters (we've had all of these and more). We can
give them a great home, show them all the great stores, restaurants, cafes,
and see the huge appreciation for this kind of experience. It's life in
another city as people in that city live it. Also remember that here in San
Francisco almost all of the hotels are downtown or around Union Square so we
can bring people to all the other neighborhoods of the city. I've also been an
Airbnb guest and it's amazing as well. It's wonderful to support local people
and get great advice about where to go. The site has fundamentally changed the
way I think about travel.

People have been renting out their homes to visitor for a long time but what
Airbnb has done by creating a central marketplace is incredible. It feels as
important as Amazon reinventing online purchases. Like many of the great
internet companies Airbnb is ruffling a lot of feathers from intrenched
businesses and changing the way people think about their private space. What
other company has been so successful at fostering connections between people
who have never met in the real world?

------
jemfinch
The title of this submission is unnecessarily sensational and editorializing.
Using your home as an ad hoc bed and breakfast is not the same as renting it
out.

~~~
scarmig
I'll change the title to be a bit better.

------
robomartin
This is really troubling and sickening. It's your property and you should be
able to do as you please with it. What is the value of ownership if what you
own is under government and HOA control? Disgusting.

The fact that we allow government to get involved in our personal lives at
this level should scare everyone. They are telling some of these people that
they can't earn money to make-up for the fact that they fell upon hard times
by using the one asset that they work so hard to acquire. You can't even rent
your couch? This isn't right.

As for the hotel industry. Well, offer a better product at good prices with
exceptional service and you'll keep your customers. In other words: Compete.

~~~
rprasad
Try to run a pig farm on your home and see how far you get with that. The law
of "nuisance" has existed for hundreds of years. Your right to use your
property extends only as far as the limits of your property. If any of the
effects spill over to your neighbors, they have the right to limit what you
can do with your property (to the extent of the "spill over"). This has been
basic American/British property law for centuries.

~~~
robomartin
No disagreement with that at all. How does that relate to renting my couch or
a room?

------
cciesquare
For my friend's wedding, we stayed at such a place. I had a long conversation
with the owner, who lived in a side room. It looked like an extension he built
on the house.

He told me he was running into issues with the city. Not from hotels or what
not, but complaints from neighbors. They did not like the fact that strangers
were constantly going in and out. BUT he said that he had heard hotels and
motels were not happy about the popularity, especially from other short-term
vacation home owners.

It's going to be a two front battle, one side from big business, and the other
from neighbors. In the end my guess is that the city will license it, and
heavily tax it, in other words the cities win.

~~~
gcb
The point about neighbors is moot.

i hate all of mine. But the hotels have nothing against them. so i will have
to live with them. that's life.

If you could choose neighbors... the world would be very empty because
everyone would be living alone.

------
fra
While I would be the last one to shed a tear for the hotel industry that's
seeing it's too-old business model disrupted by airBnB and the likes, I feel
like more regulation of the temporary hosting industry is needed.

What's to stop someone from acquiring a bunch of property in, say, Paris and
put it all up on airBnB?

"What's the problem with that?" you ask? Well, this makes housing more
expensive (you now have to compete with that industry), further gentrifies
residential neighborhoods, and pushes the middle class further away from the
desirable spots.

I haven't thought all of this through, but perhaps a rule requiring lodgers to
live at least 1mo/year full time in the place for rent would be useful?

------
geebee
I remember an article about this problem in the nytimes a while back... here's
the link:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/travel/escapes/07backlash....](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/travel/escapes/07backlash.html?pagewanted=all)

There's a wide range of opinions on this topic, and a lot of it probably comes
down to personality. I'm sympathetic to people who don't really want their
neighborhood to become a revolving door of short term residents, even if those
residents are respectful and quiet. Some people would happily give up the
right to rent out their own property short term in exchange for a neighborhood
with less turnover, where you get to meet, know, and become long term friends
with the people around you.

Other people not only disagree, but are appalled, even angered, that anyone
would presume to make this decision for someone else - if their tenants are
quiet and respectful, what right does someone else have to regulate what they
do with their own property?

This is the sort of issue that reminds me of an interesting branch of
libertarianism that actually supports highly restrictive laws provided that
these laws are kept very local and decentralized. For instance, religious
communities would have the right to demand everyone wear certain clothes, as
long as people can easily leave and they promise not to try to enforce their
dress code on the next township over.

I see some value in that point of view here. I do think neighborhoods, on a
very local level, should be allowed to enforce strict laws on vrbos and short
term rentals. I wouldn't want to see these laws state-wide (or even city
wide), but at the neighborhood level, I don't think I have any objection (and
I would prefer to live in a neighborhood with these restrictions).

------
anamax
In some vacation places, such as Monterey, it's illegal to rent a
house/apartment for less than a month without a hotel license.

These laws predate AirBnB by decades.

~~~
sureshv
Doesn't seem too difficult to get a 'free' license and pay the occupancy tax.
I've stayed in various beach rentals along the California coast for 2 weeks at
a time and have been charged occupancy tax.

<http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/taxcollector/TOT.html>

~~~
anamax
At that link, you'll see "Monterey County Planning and Building Inspection
Department requires Homeowners wishing to pursue short term residential
rentals (7-30 days) to obtain an Administrative Permit."

In other words, you can't just pay the tax.

On <http://www.mcar.com/montereycounty.html>, we find:

County of Monterey Non-Coastal: Administrative permit required for rentals
less than 30 days in R-1 zoning district Minimum rental period 7 days Zoning
Ordinance 21.64.280

Coastal: Contact: Planning and Building Inspection Department (831) 883-7500

I'd guess that the county is easier to deal with on this than the various
cities (where the hotels and the bulk of the housing are).

------
tgrass
Short term _Tourist Homes_ have a historical precedence in this country.

[http://www.arkansaspreservation.com/historic-
properties/_sea...](http://www.arkansaspreservation.com/historic-
properties/_search_nomination_popup.aspx?id=2607)

------
gojomo
The original submitted headline was more representative of the article's
content.

I used to understand headline corrections on HN, especially when they made
changes away from blatantly abusive headlines. Now it seems they're done
indiscriminately.

------
will_work4tears
Maybe AirBnB's solution to this is some kind of timeshare setup for cities
with the time-limit laws.

You purchase the joint right to use the house x/365 days a year, but your
"lease" is a month/year long.

Might not get around the safety type laws though.

------
DenisM
I foresee a social-media thingamajig that lets you stay with friends [of
friends]*, and the stayovers being arranged similar to how linkedin
introductions work.

------
urza
_...the hotel industry took its cause to city officials, who, in turn, lobbied
Democrats in the state legislature. In 2010 New York passed a law.._

Wow this is just plain wrong. The laws were meant to be made for citizens not
for any one industry. As was the case with SOPA, PIPA and other bills, the law
making process in USA is clearly broken and needs to be changed. It is a
problem you (Americans) need to fix.

------
eps
Here we go again... Who changed the post title? Two hours into the discussion.

pg, please do something about this. It is getting absolutely out of hand.

------
luismmontielg
Im getting

OperationalError at /v1/complete/google-oauth2/ FATAL: too many connections
for role "ruwdncbzdkulsh"

Request Method: GET Request URL:
[http://api.collections.me/v1/complete/google-
oauth2/?code=4/...](http://api.collections.me/v1/complete/google-
oauth2/?code=4/jagXxm_UPSk8P9omPYEDRhxFlX2y.Ao-8d6zmaUIbuJJVnL49Cc80GYQEcQI)
Django Version: 1.4 Exception Type: OperationalError Exception Value: FATAL:
too many connections for role "ruwdncbzdkulsh"

Seems django debug is ON

------
gcb
This reminds me when everyone was driving drunk, and there was already laws
that made that illegal, but the limit was something like 3 glasses of beer.

instead of simply enforcing it, they changed the law to be zero limit AND
enforced it.

this is the same idiocy.

trashing a place is already illegal. Disturbing the peace is already illegal.
Reducing your neighbor property value is already illegal (our intern complains
he keep getting citations for not cutting the grass ...a $300 fine)

Name ONE thing this law does that wasn't illegal before. ONE. I challenge you.

------
mvkel
Thanks for answering the question in the headline! Now I don't need to read
the article.

