
My Airbnb Nightmare Reality - lladnar
https://www.facebook.com/notes/sharon-marzouk/my-airbnb-nightmare-reality/10154456318882372?pnref=story
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mixologic
Did I miss something? As far as I can tell, the renter was a sex worker, who
happened to forget to shut off the faucet.

This whole "nightmare" just seems to me like the homeowner is judging this
girls' lifestyle, doesn't agree with it, and thinks that means that somehow
"Vera" is some kind of criminal. It's actually kinda gross how slut shamey
this whole thing comes across.

"that I have no idea who they are, and what they are capable of." \- does
getting paid to use dildo's on a camera suddenly thrust you into a realm of
criminality and questionable character? HOLY SHIT, she wears high heels in a
city with big hills!!! _dont you know_ that you girls wearing high heels in SF
will Stab you when your back is turned?

Ew. I got no sympathy for this lady.

~~~
Mithaldu
Yes you missed something.

1\. The renter lied to her. (What she lied about doesn't matter, the fact she
did does.)

2\. Airbnb did not verify their identity AND made no effort to draw any
attention whatsoever to this fact.

3\. Combine 1. and 2. and it is quite likely that the renter also lied about
her identity, which would make getting redress for the damage done tricky.

~~~
x0x0
If she doesn't like that she shouldn't be in the hotel business. It comes with
the territory.

~~~
Mithaldu
The last five hotels i visited (in two different countries) required me to
provide my government id card.

~~~
mixologic
Is it Airbnb's responsibility to verify the identity of the person standing in
front of you? Im willing to bet that none of those hotels asked for that id in
advance when you made your booking, and it was the person at the physical desk
asked for it when you checked in, correct?

Also, how many of those hotels asked you what you did for work?

While she omitted the fact that she did sex work, she might not actually be
lying about the real estate work. It's probable that's she has at least done
that a couple of times, maybe infrequently, but often enough that she can say
thats what she does for work to people who she doesnt know if she can trust
with the truth.

~~~
Mithaldu
> Is it Airbnb's responsibility to verify

No, but it is their responsibility to help the "landlords" to the best of
their ability, which includes making it very clear when a renter is not
verified.

> none of those hotels asked for that id in advance

4 of them required my credit card in advance.

> how many of those hotels asked you what you did for work?

None, because it would be silly to use that as proxy id verification when
they're already asking for my id card.

Besides, as i already said, it doesn't matter what she works, it's that she
lied about it and the landlord is suddenly there with a person who not only
wrecked her place, but who's also a big question mark.

------
zaroth
What's crazy to me reading this is not that someone left the bath running. It
happens, all the time. It's why you carry insurance. And yes, if you rent out
your house to 3 different people at once, the odds of this happening is
dramatically increased.

Typical leases provide for the owner to enter the premises in an emergency.
Clauses for valid trespass I'm sure are quite different when you are sharing
just a room of a house. But typically the rule is 24 hours notice, exigent
circumstances prevail.

Here's where things get fuzzy. The owner terribly violated the renters
privacy. Taking pictures of her bed, of her personal items, of _used Kleenex_
and _condoms_ holy shit, that is terribly wrong. Oh yeah, then they were
posted on the Internet. That is a huge lawsuit right there. A flood, however,
is certainly exigent circumstances. Owner probably has a right to enter the
room to assess safety and make emergency repairs. Owner does not have any
right to rifle through personal items and post pictures of it all online.

Now, most leases have clauses disallowing illegal behavior or running a
business out of the space, legal or otherwise. In that case the owner can move
to evict the tenant. But they cannot break into their room and post pictures
of it online. And since it appears she kicked her tenant out, I assume the
rental fee will be refunded.

The real point of all this is that accidents happen, and bathtubs flood. Owner
did the right thing by calling a professional cleanup crew, although I would
call the insurance company first. If there is no insurance policy for the
owner, good god that is going to be very expensive, and I'm really sorry it
happened.

But shit happens, and flooding a bathtub by accident is not illegal. Hell, it
may not be even cause for eviction in some jurisdictions. What I don't get is,
where is the woman while the owner is breaking into her room? Did she flee, or
was she kicked out? If that happened to me I would be on the scene doing
everything possible to help minimize the damage and get things away from the
water. Maybe the picture was taken days later, but how could she have left all
her stuff like that? I'm confused about this point.

------
tofof
Ultimately, Airbnb is just a trap. Hotels already have economy of scale
working for them. They bother to pay for insurance to protect themselves from
things like this, and have the ability to bill you directly if you cause
damage.

Anyone renting out space on AirBNB and beating a hotel's price is probably
either - skipping out on things like insurance (which will eventually bite
them, cf this article), skipping out on quality of accommodations, or
otherwise shorting /themselves/ out of what the market would pay for that
space. The few exceptions are things like niche locations that are very near
to a particular destination (e.g. a university) that has a predictable if low-
volume draw that doesn't justify a full-scale hotel.

~~~
hiou
It is not amazing how much a company can make on an irrational market pushing
full steam ahead? Oops I meant the sharing economy.

------
exclusiv
I get that the sexual nature of the experience elevates the dissatisfaction,
but that wasn't really the big deal.

Remove that and what do you have - an accident. Arguably quite careless with
the phone but anyone that was verified could have made that mistake.

AirBnB could do a better job with helping to protect hosts, but bottom line -
you should NOT rent your home to ANYONE without insurance. Your home should be
owned by an LLC too ideally.

------
MorePowerToYou
Airbnb could prominently feature an "unverified" notice on the site if they
wanted to. They don't because, for every case like this, there are probably
hundreds of unverified renters who work out just fine.

While featuring an unverified notice (and doing other background check stuff)
would make the interaction between owner and renter safer, it would probably
eliminate a non-trivial percentage of those "unverified but it worked" cases.
And that means less profit/growth for Airbnb.

------
cyberferret
That story was a classic train wreck in slow motion. As I started reading
about the tub overflow, I thought "What? Is this an over reaction to someone
forgetting to turn off the faucet? Serious water damage, sure, but could
happen to anyone...".

But as I kept reading, I kept reeling back further and further from the
screen... That's just crazy!

------
megaframe
Someone left the bath running... that's what the overflow drain is for
[http://www.freediyhomeimprovement.com/wp-
content/uploads/201...](http://www.freediyhomeimprovement.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/07/How-Bathtub-Works.jpg)

The rest is bad on Airbnb though.

~~~
AjithAntony
Yeah, it looks like a pretty modern bathroom and tub. It certainly has an
overflow drain.

Edit: Two other notes. 1) The age is irrelevant, even some Victorian-era claw
foot tub would have an overflow. 2) I can imagine a scenario where the drain
itself is hairclogged at the tailpiece such that it is draining slower than
the tub is filling, thus potential overflow.

Edit: From Sharon's video, a trip-level stopper/overflow plate:
[https://youtu.be/CKuTdZ5T8Ao?t=138](https://youtu.be/CKuTdZ5T8Ao?t=138)

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vosper
If you're renting out a room on Airbnb people are going to have sex in it. Or
do sex-related things. If that's a problem for you then Airbnb (or any similar
service) is probably not for you.

The whole suspected/fabricated sexual tangent in this post was irrelevant.

------
datburg
The landowner with how she describes her rigorous selection of tenants. She
does not reek of naiveté or gullibility. She failed to read the extensive
guides presented by the website which is working hard against human nature.
She could have googled the safety/assurance tell-tale signs and how to set a
set of rules as the accommodation being your house. Politeness and seriousness
with a smile could have at least made her a bit less wild.

You have been the monster in this case. You literally did nit follow the
delicate verification and protection rules of the website. Instead you thought
judging her looks, because hey, she wears the mascara right and the shoes are
gorgeous. Would you have accepted an overweight lady, clean and professional?
I doubt it. You chose glamour girl, so taken, you seriously had no 30 seconds
for the questions of the game.

Again, your roommates (who you did not care for their safety in case there was
another bloody nut. They found her interesting? I would say that for a nice
lady. She can throw my PC, let my food. Anyway, you leave and the roommates
seem invested in her more than the foundation of the second floor. I am nearly
sure that your roommates were cool or happy with the coffee nakedness
enchantress.

Summary: You judged a book by its cover. If you hate exciting books it's on
you. I am sure you had no sites since you you selected the nice lady
physically and funnily you still think that hygiene is beauty. You should have
expected an accident in the paid hosting world. Your pics were disgusting and
demeaning. You have no right to post her pictures and anything related to her.
You are a lady and I know you knew that she is a special lady the moment you
met.

I hosted a couchsurfer guy. I swear to God he left because he was weirded out
how I was taking a mysterious drug from the closet. I swear it was Advil. I
felt disgusted to my boned. You are asking for help during winter. I do not
feel comfortable but happy to help others. Reward: paranoia. I ended it
because it turned to matching nights. Years ago, we roamed Europe.

------
canada_dry
www.airbnbhell.com

My 2nd experience as a guest was with a horrid cockroach infested and moldy
rental that was supposed to be a "Deluxe Executive Retreat". From that
experience I learned that AirBnB really doesn't have a mechanism for dealing
with issues. It's a huge PITA to get their attention let alone getting them to
take any action.

Like many online services they lean towards covering up issues.

~~~
tmuir
I found it fairly easy to get a live person on the phone, but nearly
impossible to convince them of their error.

I booked a room. Within seconds of each other, I got a confirmation, and a
message from the host saying it was not available. The host claimed it was a
glitch in the system, so I cancelled. However, Airbnb kept their service fee.
The customer service agent told me that the reservation system knows when a
rental is unavailable, and it is impossible to double book. I responded that I
had proof that that wasn't true, and invited them to read the message the host
sent me. They had no interest in doing that, and said they would open a
support ticket. Never heard back. It's not worth my time to chase $15.

~~~
calvano915
Assuming you paid with a credit card, a simple charge-back (dispute) would've
gotten you the $15 back. Credit cards - especially Amex/Discover/Visa
Signature - are really good about refunding in cases like these.

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danso
OT: If/As Facebook Notes adoption because more of a place where people post
(or hell, even just wall posts), would it be possible to make facebook.com one
of the domains in which subdomains e.g. someguy.github.io for github.io,
research.facebook.com for facebook.com...though looking at the Algolia search
results, it looks like the majority of facebook.com posts are user content:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=facebook.com&sort=byPopularity...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=facebook.com&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

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hanoz
Didn't this bath have an overflow?

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SubiculumCode
So renter forgot to check if the renter had been verified and had a valid
credit card on file, blames airbnb for not making it even more obvious than it
already is how to check verification of a potential renter.

OK.

