
Dear AirBNB, No thank you for the XXX Freak Fest - joshmn
http://dearairbnb.tumblr.com/post/79657042387/dear-airbnb-no-thank-you-for-the-xxx-freak-fest-you
======
gkoberger
Unfortunately, this is why there's hotel regulations. I think AirBnb is net-
good, but it certainly is going to make a few people's lives miserable in the
meantime. Hopefully AirBnb finds a way to mitigate these issues.

That being said, I guarantee you were violating your lease when you used
AirBnb. And, you approved the person to stay in your house. If anyone should
be mad, it's your neighbors and apartment owner -- they followed the rules.
This is really unfortunate, but it's not all AirBnb's fault.

~~~
copergi
>That being said, I guarantee you were violating your lease when you used
AirBnb

How can you guarantee that? Plenty of places let you sublet. Hell, in
reasonable jurisdictions you can't legally prevent someone from subletting.

~~~
JohnTHaller
Unless the poster was registered as a licensed BnB in the city of New York
with a lease that allowed said usage, they were violating their lease and the
law. Under NY law, it is illegal to sublet your apartment without you being
physically present. It's to prevent, among other things, situations like this,
which are an annoyance and a danger to the other occupants of the building.

~~~
copergi
Violating the law doesn't automatically violate any random contracts you have
entered into.

~~~
dangrossman
If the violation of the law is the purpose of the contract, then it's not a
legal contract.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_agreement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_agreement)

~~~
copergi
It isn't the purpose of the contract, that's a complete non-sequitur.

------
jellicle
Amusing Hacker News cognitive dissonance:

\- "AirBNB is great! Will revolutionize the world! Stupid hotels just take
your money for no reason! Regulations are only there because governments hate
you and want to oppress you! By next week, 7 billion people will be using
AirBNB to rent their homes to each other! And it's totally safe, because
AirBNB stands behind each and every transaction!"

\-- "Stupid poster, she should know that AirBNB is absolutely unsafe. She bore
100% of the risk and of course she should never have used this service. She
was violating her lease and deserves everything that happened to her. Shooting
is too good for her; hanging is too good for her. None of this is AirBNB's
fault; they had literally nothing to do with the transaction and it's
impossible to understand why the poster would ever have thought they did."

~~~
RealGeek
I am shocked to see everyone rallying against the victim because he may have
violated his lease terms. If that is the excuse AirBNB have, they should not
be doing business in the cities where their business model is not 100%
compliant local laws.

How does the lease terms even matter in this incident? It's not like David
vandalized her apartment because he figured the host is violating lease terms
and he deserve this? Do you really think that David would have cancelled his
XXX fest if the host's lease terms allowed subletting? This would have
happened to him even if he was 100% compliant with lease terms and local law.

AirBNB should take responsibility for it and do the right thing. AirBNB should
caution their hosts and customers about risks like these instead of lying them
about 100% guarantee.

Moreover, it should be AirBNB's responsibility to ensure that every single
listing and transaction is 100% compliant with the local laws. Ebay doesn't
let me sell drugs or other illegal items. AirBNB should do business

~~~
smsm42
I think that's a developer unconscious talking. "We have a bug here in AirBnB,
here's a reproduction scenario". - "Oh, you see this small print in this
manual? It says you couldn't do that. Therefore, not a developer's problem,
ticket closed, PBKAC".

The other part of "blame the victim" is "the victim did X, and bad thing
happened. I would never do X, therefore bad thing would never happen to me".
Of course, nobody thinks it explicitly, but it's how the mind works - bad
thing happens, the mind automatically thinks "omg, this is terrible, it could
happen to me, I should worry" and then another part of the mind thinks "no,
the bad thing happened because lease said don't do it, and she did it, so if I
never do what lease says to not do, it won't happen to me, so I should not
worry". And the mind is happy again.

>>> Ebay doesn't let me sell drugs or other illegal items.

Drugs yes, but you probably can sell tons of illegal (in some places) items on
Ebay. Ebay has no possibility of tracking the local law in every locality, and
a lot of things can be made illegal. For example, selling medals and order
signs are illegal in many countries, still ebay has a lot of them for sale.

------
ZoF
I don't see how this is AirBnB's fault, at least to the degree that's implied.

You rented out your apartment to a stranger on the internet based upon what
other strangers on the internet said about them. You almost certainly broke
the terms of the lease in the process and probably deserved to be kicked out
even if you hadn't had an "XXX freak fest" thrown.

Sure, AirBnB should try and figure out the damages, charge the accounts credit
card(guarantee that won't work) and the pursue damages(good luck).

This is why people have renter's insurance(doubt you thought of it as you were
probably trying to do this illegally anyway).

This is also why this industry is regulated, because when it's not humans get
pwnt by their own stupidity combined with the malice of other humans.

At the end of the day for a lot of people AirBnB is a way to make easy money
under the table, that's why there's little to no regulation; yeah that
regulation comes with taxes/overhead, but it also comes with protection from
the hazards of the business. It's pretty fucked logic to take such a huge risk
with your property, give it zero protection, and then be not only surprised,
but furious(with the site connecting you to the offender not the offender
themself), when shit goes down. How dense can you be.

TL;DR- AirBnB pays for these situations anyway[0], this drama post is made by
someone who took a huge risk in renting an apt without insurance, without a
face-to-face, and probably not in accordance with his/her lease. The post will
probably result in a faster payout, but the entitlement is slightly annoying
considering the circumstances.

[0]-[https://www.airbnb.com/guarantee](https://www.airbnb.com/guarantee)

~~~
Kequc
There are absolutely tons of people more dense than the OP, tons. Vast parades
of dense people. So it's a little bit unwarranted to really come down this
hard on him.

On the other hand it is these vast parades of dense people who keep voting for
less regulation as a whole. So I can appreciate the need to come down hard on
them. But this guy doesn't seem like the guy honestly.

AirBNB is a business model used by millions, they take a huge or even really
huge cut just for being the middle man. You expect a tiered amount of "XXX
Freak Fests" rolling through your apartment.

~~~
clarky07
Tell me how regulation solves this? Why is it that this couldn't happen in a
hotel? (Guarantee it does all the time)

There isn't any regulation that can fix people being jackasses. This isn't
AirBNB's fault, and it isn't the OP's fault. It's the jackass who held the
party fault. Could the OP have done things differently? Sure. It's likely the
sublet wasn't entirely legal, and it's likely he could have renter's
insurance. That being said, his insurance still probably shouldn't have to pay
it. That is what AirBNB's cut should be covering. And I'm sure they will in
fact cover it, as this is really bad publicity for them. The only reason for
this post is to make that money get there faster.

~~~
demallien
1) hotels don't use keys. The dodgy hotel guest can be shut out with the
stroke of a key at the reception desk computer.

2) when things go wrong, hotels have staff on hand to deal with the situation.

3) hotels have insurance for when things go badly wrong.

All of these things cost money, which is partly why hotels are more expensive
than AirBnB. The author assumed a lot of risk when subletting through AirBnB
and is now complaining when the risk went wrong. I have very little sympathy
for him / her.

The people I do have sympathy for are fellow residents of the apartment block,
who had a reasonable expectation that their building wouldn't be turned into
the site of a free for all sex party. They didnt get any say in this, and
didn't receive any compensation. _That_ is unfair.

~~~
ZoF
Exactly.

The reason this vertical hasn't been disrupted in this manner is the inherent
liability of dealing with humans.

An institution like a hotel chain can both:

-React to a situation like this immediately instead of letting it play out.

-Take the losses in the event that damage occurs and the guests credentials were fake.

\------------------------------------------------

To an individual renting out less than 5 properties a loss like this is
crippling.

Also agree that the real victims here are the fellow tenants +landlord, they
won't be seeing any of that 90k+ or their shitty past tenant.

------
stormbrew
I love airbnb, have used it in the past, but I have a really hard time
sympathizing with this or seeing it as AirBnB's fault. This is _always_ a risk
if you let people you don't know (or hell, even people you do know) into your
home.

It kind of sounds like this person never even bothered to meet the people who
were renting his apartment (I was always shocked when someone rented me their
apartment without meeting me, personally).

Nothing airbnb can ever do will guarantee something like this won't happen to
you. That's why you have to also do whatever you can to protect yourself. If
you wouldn't be comfortable with the precautions you took had you found the
renter on craigslist, you shouldn't be doing it.

Of course, airbnb will probably pull out from their own insurance on this for
this person because the likely result of not doing so enough times for them is
that more places make it clearer that it's largely illegal to do it and start
enforcing more zealously.

~~~
ricardobeat
What does meeting the renter personally accomplish? You won't be able to tell
that he is planning a XXX Freak Fest tomorrow. Even if you do, cancelling the
reservation after meeting him might get _you_ kicked out of AirBNB as a host.

~~~
stormbrew
It's certainly not a catch-all, but it can help. It strikes me as the very
least you can do. And there are other measures you can take, like having a
neighbour (or hell, if you're actually doing it legally, your super) keep an
eye on things.

The point is simply that if you abdicate all effort to ensure your house is
kept well to a corporation that barely knows either of you are people, you're
more likely to get this stuff happening. No one makes anyone be an airbnb
host.

And if you met a potential guest and thought they might be planning to host an
orgy in your house as soon as you left, I'm gonna say you might want to risk
getting kicked off airbnb rather than risk having your house trashed. That's
just me, though.

------
argonaut
AirBnB has an insurance policy to compensate for cases like this.

Color me cynical, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for the blogger. If you
have a landlord (i.e. you don't personally own the building), and you aren't
there to personally meet and be around the guests, then you are knowingly
taking on the risk that the guests will be sketchy and that you will be
evicted, even if you are allowed subleses (not to mention that you almost
always aren't).

~~~
JohnTHaller
> AirBnB has an insurance policy to compensate for cases like this.

Not quite. AirBnb specifically excludes things you don't own. So, while they
would be responsible for the original poster's stuff, any damage done to the
apartment itself, paint, floors, appliances, walls, hallways, doors, bathroom,
fixtures, any furnishings that were already in the apt, etc would not appear
to be covered.

> PLEASE CAREFULLY REVIEW THE DEFINITIONS OF “COVERED ACCOMMODATION,” “COVERED
> LOSSES,” “EXCLUDED ACCOMMODATION,” AND “EXCLUDED PROPERTY” BELOW. THESE
> DEFINITIONS ARE ESPECIALLY SIGNIFICANT IF YOUR ACCOMMODATION IS A
> CONDOMINIUM, TOWNHOUSE, CO-OPERATIVE, APARTMENT, OR ANY OTHER UNIT IN A
> MULTIPLE-DWELLING STRUCTURE, COMPLEX, AND/OR DEVELOPMENT. TO THE EXTENT THIS
> HOST GUARANTEE COVERS REAL PROPERTY, IT COVERS ONLY REAL PROPERTY THAT YOU
> OWN.

~~~
randartie
I imagine a _lot_ of the people on AirBnb happen to list their room when
actually they do not own the building (renters).

I wonder how many would still continue listing if they knew that AirBnbs
insurance doesn't actually cover them.

~~~
_delirium
Huh, their public-facing page is _really_ misleading about that:
[https://www.airbnb.com/guarantee](https://www.airbnb.com/guarantee)

The page continually uses the term "hosts", and emphasizes that you are
covered up to $1,000,000 so should relax. It does also say that the guarantee
is not insurance or a replacement for "homeowners or renters insurance". But
to me that phrasing strongly implies that the AirBnB Host Guarantee covers
both the kinds of hosts who might also have homeowners insurance, and the
kinds of hosts who might also have renters insurance— just that it is not to
be properly considered insurance in either case. Wording the page this way,
and then excluding paying for damages to rented property in the legalese leads
to results not in keeping with the expectation I got from this summary.

------
coofluence
This is exact reason why AirBnB like services cannot succeed in India. You
could be in jail, as the police here will never understand why you allowed
someone into your house if you are not a hotel. The attitude of police here is
that if anything goes wrong, the owner of the house or business is
responsible.

To illustrate, in 2004, early days of e-commerce in India, someone put up a
certain CD to be sold on e-Bay. The police just arrested the CEO of eBay
India. When something goes wrong police here arrests biggest possible names
either to show its working or extract maximum corruption money. Any wonder why
Indian startups cannot go beyond providing services to foreign businesses for
cheap? To be fair, many startups are innovating in India, but the point is the
kind of challenges they have to deal with are just unknown to the more
developed world.

eBay news link from 2004: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2902203/India-
throws-Ebay...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2902203/India-throws-Ebay-
chief-into-prison.html)

------
latj
My two favorite bits are:

\-- You sent an “XXX Freak Fest” into my home By which joshmn means "I invited
an XXX Freak Fest into my home in exchange for money."

\-- As such, I’m going to be evicted. Its subtle enough that you miss it the
first time you read it until later when you get to 'my landlord is certainly
going to make me move after an “XXX Freak Fest”'. Yup, joshmn has in fact not
been evicted.

So, lets summarize. You went on a website, found a stranger, accepted money in
exchange for your keys. Then they messed with your furniture. Now you want
$87k. Oh, and you have trouble looking at people in the eyes.

I am checking with my attorney to see if there is any legal recourse I can
take to recover the last five minutes of my life.

~~~
ricardobeat
AirBNB has insurance for cases like this. It's not much different from getting
a hotel room, would you say a hotel's management was stupid if this happened
at their property?

> "You went on a website, found a stranger, accepted money in exchange for
> your keys. Then they messed with your furniture. Now you want $87k."

Try re-reading that phrase in the context of a standard long-term apartment
lease. What's strange or stupid about that?

~~~
mikeryan
In a long term lease I'm personally meeting the renter, running a credit
check, getting references from previous land lords and/or friend, an up front
security deposit equal to 3 months rent, not furnishing the apartment and
insuring the apartment against any additional damages.

A standard long-term apartment lease situation is considerably different.

~~~
ricardobeat
Renting fully furnished homes is common in many countries. AirBNB charges
upfront, keeps your CC data on file, has references from previews hosts, and
allows landlords to collect a security deposit if wanted. Looks about the same
to me.

------
bredren
This is obviously a bad situation. No one wants this to happen. (Except
perhaps the FF participants) There have been plenty of bad situations at
hotels as well, though.

I'm most interested in the final paragraph.

 _All because I trusted AirBNB that this individual was a “Verified” member
with multiple positive reviews..._

AirBnB has pioneered some of the workflow for establishing and communicating
social proof. P2P requires trusted reputation.

If the story is as described, it appears AirBnB failed to provide a trustful
counter-party. And it went very wrong as a result.

~~~
rayiner
> There have been plenty of bad situations at hotels as well, though.

Sure, but hotels are regulated and licensed and zoned so they keep those bad
situations away from residential areas.

> AirBnB has pioneered some of the workflow for establishing and communicating
> and social proof.

It's really an open question of whether "reputation economies" are workable at
all. I continue to be disappointed by user ratings on services like Yelp. I
wouldn't trust anything more substantive than a new restaurant pick to such
ratings.

~~~
baddox
> Sure, but hotels are regulated and licensed and zoned so they keep those bad
> situations away from residential areas.

Is it any better that hotel guests might have to stay near this sort of
behavior?

~~~
tptacek
Yes. The reality is that if this happens in a hotel, the hotel immediately
kicks the "XXX party" out, and will usually move the aggrieved neighbors to a
different floor or (as has happened with me at hotels with loud parties) do
that _and_ refund the night's cost.

~~~
baddox
Is that required by hotel regulations?

~~~
tptacek
To an extent, yes, and more importantly it's civilly enforceable, because
neighboring guests can chargeback the room if they're not moved (or even they
are), and will almost certainly win the dispute.

------
spoiledtechie
What's wrong with all of you?

A year ago it was a woman, under almost the same circumstances that had her
apartment vandalized. You all rallied behind her.

Now since it seems its a man and and ranted online under pretty much the same
circumstances, but different type of people, you say its not airBnBs fault?

that's truly disappointing.

~~~
ubercore
There's a way to make your point without saying things like "all of you".

------
bilbo0s
One, I would definitely evict and sue this blogger as well if I was the
landlord.

Two, how the AirBNB user the blogger rented to is "Verified" with multiple
positive reviews needs to be investigated. Whatever weakness they are
exploiting in the AirBNB review system needs to be eliminated.

Lastly, I am sorry this happened... but the reality is...

this is the reason you shouldn't be using AirBNB. This could have turned out
much worse to be perfectly frank.

------
lionhearted
A potentially interesting thread of discussion --

Who has ideas on how to handle customer service and public perception in an
industry where the downside of a single bad event is the mix of horrific,
intimate, and very newsworthy?

Even if the rate of AirBNB disasters was only 1 disaster for every 1 million
successful rentals, you'd still get very sticky disaster stories coming out
regularly. Similar to how the evening news covers all the murders and trauma
in the world, potentially inflating our perception of how often it happens..

Any general thoughts on what's required to thrive if you're in an industry
where things will go wrong even if you do best practices conservatively
everywhere, and the "going wrong" scenario is both quite bad and quite public?

------
tmuir
This exposes a big flaw in the entire premise of AirBnB.

AirBnB's core market is people renting out their homes when they aren't there.
This problem is inherent to providing unsupervised hospitality. If no one is
there to verify customers beyond meaningless internet reputations, no one is
there to prevent your possessions from being destroyed. Fixing this problem
quickly turns you into a business with employees, running a hotel.

Regulations are about more than just taxes.

~~~
chii
you make liable the parties that did the damage. airbnb could take a bond from
the renter (to cover damages, if any), or get something hard to forge such as
an ID card of some sort, and recover the damage from them should it occur.

------
jamra
I would like the blogger to post a follow up on how AirBnB will respond. I've
heard of multiple incidents of damage to the property, but have never read
about the follow up. I suspect that a hush hush settlement was made.

Is there a kind of insurance that AirBnB sets up or is it completely on the
renter's dime?

~~~
huffman
To be a little more helpful, they've partnered with Lloyd's of London to
provide a nice insurance policy for all renters:
[https://www.airbnb.com/guarantee](https://www.airbnb.com/guarantee)

~~~
greenyoda
But since this person is in violation of AirBnB's terms of service, he might
have problems collecting on their insurance policy. Their TOS states[1]:

    
    
        ... you will not:
    
        ...offer, as a Host, any Accommodations that
        you do not yourself own or have permission to
        rent as a residential or other property...
    

Clearly he does not own the property or have his landlord's permission to rent
it.

[1] [https://www.airbnb.com/terms](https://www.airbnb.com/terms)

~~~
eropple
This is one of the things about AirBnB that bothers me. They _know_ it's not
legal for him to rent it because of NYC's Illegal Hotels Act. I can't shake
the persistent feeling that they know their business model relies on people
breaking the law and they just don't care. That bugs me.

~~~
205guy
I poured myself a glass of wine and sat back to read these comments. This is
exactly what I wanted to say myself. Facilitating breaking the law and the
social compact of residential neighborhoods, that is their business model. It
is because of this argument that I will be happy the day I see AirBnB go down
in flames, though to be honest, I doubt I'll have that pleasure.

Edited to add: I would change "don't care" to "have consciously decided that
limiting their business to places where it is legal, while feasible, would
limit their profits and their relevancy in ways they do not want to do."

~~~
205guy
The buzz from the wine is wearing off, and I remembered that I do think the
AirBnB model (but not modus operandi) has 2 legitimate purposes: 1) occasional
subletting during occupant absence and 2) satisfying temporary demand.

Case 1) is essentially making vacation home exchange totally fungible. By
definition (at least for most people), a vacation is infrequent and has
significant cost, in part due to paying for 2 dwellings concurrently (the
vacant home, and the vacation accommodation). AirBnB solves this by having a
large market of people who may want to pay you for your empty home.

Examples of case 2) would be huge conventions and university graduations.
These are cases where it would be inefficient to build hotels to satisfy peak
demand, and sometimes it becomes impossible to find (conventional) lodging at
any price. AirBnB solves this by providing elasticity in the form of non-
conventional lodging only available during the peak.

In both cases, the difference with the current situation is that these cases
are limited in time. I think AirBnB would be a good thing if it limited the
rental of any property to a maximum of 1 month per year, with a limit of 4
guests per year. That would eliminate people running residential businesses,
which is my main objection (and probably the company's whole profit and growth
strategy). In other words, AirBnB would be a great but small niche player.

~~~
205guy
Since I'm just talking to myself here, I'll continue with another thought.

If I were in or interested in city government, here's what I would do: pass a
city ordinance that A) limits residential short-term leasing (<30 days) to a
maximum of 4 events with a maximum of 28 cumulative days (allows for vacations
and special events, as detailed in my post above); and B) requires any company
offering or brokering or representing such properties (such as AirBnB, VRBO,
etc.) to enforce A) and report actual usage to the city for tax purposes.

To me, this is a sensible compromise to regulate the residential homestays
enabled by the AirBnB model, to get the benefits of this model and limit the
impacts on neighbors and the rental/real estate market. It will also eliminate
the unfair "first-mover" advantage that AirBnB encourages (if you are the
first in your neighborhood to buy or develop a one- multi-unit mini-hotal, you
can fly under the radar and make a small fortune, essentially get a free
property). Depending on the local conditions, the city could consider a
vacation rental license that allows year-round short term rental--in which
case the property can be listed on websites as long as it is described as such
and the license must be listed in the ad. Occupancy and taxes must be reported
to the city/local government as in the first case.

~~~
eropple
You might be talking to yourself, but I am reading. =) And I largely agree
with everything you're saying. It's utterly incompatible with the growth-
obsessive sort of business plan that AirBNB must follow, but it'd be a better
thing for human beings.

------
rdl
I'm amazed it has taken so long for something like this to happen. It's almost
worse than MethBNB. Does it happen more frequently but AirBnB just quietly
pays out? Or is my perception of how horrible 1% of the world is inaccurately
calibrated?

Hack AirBnB accounts, until you find a nice renter who has a place with
(presumably) nice stuff who will hand off keys to you without physically
meeting, then clear it out, or destroy it like this, or something else. I'd be
assuming that would happen 1:1000 rentals, but maybe that's paranoia.

Still, while I feel sorry for the renter here, I feel even worse for his
landlord and neighbors, who should sue him, and get part of that $1mm.

~~~
ricardobeat
That doesn't make any sense. Just choose a random house with valuable stuff in
it, break in and clear it out? Getting past the door is the least of your
problems, why go all that trouble with AirBNB? It doesn't make it less of a
crime.

~~~
rdl
It gives you a window of time when you know the owners won't be home. Burglary
is way safer (and legally less punished) than robbery.

------
Duhck
Firstly, as others stated, you took a risk and likely violated your lease as
well as NYC law.

With that said, this tidbit from your listing is a brilliant indicator of how
you inevitably brought this issue onto yourself:

"You may host up to 50 people in the backyard or apartment, but please leave
$80USD so I can pay a cleaning lady to clean the extra mess."

Did they pay the extra $80USD? You invited them to bring 50 people over, I am
sorry for what happened, but I don't feel sorry for you...

~~~
goldbeck
After confirming this with a quick google, I'm having trouble not "blaming the
victim" here. It's sometimes the case with ridiculous things happening to
people, that there's "more to the story", and that certainly seems to be the
case here.

The poster willfully assumed additional risk on top of the standard AirBNB
risk, and it's that additional risk that bit him.

Telling someone you've never met that they can bring 50 people(!?!) into your
apartment, and just assuming that things won't get out of hand, is... naive.

------
dpeck
FYI: should be obvious from the title, but NSFW images in post

------
growt
So these fucking strangers turned out to be literally fucking strangers.

------
vacri
_The stress and fear that a large band of “XXX Freak Fest” individuals have my
address and keys to my home is unreal_

Do they not have locksmiths in NYC?

------
NDizzle
If David would have just invited him all this drama could have been avoided.
Huge party foul, David.

------
pm24601
Well I am sorry for the OP. But posts like this make it clear: I will not use
AirBnB.

It isn't worth the cost. Even if AirBnB pays the (no doubt depreciated) cost
of the damage; I don't want my prized possessions trashed. (or worse).

Thank god there wasn't a fire!

------
anon03162014
_my super is having me evicted by my landlord_

I assume that your lease prohibits subleases without the consent of your
landlord.

~~~
fennecfoxen
Even with a lease permitting subletting through AirBnB (something becoming
more common) this might very well be cause for eviction.

------
dm2
You're basically operating a business when you rent out your home. Unless
AirBNB has a large amount of assurances that you will be protected then you
need to do your own due diligence and ensure that you have insurance, gather
identification, and that what you are doing is legal. As far as I know,
operating as a hotel without a license is not legal in NYC.

Just like walking a tightrope across two building in NYC is illegal without
sufficient permits and people to ensure it's done safely and responsibly.

Your landlord might not evict you if you explain the situation and ensure them
that there is no way this will happen again, you've learned your lesson.

If that doesn't work, sue the people who stayed in your place. If that doesn't
work, sue AirBNB. They might both claim that acting as a hotel in NYC was
illegal and you're screwed for taking that risk, if so, you've learned an
expensive lesson.

What kind of contract does AirBNB make people renting sign? I would hope that
it explicitly prohibits large gatherings, destroying personal property, and
disturbing neighbors, if it doesn't, then it should.

Has AirBNB attempted to pass any laws in NYC (and other cities) that provide
some type of protection for people renting out their places for a limited
period of time? Would it really be that difficult to allow inspections of
private residences? There could also be something that requires the home be
used by the owner for X months out of the year or that there is a maximum of X
separate renters during a year (which might be hard to enforce / prove).

Is there a minimum amount of time someone has to rent a residence before it
can be considered a sublease? Maybe you should only do that until laws
protecting you are passed.

------
ChuckMcM
That's a sad story. Clearly not a common occurrence (at least not common
enough to be "oh another airbnb trashed my place" type response).

So what happens next will be interesting.

Presumably AirBnB's insurance will make the renter whole again.

Also presumably their ability to identify the person responsible will allow
them to press charges against them, I suspect there are codes against charging
cover charges for a sex party (I vaguely remember the controversy over the sex
club in LA about this, something about indirect solicitation but that was like
in the 70's so I'd really have to go back and dig it up.)

It seems like the 'TWINN' character was reasonably well connected in this
community and perhaps if a great big hassle comes his way it will discourage
others from that community in using AirBnB that way.

Definitely a wild story though.

------
thirsteh
I'm struggling to understand how this is AirBnB's fault? Do we expect them to
detect when people are lying?

~~~
kranner
That's what the 'verified' status would seem to imply.

~~~
thirsteh
And if I use AirBnB legitimately for a while, then decide to do this, then
what? It's AirBnB's fault for matchmaking?

That seems similar to blaming Google Search, not the site itself, for
returning a site that has ranked well for a long time, but has just now
started serving malware.

~~~
kranner
Your point is fair, but IMO it would not be incorrect to blame both the site
as well as Google Search, obviously for different reasons.

'Verified' should eventually mean verified, with no qualifiers. If it can't be
guaranteed then it's better to say so.

edit: I see from jamesroseman's comment below that 'verified' only means that
their ID is verified, not the reason they require the accommodation.
([https://www.airbnb.com/help/question/450](https://www.airbnb.com/help/question/450))
If that's clear from the UI (and not just buried in a FAQ), it invalidates my
point.

------
girvo
_"...worldly possessions tossed in a pile into the common area, while a group
of strangers form a pile to have their private areas tossed."_

I would've gone with "...while a group of strangers have their piles tossed".
It's cleaner(?).

All joking aside, this is why I refuse to participate in AirBnB. It's just not
worth the non-negligible risk of very bad things happening. It's a great idea,
yeah, and they've done super well, and a lot of people are exceedingly happy
with it all. However, I'm not one of them, and I don't think these risks can
be removed--having a stranger (or heck, even a friend!) stay in your house
while you are not there is inherently risky no matter what regulations are in
place.

------
uptown
I'm amazed the guy still has his listing online. It's here if anyone is
interested:

[https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1058615](https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1058615)

~~~
uptown
update: And it's pulled.

------
guiomie
This is fucked up.

87k of damages ... doesn't that seem a lot?

~~~
joshmlewis
I would imagine most of that is rent you are liable for if you are evicted. At
least $2k+ a month for x amount of months.

If they had decent furniture that could add up quickly as well, but $80k does
seem like a lot unless they are including 'emotional' damages which at that
point is hard to quantify.

~~~
dangrossman
Zillow estimates rent at that address as $6700/month, with the 2 bedroom
condos in that building selling for over $2 million. Another listing at the
same address was renting for $7950/month.

~~~
joshmlewis
Wow, yeah that definitely makes up for it then. I didn't really look too much
into how much.

------
DanielBMarkham
Hotels constantly deal with their rooms being a location for prostitution,
drug dealing, porn films, and so on.

People who lend out their personal property are constantly lending it to
people who are rude, lying, and destroy it -- often causing them great harm
and psychological damages.

I'm not sure what part of this is AirBnB's problem. It's like blaming GMail
for letting you meet that nice kid online who borrowed your car and then
totaled it. Huh?

Now if the author had made some extended argument that AirBnB was somehow
guaranteeing his property's safety? Might make a little more sense. But AirBnB
isn't an insurance company, or a private security service. The most I'd expect
from them would be 1) solid identification on who the person is looking for
the room, and 2) dependable (non-fake) reviews from previous experiences.

You have to remember that even people who are great borrowers-of-things will,
on occasion, really screw the pooch. You can go for ten years being the pillar
of the community and then lose it all on a month-long drug binge. It happens.
So I don't think you're ever going to get rid of the occasional bad
experience. It would be interesting to see if something evolves in this area,
perhaps an insurance policy or city-wide micro-term security service.

------
LeafyGreenbriar
Airbnb will almost certainly cover the damages:
[https://www.airbnb.com/guarantee](https://www.airbnb.com/guarantee).

He might not have as much luck getting them to pay his relocation costs, since
I'm sure that renting out his apartment was against his lease anyway.

The real problem for this guy is going to be finding another landlord in
Manhattan who will rent to him, unless he is extremely wealthy, of course.

~~~
dangrossman
If Zillow's estimates are at all accurate, the building at that address is
full of $2M+ condos that rent for $6-8K/month. He mentions the doorman; he's
probably pretty well off to afford living there.

------
danso
> _I enjoy a “Festival” as much as the next fellow, but this is a family
> building and some people don’t enjoy having their neighbor’s worldly
> possessions tossed in a pile into the common area, while a group of
> strangers form a pile to have their private areas tossed. As such, I’m going
> to be evicted._ >

> _You’re going to pay my moving expenses, because my landlord is certainly
> going to make me move after an “XXX Freak Fest” (and I can’t look these guys
> in the eye after this either)._

In New York, it is _illegal_ for you to rent out your apartment while you are
gone. Besides that detail, how can the OP's landlord evict him, unless there
was something in the lease saying such renting was not allowed? Can the OP
post the relevant portion of his leasing agreement?

~~~
sitharus
> In New York, it is illegal for you to rent out your apartment while you are
> gone.

Pretty sure that's the reason. Also NY state has laws requiring a minimum stay
in a property that isn't zoned as a hotel.

In any case, if you break the law relating to your rental it's fairly easy for
a landlord to terminate the lease.

------
holyjaw
Why did this become a blog post, and not a conversation with AirBnB's customer
service and legal departments? Unnecessarily jumping that gap is what makes me
seriously doubt the pure validity of his claims.

------
prawn
Firstly, it comes to mind that someone could easily orchestrate a series of
incidents like this to impair Airbnb's potential, especially in a particular
location. If they deny a payout, anyone who doesn't own their place will think
again.

Secondly, admittedly Booking.com and so on don't "verify" a customer beyond
email and credit card, but it's hard to imagine a hotel piping up like this
for being referred a dodgy customer.

------
jgalt212
If I were a cynic, here's how I would read the upvoted comments: Regulations
are bad when then they impair a YC company's ability to make money.

------
k-mcgrady
It's likely that by hosting anyone through AirBnB the OP was violating the
terms of their lease agreement. So technically it's not who they hosted that's
the problem, it's that they hosted anyone at all and that's the real reason
for eviction. As for the damages to property AirBnB should help recover those
losses from the person who rented the apartment.

------
foobarian
How on earth did this incident cause $85k in damages? They just dumped a bunch
of furniture out. Was it really expensive furniture?

------
vermooten
A question I've been mulling about Airbnb since it started: who TF allows
total strangers to stay at their home????

------
mamoswined
I always wondered about pre-approved AirBnBs, which based on the screenshot is
what this one was. I usually don't pick them because I feel that if a host
doesn't actively screen, that it's a very bad sign. And by actively screen I
mean look at my facebook, twitter, etc.

------
andr
AirBnB has a $1,000,000 insurance on every booking. Yes, what happened sucks,
but the guy should raise noise if AirBnB refuses to cover his damages. For
what it's worth, claiming your host insurance with AirBnB is part of doing
business with them.

~~~
bdcravens
There's been a few other comments that point out that a condition of the
insurance is that you must own the property, or have permission to rent it
out, which author didn't. To the policy as it's written, this would be an
uncovered claim.

------
bayesianhorse
I sometimes wonder why this doesn't happen a lot more often...

Anyway, people seem to be much more trustworthy, which is why airbnb is still
going strong. Until more legislations make it illegal to rent out apartments
as quasi-hotels...

------
EGreg
Wait, is it even legal to use AirBNB in NYC?

latest is this:
[http://www.thenewyorkworld.com/2013/10/24/airbnb/](http://www.thenewyorkworld.com/2013/10/24/airbnb/)
??

------
bowlofpetunias
Although this is disturbing regardless, someone who puts a _rented_ apartment
(i.e., someone else's property) on AirBnB and then complains about abuse by
others strikes me as extremely hypocritical.

------
goldenkey
87k seems like a lot of money in damages. If the poster is already living the
rich life, why be greedy and AirBNB for even more cash? Greed is the root of
all evil. I do not feel any sympathy.

------
eplanit
To quote Nelson Muntz: "Haw haw!". Hey, I've got an idea, let's treat our home
like a hotel room and rent it out to strangers... what could possibly go
wrong?

------
johnchristopher
> I am looking for a place for my brother and sister in law who visiting for a
> wedding this weekend. I just don’t have the space for them.

Shouldn't the writing style be a red flag ?

------
jlebrech
You shouldn't be using rented property on airbnb, the solution to this is
owning the property and then checking up on the occupants and being the super
yourself.

------
ar7hur
So you think you can make $710 renting your studio for two nights without any
risk of this kind of thing happening? Wake up, man. No risk, no reward.

------
adnam
I'm constantly amazed that people will rent out their own homes to total
strangers, and then blame Airbnb when things like this happen.

------
lafar6502
oh, I'm really sorry for stuffed animals. They probably thought stuffing was
the last time they were abused.

------
crystaln
This is like accusing craigslist of causing murder through its dating forum.

Any time you rent a place out you face this risk.

------
heidijavi
I don't doubt about the story, but has anyone find out what's the URL of the
Airbnb place?

------
aosmith
Wonder how the "million dollar" insurance policy will work out for this guy...

------
tbarbugli
Got anything from airbnb yet? Very curious to know how is this going to end

------
camus2
lol!sorry but that's funny!Well, if I were a porn producer,it would be a cheap
way to rent new locations to shoot porn flicks for sure!

------
devnonymous
whoa whoa ..it isn't AirBnB's fault, it is google's ! ..not wait, it is the
fault of the interwebs ..ehe, so Gore ? Yep, that's it, Gore set the XXX Freak
Fest to your place. Jeez !

------
__pThrow
Can someone explain why we should think this tumblr post has any credibility?

~~~
dangrossman
Because it contains ample verifiable evidence.

~~~
__pThrow
That's not actually a response. You are just restating the premise. And
exercising your right to be snide.

What is the ample verifiable evidence in the post?

~~~
dangrossman
The tweet by the "BBW party promoter" is on twitter; you can view it there.
The account has 5 years of history tweeting about sex parties.

The address of a residence is in the tweet. You can do a Google search and see
the previous real estate listings for the residential condos/apartments at
that address. You can look at it on Google Maps to see that it's a real
address and not some kind of sex club.

The "porn star" profile of the party organizer that tweeted, screenshotted, is
there on Xvideos; you can look it up and view it yourself.

The screenshots of the booking conversations through Airbnb are included as
well, which Airbnb can confirm actually took place.

These are all evidence supporting the story, and all of these pieces of
evidence can be verified by third parties. That's verifiable evidence, which
is what I said.

"Restating the premise" means to restate the base of your argument. I argued
the opposite, that the post does have credibility. Sorry that you felt I was
being snide by disagreeing.

~~~
__pThrow
The tweet is verifiable. That a porn party took place at that residence seems
likely.

There is no verification this occurred over airbnb. There is no verification
that the tweets were by anyone other than the resident or owner and no
verification that the tumblr post was written by the resident.

All of this, including the tweet, could be a pretty simple hoax.

And worse, it's from tumblr.

The premise you restated was the basic post itself: Hey! This shit happened to
me.

I asked, why should we believe this.

You said, "Because shit happened to that guy!"

Until airbnb responds we have no reason to give this anecdote any credence.

And you were totally snide. Your apology is disingenuous. "Sorry you felt I
was being snide" is not an apology. It is a faux apology.

~~~
bdcravens
_And worse, it 's from tumblr._ That's an unqualified contention. What makes
content hosted on tumblr less credible than what's on any other free blog
site?

Most articles should receive a healthy dose of criticism, but on the whole, I
really didn't see any suspect. The only basis for questioning is that AirBnB
is the darling of the "OMG! DISRUPTING!" crowd, and thus any criticism against
them must be a conspiracy from the evil industries.

