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'My Airbnb Guests Threw a New Year's Party For 300 People' (theguardian.com)
"What's the worst that can happen?" thought Nicko Feinberg last December when he listed his house on Airbnb.
The listing explicitly said no parties. Then a request came through to book the house for one night on New Year's Day. It was from a young man, probably in his early 20s. He had one review but it was terrific.... I picked up my boys and we stayed down the road at my mother's apartment... When I got back [the next day] I saw three or four cars in the driveway. I threw my food down and knew I was screwed. Inside there were about 12 young adults, all trying to clean.
The floors looked like someone had poured Jagermeister and champagne everywhere and then danced on them. Everything seemed wrong: my artwork was not on the walls; there was furniture missing; the glass panel on my staircase was shattered; even the floor didn't seem level any more. Then I noticed they were using my best sheets and towels as mops....I told them no one was leaving and I called the police and Airbnb. When a police officer turned up, he said it was a civil matter, before adding: "We were here last night...."
Ultimately, it was just stuff and I knew it would be OK. But I felt a massive disappointment in humanity. That night, it wasn't hard for me and my boys to find Instagram pictures and videos of the party. It was horrifying to see so many people in the house, jumping up and down on the furniture and windowsills. They broke my hot tub and tiles in the bathroom; when I looked in the rubbish bags, I saw all my drinks bottles empty, as well as broken glasses and towels. I found an image online of the invite that said, "Mansion Party" with my address. There had been 300 people there. Boys were charged to enter; girls got in free.
While he won't disclose what Airbnb paid him for the damage, "a year later repairs are continuing. The floor is still uneven." But he told one local news channel that the damage was over $100,000, adding "There's footprints on my bathroom walls."
At one point more than 100 cars had been parked outside, according to a police report, and the 23-year-old was ultimately charged with "disorderly conduct". He also was banned permanently from Airbnb -- which said in a statement that "negative incidents are incredibly rare."
The floors looked like someone had poured Jagermeister and champagne everywhere and then danced on them. Everything seemed wrong: my artwork was not on the walls; there was furniture missing; the glass panel on my staircase was shattered; even the floor didn't seem level any more. Then I noticed they were using my best sheets and towels as mops....I told them no one was leaving and I called the police and Airbnb. When a police officer turned up, he said it was a civil matter, before adding: "We were here last night...."
Ultimately, it was just stuff and I knew it would be OK. But I felt a massive disappointment in humanity. That night, it wasn't hard for me and my boys to find Instagram pictures and videos of the party. It was horrifying to see so many people in the house, jumping up and down on the furniture and windowsills. They broke my hot tub and tiles in the bathroom; when I looked in the rubbish bags, I saw all my drinks bottles empty, as well as broken glasses and towels. I found an image online of the invite that said, "Mansion Party" with my address. There had been 300 people there. Boys were charged to enter; girls got in free.
While he won't disclose what Airbnb paid him for the damage, "a year later repairs are continuing. The floor is still uneven." But he told one local news channel that the damage was over $100,000, adding "There's footprints on my bathroom walls."
At one point more than 100 cars had been parked outside, according to a police report, and the 23-year-old was ultimately charged with "disorderly conduct". He also was banned permanently from Airbnb -- which said in a statement that "negative incidents are incredibly rare."
I felt a massive disappointment in humanity.
You played a stupid game with your personal property, and it looks like you won some pretty stupid prizes. Hopefully this was a learning experience.
You rent your home full of your stuff to a total stranger. What do you expect?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Stupid person did a stupid thing and what everyone who is not an idiot expected after the first line happened.
Seriously. A 20-something rents a house for one night on New Years Eve. If that didn't raise every red flag within 20 miles, I have no idea what it takes to telegraph you "something just might be a bit wrong here".
I have a hard time believing this story is real. If it were told to me as the plot of a movie I would say it stretches the suspension of disbelief quite a lot.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Do you know how to tell if someone doesn't give a shit about their place or their neighbours? It's on Airbnb.
You spelt bogan wrong.
Disappointing comment Michael, but far worse is being given a "score 3" on this site.
I moved to Melbourne more than 50 years and there's been a great tradition of vilifying each new wave of immigrants
However, it usually reflects more on the family of those doing the denigrating - in my experience at least.
(I was born from English dad & "Aussie" mum whose family was hugely racist against Australian aboriginals - I never worked out why.)
"I let random strangers that I didn't know stay in my house unaccompanied and unsupervised and it got trashed".
News at 11.
Honestly, no matter WHAT the rules for Airbnb may or may not be, why on earth would you be stupid enough to do that? If someone "random" asked to borrow your car for one night, would you let them? Would you let them if it was a sportscar? But you'll let them do it with a house worth what? 10 times as much?
20-something pays a minimal fee to use your house for one night over New Year's... bad enough. With a single review? Just what the hell were you thinking?
This is nothing to do with Airbnb per se, it's just bog-standard stupidity. And I bet it's not covered under any of your home insurance policies - for good reason. Airbnb probably aren't even obliged to do anything either... they just choose to do so to as a goodwill gesture to limit the bad press.
Honestly, some people are so stupid it defies belief.
The whole idea of Airbnb is a stupid concept in the first place, though I'm sure profitable when it does work. When it goes wrong, seriously, what did you expect?
If nothing else, a ten second Google will show you things like people Airbnb'ing and turning places into brothels and drug-dens, by comparison a party is the low-end of the scale. Not to mention that they have access to your address for the period of time they are Airbnb'ing... they could be doing all sorts with that kind of access - I could destroy your credit rating in a week in my country by getting access to things addressed to me at your mail address.
I wouldn't even trust a 20-something who might be my own son to have a place "just for New Year's" without making sure they couldn't have a party without my knowledge. Let alone a random stranger.
You learned a lesson that most people never have to learn because they're just not that thick.
Either rent out your place, with a full rental agreement, deposit, month's-rent-in-advance, insurance and all the legal trimmings that come with that, or don't. Short-term rental based on an app EULA is the most ridiculous thing ever and you only need one bad incident to wipe out an entire lifetime's profit doing it.
I disagree. These sorts of people have always been around. The difference is that back in the day, the level of reporting was much lower so you probably never heard about it. I suspect that the old "boys will be boys" mentality probably resulted in more people looking the other way, too.
Our history is defined by people being assholes. There are just more cameras around to catch it now.
Though I agree in principle, there are a reason for (most) such rules.
Your park one - the alternative is that even when you provide tons of homeless shelters at great expense, people still seek places away from authority. Fuck using a bathroom in a park late at night on my own when it's being used by homeless and those thrown out of the shelters.
Most countries have "the pedestrian has right-of-way" because pedestrians can't avoid a 60mph car, but a 60mph car can avoid a pedestrian. Daylight savings - agree, it's a nonsense. New Year's - no idea if that's the rule but if so it seems likely there's a reason for that. Catering bathrooms for 1,000,000 people on a one-off event is a big deal. Try it. Honestly. It's hard even for 1000 people, especially if there's an "event" where they all want the bathroom at the same time - seriously, marshal even a small-town event and see what happens. Just handling 1,000,000 people ANYWHERE doing ANYTHING is a nightmare. That's why there are rules about how and when that number of people can meet and organise such events.
It's nothing to do with people wanting to make up stupid rules. It's to do with people all wanting to do something "quite simple" for themselves, that actually has a huge number of serious knock-on consequences that they never have to consider, and they care only about the self.
He declares bankruptcy, because few people could ever be able to afford anything even approaching that over their lifetime, and then you lose it all anyway. And you can't seek any further remedy as you already have your "win" in court.
Agree that you should charge the perpetrator and seek further action against them, but he took Airbnb's offer so that's a no-go.
Public liability insurance exists because no one person could ever operate under such a system of fines. But neither the guy who rented, or the one renting out, had that, it seems. Airbnb's insurance no doubt paid out, but only on private terms outside of court.
the gig economy is making poor and even middle class people do things they would not normally do. the fact that uber/etc make you use your own car, your own insurance and you are NOT using commercial type, but personal type, which limits what you are supposed to be able to do or claim.
the gig econ puts the cost of business on YOU. the risk on YOU.
this is fucked up. but, well, the top percent that own everything are laughing so hard at us all, just trying to make ends meet.
when do the pitchforks and fires come out, again? we're getting to that point. the gig econ is just a stepping stone to that, no doubt about it.
--
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Your mistake is thinking humans are rational actors.
You don't need to do a pre-auth, just a credit check. Hotels will sue you for damage and will win in court. AirBnB is typically an illegal house rental, not a hotel stay, to begin with and kind of falls under "you should've gotten a bigger security payment".
I used to live near the ocean which is a big tourist place in summer, people would rent out rooms or houses for thousands of dollars per month and security payments for twice or three times as much, they would have shitty couches and furniture and keep it pretty barebones all summer long. Shit got damaged, you'd end up making a profit.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I've got an apartment in Flemington (Melbourne) as well as one in Elizabeth Bay (Sydney), so when I'm in Melbourne, I'm in African immigrant central. There's almost no trouble here. In fact, most of the trouble involving Africans is vandalism targeting businesses owned by Africans in the main street. A few years back, they had to sack most of the local cops because they were targeting African kids for no reason. The trouble is, when you have to cops unfairly targeting a group, they'll think, "Well, I get treated like a criminal even when I'm clean - I may as well just be a criminal."
If you haven't noticed that every group of immigrants in Australia is racist to the next group, you've had your eyes shut. The western Europeans/Brits hated the Greek and Italian "wogs", then the "wogs" hated the Chinese/Vietnamese, and the Chinese/Vietnamese feel entitled to hate the Indians and Africans.
Now there have been issues with groups, but you get that with kids that grew up in a war zone - they're going to have trouble adjusting to a "normal" society. Do you remember the 4T gang in western Sydney? They'd shoot people for looking at their girlfriends wrong. They imploded when their charismatic leader was killed. But what would've happened if instead of targeting the problematic behaviour, we'd alienated the entire Vietnamese community? We'd have a permanent underclass at odds with the rest of society. What about the MERCS (middle-eastern raping cunts)? Do you remember the outrage over that? When the other Lebanese people found out who was responsible for this, they started sending death threats to their parents, like, "Your fucking kids are giving the entire Lebanese community a bad name! We're gonna kill you!" But it was the same thing - kids from a war zone not knowing any different.
Wait a decade or so, and Sudanese will be the same - the Sudanese community will be an integral part of Australia's multicultural society, everyone will look back on the initial issues through the lens of hindsight, and they'll join in with everyone else in hating on whoever the latest round of refugees or economic migrants are.