If there is one thing that the members and managers of owners corps both love and loathe in almost equal measure, it’s Airbnb
Many of us love the online accommodation agency because, for those of us with the “lock up and leave” travel bug, Airbnb means we can holiday more cheaply in different cities and countries and meet real people who live there (rather than hotel concierges, waiters and tour guides).
And if you live in a small apartment, you can have friends and relatives come to stay close by – maybe even in the same building – without having to buy or rent a larger unit.
What’s not to love? (See ‘Wreckers smash hole in short-term let insurance‘)
Well, like every hugely popular service fulfilling a need we never knew we had, Airbnb is wide open for exploitation. In their case it’s the “me first” people for whom apartment by-laws are options never to be addressed, let alone, heaven forbid, followed.
There is a big difference between renting a room in your home while you are there and letting your whole empty apartment for inflated prices – especially in a building that forbids short-term lets.
But it seems profit making is the only justification some people need, allied to logic that goes something like – “I can do this and get away with it, therefore it’s OK, because if it wasn’t OK, someone would stop me.”
And that is where ordinary apartment residents can turn from lovers to loathers of Airbnb in an instant. Why do we pick on Airbnb when there are other avenues like Gumtree and Stayz? Because it’s so damned successful, that’s why.
If the apartment next to yours effectively becomes a hotel room, occupied by a succession of families or social groups in party, holiday, bucks night or footy finals mode, you’d be surprised at how soon your social media-inspired cool becomes an antisocial moron-inflamed rage.
It’s not just owners who are affected. You pay your rent to live in a nice quiet building, you don’t want to see the apartment upstairs advertised for weekend of fun and games. And every entire flat – or, indeed, house – that goes on the short-term letting list is another hole in the residential rentals tank.
Now this is not Airbnb’s fault, but it has to be said, they go to such lengths to absolve themselves of any blame for the behavior of their hosts that you have to wonder, do they take responsibility for anything at all.
There is no contract between them and the host, they insist, or them and the guests. Just an exchange of information, somewhere up in the cloud … oh, and cash, an awful lot of which lands in Airbnb coffers.
Meanwhile, the “me firsts” have leapt on this opportunity to ignore by-laws and council regulations, all part of that 21st Century delusion that, like sexism, religious bigotry, racism, bullying, defamation and porn, if it’s on the internet the normal rules of civilized society don’t apply. Except they do …
When it comes to illegal short-term lets – the blight of many inner-city apartment blocks – Airbnb advise their hosts to check local laws and ask them to tick a box acknowledging that they have understood their responsibilities. The same goes for tenants who sub-let. Tick the box and everything is OK
After that, they don’t want to know. Literally.
If you send airbnb an email saying your neighbours are listing their flat on their website and your building is residential only and here are the by-laws and local council zoning to prove it, all they will do is offer to pass the complaint on to the neighbour for them to do with it as they please.
In other words, they will dob in the dobber – but you can always decline the offer to be outed.
Airbnb are quite categorical that they don’t police their members, and while making people responsible for their own behavior, their attitude has a whiff of what a 19th century British politician, criticising journalists, called the “prerogative of the harlot” – power without responsibility.
You can’t make someone who sells cars responsible for bad driving … unless, perhaps, the brakes don’t work. And that is the problem with this wonderful way of bringing people together. There are no brakes.