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What Airbnb, VRBO & vacation rentals don’t tell you

Why try ethical short- & long-term rental sites, petitions, where to share your story, what to do personally & politically about illegal Airbnbs & gentrification

It Might Happen To You
38 min readOct 2, 2016

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Updated March 5, 2023

See why Airbnb (and other vacation rental websites) suck for everyone but themselves. Data below shows they suck for residents, tourists, businesses, hosts, homeowners, and especially long-term tenants. For example, see surprising reasons why:

See our tips at the end of this post, such as:

  • Safer, cheaper, more ethical short- and long-term rental sites
  • What to do if you’re a neighbor, tourist discriminated against, long-term tenant harassed or evicted so landlords profit more on sites like Airbnb.
  • Join global coalitions of long-term tenants, landlords, unions, housing advocates and elected officials (e.g., US
    Senator Dianne Feinstein
    ,
    Elizabeth Warren
    ), and Credo.
  • Where to share your story. We might have created the world’s only list of groups fighting for #HomesNotHotels.
  • Gentrification solutions. They exist!

We created this post because we couldn’t find all problems and solutions in one place.

Table of contents

  1. Airbnb & VRBO delete bad reviews. Hope you like bedbugs!
  2. Airbnb’s policy allows hosts to use fake, multiple identities, falsely represent their home and delete messages from guests asking Airbnb for help.
  3. 1 in 5 hosts canceled last minute or never turned up, 25+% reported unsafe conditions, 1 in 6 said host demanded extra cash when they arrive.
  4. People found hidden cameras in vacation rentals (legal)
  5. Surprise! Vacation rentals promote greed, you can’t trust anyone who has access to your unit: Airbnb allows felons and sex offenders to host and rent; criminals use Airbnb to drop off drugs like meth; woman found male tourist in her bed because Airbnb let housemate secretly host and all risk eviction; tourists kicked out because of illegal rentals; tenants hosting Airbnbs evicted, homeless because blacklisted; housesitter illegally hosts, police can’t help.
  6. Vacation rentals don’t report deaths or rapes or require smoke alarms, etc. Hotels do.
  7. Tourists discriminated, rejected, kicked out, get hate mail. Hotels aren’t allowed to discriminate. Airbnb won’t stop discrimination.
  8. Tourists can’t get money back from Airbnb scams
  9. Airbnb’s insurance does not cover all tourist & host property
  10. Vacation rentals are ruining your chance to stay safely in your home, or rent or buy a home to live in: landlords & master tenants rent to tourists instead of long-term tenants; landlords evict to profit more on sites like Airbnb; bans & fines don’t stop illegal rentals because sites like Airbnb can (but won’t) enforce; it’s hard to stop vacation rentals from bringing bedbugs, crime, parties; when Airbnb goes public (2019), their staff will be millionaires that’ll buy what’s left of housing and increase prices; even Airbnb staff don’t follow the law, take homes from residents for tourists
  11. Vacation rentals cost local businesses & public services
  12. Airbnb didn’t pay taxes for years, isn’t paying verifiable taxes, yet pays $100k/month for Kim Kardashian to rent on Airbnb: why governments lose money on Airbnb hotel tax deals; what happened in SF might happen in your town.
  13. Airbnb buys politicians, sues cities for laws it wrote that are unenforceable
  14. Why your town might need to preserve housing, not just build
  15. Why your rent is so damn high: rent increased 20% higher than the citywide average in top Airbnb neighborhoods; rent control is your friend; Airbnb is incentivizing small and large landlords to break laws and profit more by hosting tourists.
  16. What you can do:

#GlobalGentrification solutions

Like our tips? Want to know when we update this?

Airbnb & VRBO delete bad reviews. Hope you like bedbugs!

A VRBO host cancelled an hour before tourists arrived, and they weren’t allowed to write a review.

If you rent an Airbnb that has bedbugs or another problem:

  • The host is not required to refund you.
  • If the host refunds you, your reservation shows up as canceled — meaning you cannot write a review. This is also true if you use VRBO.

In 2018, Airbnb still kept deleting bad reviews.

Also, tourists have an incentive to write good reviews because hosts don’t pick tourists that leave negative reviews. A reporter found that:

  • Airbnb removes negative reviews. Airbnb only makes money when tourists book.
  • Boston University researchers found that hosts receive an average rating of 4.5 or 5 stars (the maximum); virtually none have less than 3.5 stars. It’s unfortunate because 3 and 4-star reviews are often the most objective.

Airbnb’s policy allows hosts to use fake, multiple identities, falsely represent their home and delete messages from guests asking Airbnb for help.

A fake person named “Nadia” used a stock photo and simultaneously hosted 575 Airbnb units in pricey cities across the USA, despite laws saying One Host, One Home.

1 in 5 hosts canceled last minute or never turned up, 25+% reported unsafe conditions, 1 in 6 said host demanded extra cash when they arrived

For instance, after Sonia of Sonar Travel booked an Airbnb, the host said the rent would be three times more. Sonia had to find a way to cancel, get her money back and find lodging during her destination’s busiest weekends.

People found hidden cameras in vacation rentals (legal)

All these people hidden cameras. A couple found a secret camera in the smoke detector that recorded them naked. Another woman found one inside her Airbnb and feared that nude footage of her and private conversations may end up online. One couple also found three hidden cameras in their Airbnb, one facing the bed.

Homeowners have a right to videotape their homes: In many states, if a homeowner takes payment from guests, their home ceases to be considered a private residence under the eyes of the law. This is what protects tenants from having their actions recorded by landlords. But for that to apply to Airbnb hosts, Airbnb would have to admit that hosts are running commercial enterprises which would ruin their multi-million dollar campaign to insist that’s not the case.

Surprise! Vacation rentals promote greed, you can’t trust anyone who has access to your unit

Airbnb allows felons & sex offenders to host & rent

We have nothing against people who are trying to turn their lives around. But it’s unsafe to not disclose safety information to users. See a video of assaults and shootings at Airbnbs in the US.

Airbnb doesn’t require any ID other than an email address and phone number. They don’t even require real names or photos.

Criminals use Airbnb to drop off drugs like meth

That’s what defense attorney Michael Green says.

Woman found male tourist in her bed: Airbnb lets housemate secretly host, all risk eviction

Cori Carl
found a male stranger in her bed that way. Airbnb couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t happen again. So she had two options:

  • Ask a judge for an emergency restraining order or check Airbnb every day while she was out of town.
  • Guess when her roommates hosted her room, and ask the police to remove any tourists.

As long as her room was on Airbnb, her condo board could sue her and evict all of them — and her insurance company could cancel her policy.

Tourists kicked out because of illegal rentals

Tourists in Vancouver were locked out, unable to get their passports and belongings. Since then, they use hotels instead of Airbnb.

Tourists in Singapore were visited by police and kicked out because rentals were illegal.

A tourist in Berlin was kicked out because he didn’t know he was renting from someone pretending to be the owner.

Tenants hosting Airbnbs evicted, homeless because blacklisted

Landlords evict long-term tenants because leases generally ban subletting on sites like Airbnb. For instance, a man turned Ari Teman’s Airbnb into a paid orgy.

Ari Teman
was evicted, and became homeless because no other landlord would rent to him.

Housesitter illegally hosts, police can’t help

John and Ed paid TrustedHousesitters.com to care for their home. But the housesitter hosted their home on Airbnb. Police were unable to help because John and Ed had willingly handed over their keys.

Vacation rentals don’t report deaths or rapes or require smoke alarms, etc. Hotels do.

Tourists killed

A woman died when her Airbnb filled with carbon monoxide in 2013 but Airbnb still doesn’t require carbon monoxide detectors.

Airbnb won’t meet basic safety requirements that hotels do. Zak Stone’s dad tried a rope swing on a tree. The tree was dead for two years and fell on him, killing his dad.

Sites like Airbnb don’t require their rentals to be like legal hotels. Legal hotels must:

  • Have functioning carbon monoxide and smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, and fire escape routes.
  • Report deaths.

Tourists raped

An Airbnb host in Madrid sexually assaulted a 19-year-old male tourist. The teen called his mom who called Airbnb. Hotels have protocol to call the police and give them the address. But Airbnb staff would not call the police. Instead, they gave her the Madrid police phone number and told her to ask them to call Airbnb for the address. But the number led to a recording in Spanish that kept disconnecting her. When she repeatedly called back Airbnb, her calls went straight to voicemail.

Other Airbnb tourists were also raped.

Tourists discriminated, then rejected, kicked out, get hate mail. Hotels aren’t allowed to discriminate.

Tourists rejected, kicked out, get hate mail

#AirbnbWhileAsian. It’s a thing! Dyne Suh’s Airbnb host canceled during a snowstorm when she was three minutes away and sent her these racist messages:

Then Dyne booked a different place with her white friend’s account.

#AirbnbWhileBlack is about black people like:

An Airbnb host kicked out a gay couple. Another Airbnb host canceled on a gay man and wrote to him, “NO LGBT people, please, I do not support people who are against humanity.”

Hollywood producer

Shadi Petosky
says she complained privately to Airbnb that she was turned away by a host who felt “uncomfortable” that she was transgender. Had Shadi not disclosed she was trans, she would have been “dishonest.” Airbnb later promoted that host to “super host.”

Airbnb won’t stop discrimination

Many tourists were discriminated against on Airbnb because they do not comply with the USA Civil Rights Act which outlaws discrimination in public places like hotels.

Airbnb requires users to waive rights to sue Airbnb in class-action lawsuits, “making it near-impossible” to prove discrimination. Airbnb’s anti-discrimination policy doesn’t have teeth. They only created the policy after getting media attention in 2016.

Harvard researchers:

Airbnb’s Instant Book feature is underused and allows users to cancel bookings after seeing a guest’s profile.

According to the NY Times:

  • The biases of hosts can be cloaked — for example, one Airbnb listing in Washington states “we cannot accept guests arriving in D.C. by bus or motor coach,” without mentioning race, class or ethnicity — and may be difficult to eradicate.
  • Airbnb isn’t saying that it will consistently ban hosts for discrimination. So it’s unclear whether this policy will be enough to deter bad behavior.
  • Airbnb said they would de-emphasized profile photos but did not provide specifics. Photos are an invitation to discriminate.

Tourists can’t get money back from Airbnb scams

Americans lost over a billion dollars in 15 million scam vocational rentals reservations in 2015.

The most common fraud includes Airbnb rentals without the owner’s knowledge:

  • Jan Jones began to worry when the “host” asked her to pay £4,552 upfront. “But we were advised by Airbnb to go ahead and pay in full, I got an email from Airbnb with the official logo advising me that the booking was confirmed and how to pay.
  • Jessica Adams lost £670 to an Airbnb verified host who ran off with her money.

Airbnb’s insurance does not cover all tourist & host property

Medina Eve
barely escaped an Airbnb that burned to the ground. If it wasn’t for her partner who slept restlessly and smelled smoke, they could have died. She now has a policy of writing negative reviews when she has a bad or unsafe experience so she can protect future tourists.

She learned the hard way that Airbnb’s insurance doesn’t cover properties that aren’t insured (often quirky homes). Airbnb’s “every booking, every time” insurance only applies if the property is already insured. If the damage exceeds the amount that the existing property insurance affords, only then could the renter dip into Airbnb’s coverage. As a tourist, you can’t tell which properties are insured.

A meth addict trashed Troy Dayton’s home and stole his birth certificate. His request to Airbnb to have his birth certificate replaced and the damages covered was ignored.

In an affluent Ohio suburb, a host had no recourse with Airbnb when extra guests threw a sex party and left a urine-soaked bath mat, vomit and used condoms.

This funny video shows how Airbnb didn’t pay for $10,000 in damages when a tourist caused a toilet to clog and leak. A long-term tenant would be less likely to do that because unlike a tourist, a tenant has to live with a clogged toilet.

Vacation rentals are ruining your chance to stay safely in your home, or rent or buy a home to live in

Each room or home that’s a vacation rental is one that:

· Is not available for you to rent long-term or buy.

· Makes neighborhoods less safe.

In 2017, studies found that spikes in Airbnb listings were strongly linked to rent increases in some of the largest US metro areas. It shows @Airbnb increases rent by taking housing units off the market.

In 2016, Dutch bank ING stated in a report that Airbnb drives up housing prices: people will pay more for a home to profit from hosting tourists.

See this short, funny video by Adam Ruins Everything on how Airbnb is used heavily by shady characters to run illegal hotel chains, which drive up rents and take away housing from residents. Airbnb is the only one that can stop them.

Watch this longer, funny video by Cracked:

For example, it cites that:

  • Even in small towns like Marfa, TX, Airbnbs doubled housing prices for residents.
  • To fix the problem Airbnb created, the only way to afford your home is to rent it to tourists.

Airbnb is even creating a housing crisis in the Isle of Skye (wherever that is :):

  • There’s one Airbnb for every 8 homes
  • 300+ households need housing
  • 63 households homeless
  • Even the island’s firefighter has no home

640,000 hosts have 2 million Airbnb units in 191 countries and 65,000 cities (2016). Airbnb grew to 3 million units in 2017.

Airbnb tells hosts to disregard laws preserving homes for residents not tourists. Some hosts are like ghosts. There is no way to prove if hosts actually live where they rent on Airbnb for at least a 270 days a year, as required by laws like San Francisco’s. If they don’t live there, they’re not sharing. If hosts really need income, they can charge market rate rent from a long-term tenant (e.g., median rent for a 1-bed in SF is $3,800/month).

Global hosts are not sharing:

  • 63% of Airbnbs worldwide and in the U.S. are entire homes (not rooms).
  • 78% of Airbnbs were available for rent or rented for over 180 days.

According to a 2016 Penn State Report, in 12 of the largest U.S. cities:

  • Landlords with two or more rentals generated nearly 40% of the revenue.
  • About 30% of Airbnb hosts rent more than 360 days a year.

Some people make millions a year hosting up to 1,000 homes. Some property management companies host as many as 1,000 listings. As of 2017, 35% of Airbnb hosts are management companies. And that number is growing.

Number of Airbnbs by U.S. city:

Landlords & master tenants rent to tourists instead of long-term tenants

More vacation rentals means fewer rentals and sky-high rent for residents.

Almost everywhere, Airbnb will probably get you evicted, priced out and ruin your life. Landlords and master tenants are not renting to long-term tenants because they can profit more hosting tourists for as low as 18 days a year. Some even advertise rentals as Airbnb cash cows.

If Airbnb didn’t exist, rentals available to long-term tenants would increase 4.8 times in Vancouver.

NY Assemblymember Liz Krueger said Airbnb is taking apartments off the market, increasing rent, shrinking supply, and causing landlords to harass long-term tenants so they will move.

San Francisco homeowners we know built illegal in-law apartments just to rent on Airbnb instead of renting to long-term tenants during a housing crisis. These owners registered with the City to host those illegal in-law units 365 days a year on Airbnb. But the City doesn’t know because each owner’s separate units are at the same address and seem like they’re part of one home. See solutions at the end of this post.

Landlords evict to profit more on sites like Airbnb

Because of Airbnb, tenants in Australia, Portugal, Ireland, USA (Los Angeles, Venice and Silver Lake) were evicted, and SF tenants in:

One SF tenant lawyer gets 60 calls a week, many from people being illegally displaced so landlords can rent on Airbnb.

Tenants in Boston were forced out after a 40% rent increase. Then they saw their home on Airbnb. Landlords also evicted tenants in Israel so they can profit more on Airbnb.

Bans & fines don’t stop illegal rentals because sites like Airbnb can (but won’t) enforce

A Manhattan couple is suing their landlord for turning their building into an unsafe illegal hotel despite fines from the city totaling $8,800.

A ban and fines on illegal hotels in West Hollywood didn’t slow the tide of Airbnb tourists.

In Vancouver, here’s just one example of how one host has 13 listings but the city won’t enforce the law.

In San Francisco, Airbnb can but won’t see if their rentals are legal.

It’s hard to stop vacation rentals from bringing bedbugs, crime, parties

Here are just a few examples:

SF’s Planning Department has a backlog of 1,200 complaints of vacation rentals.

When Airbnb goes public (2019), their staff will be millionaires that’ll buy what’s left of housing & increase prices

When companies go public by selling their shares in the stock market, many of their staff become millionaires and buy homes and increase home prices.

Even Airbnb staff don’t follow the law, take homes from residents for tourists

Rebecca Rosenfelt bought homes just to host on Airbnb. She is hosting six homes that could’ve been homes for residents to rent long-term or buy.

Vacation rentals cost local businesses & public services

Wealthy white people who own second homes benefit the most from Airbnb.

When tourists stay in vacation rentals, they often don’t dine out because they have kitchens.

Airbnb also hurts local hotels and hotel workers.

The SF Controller stated on a net basis, a housing unit withdrawn from the market for short-term rentals produces a negative impact on the city, even if the unit generates host income, visitor spending and hotel tax every day of the year. And this is true:

Airbnb didn’t pay taxes for years, isn’t paying verifiable taxes, yet pays $100k/month for Kim Kardashian to rent on Airbnb

There are 60 illegal vacation rental sites like Airbnb (e.g., HomeAway, Flipkey, VRBO). Airbnb has the most users. Cities are asking those websites to do what hotels do: pay hotel taxes on based on the verifiable number of nights rented. Since sites like Airbnb won’t provide that data, it’s not possible to quantify the correct taxes they should pay. So there’s no way to check that Airbnb paid the right tax.

Why governments lose money on Airbnb hotel tax deals

Airbnb is in 65,000 cities but only pays hotel taxes in cities in 18 US states. The real reason they want to be taxed is so governments will allow Airbnbs even though in cities like NYC, Airbnb took 13,000 homes from tenants for tourists and governments lose money on Airbnb hotel taxes: Those tax agreements allow governments to audit only once every four years. But they limit Airbnb liability to single, continuous 12-month period.

What happened in SF might happen in your town

2008–2014: Airbnb didn’t pay the hotel tax they collected from users.

Oct. 2015: Airbnb posted ads telling the government to keep the library open longer with the taxes they claim they paid. Later a librarian did the math and tweeted that Airbnb’s taxes won’t keep a library open a minute later:

Nov. 2015:

88,945 SF voters, Airbnb hosts, 47 organizations (tenants, landlords, unions, nonprofits), a gazillion elected officials and the SF Green Party, SF Bay Guardian and SF Examiner papers supported Prop F to have Airbnb play fair and:

  • Remove illegal rentals from their site (e.g., hosts renting one or more units when they don’t live there).
  • Report verifiable nights rented.

Prop F lost because Airbnb spent $8 million fighting it.

Also, Airbnb couldn’t verify that they paid $25M in back taxes.

2016: Airbnb evades paying taxes worldwide and is still stealing affordable housing. Yet Airbnb gifted Kim Kardashian and Kanye West a $100k/month stay. They’re robbing from the poor to give to the rich.

Airbnb buys politicians, sues cities for laws it wrote that are unenforceable

Laws Airbnb wrote worldwide are not enforceable because sites like Airbnb will not stop posting illegal rentals. For example, it’s not enforceable in LA. Even where cities have a “one host, one rental rule,” one can host multiple Airbnbs by registering each one under a friend or family member. Also, hosts use an array of tactics to outwit investigators, including deleting illegal listings during City Hall business hours and manipulating addresses to appear to be in other cities.

Here’s a funny but true story of what happened in SF that’s also happening globally.

Tis I, Ron Conway, I’ve come to take your home. Don’t cry or it’ll wake my pet, SF Mayor Ed Lee, whom I fed $600,000 to obey me. Mayor Lee refused to have Airbnb comply with laws everyone else has to comply with, costing the city millions of dollars and helping exacerbate the city’s housing and eviction crisis. Yay!

I am one of Mayor Lee’s closest advisors. I helped pass a law to lower business taxes for tech companies that I invest in like Airbnb, Twitter, Square and Pinterest. Oh, and I’m Republican. You might have seen me at a fundraiser for Jeb Bush. I also gave $50,000 to George W. Bush.

Now that you and I’ve gotten to know each other, my pet Mayor Lee and I will have the privilege of taking your home.

In 2014, Airbnb met with SF politician David Chiu 60 times and gave him $600,000. Chiu fast-tracked the Airbnb law that is not enforceable.

In 2015, I gave SF politician Julie Christensen $28,500. Then she voted to allow each host to host vacation rentals 365 days a year. That means you can’t rent them long-term or buy them!

In 2016, some politicians got thousands of dollars from Airbnb, and then voted for Airbnb to not delist thousands of illegal SF rentals. Also, I was tickled pink when Airbnb sued San Francisco, Santa Monica, and Anaheim for trying to enforce unenforceable laws. Anaheim, home to Disneyland, dropped its effort to regulate Airbnb right after it was sued by Airbnb. After Airbnb sued SF, the city softened the ordinance.

Even Mayor Rahm Emmanuel said Airbnb negotiated with Chicago so aggressively, he threatened to call off talks.

Why your town might need to preserve housing, not just build

Your town needs to preserve existing housing instead of turning them into vacation rentals.

In the USA, high-end apartments are 87% of rentals built in 2018. Most people can’t afford them. And especially not when landlords can raise their rent whenever to any rate because most places don’t have rent control.

Why your rent is so damn high

Rent increased 20% higher than the citywide average in top Airbnb neighborhoods.

A 2017 UCLA study of rents and home prices in the 100 largest U.S. metro areas between 2012 and 2016 reported that:

  • 39% of renters pay more than 30% income as Airbnb strips markets of long-term housing.
  • One in 13 potentially available homes are placed on Airbnb instead of being offered as a long-term rental.
  • Policies should try to stop the conversion of properties from long-term rental units to short-term rental units.

A 2016 analysis by Zumper:

  • Isolated venture capital as having the most direct effect on rising rents in the Bay Area.
  • Found venture capital flooded Airbnb’s and Uber’s headquarters in SF. So landlords try to profit more by evicting tenants and gouging rent because of the influx of wealthier people. This bears no relation to rent control.

In some towns, one in three homes are Airbnbs.

Rent control is your friend

Don’t want your favorite local businesses to close because of rent hikes? Don’t want landlords to raise rents whenever and evict to profit more on vacation rentals? Then share these facts from CA’s 2018 Prop 10 on how landlords and tenants vote yes to let cities solve their housing crisis and stop your rent from getting so damn high:

In order for you to save for retirement, college and necessities, you need to spend no more than 30% of your income on rent.

Scroll for links on this summary of why #YesOnProp10:

Building more alone did not make homes cost less.

Sad things happened when rent control was removed).

The legal text of Prop 10 doesn’t impose any form of rent control anywhere. It allows cities to decide how to solve their housing crisis.

Rent control still allows landlords to profit and evict to move themselves or family in, for example. But Prop 10 is the best solution to what we have: landlords can raise the rent as high as they want and evict for any reason, even if you complain about things like leaks.

Our landlord bought a rent-controlled, SF Mission District two unit building for about $275,000 in the 1990s. Rent from our unit over the years paid off the mortgage in only 12 years. The rent we paid after 12 years is all profit for this landlord minus low property taxes, thanks to 1979’s Prop 13. Today, this landlord would profit about $3 million if the building gets sold because Zillow estimates the building is worth over $3 million. Yet this landlord tried multiple times to evict us to profit more to host our home on Airbnb. If we had to move, Prop 10 might allow us to find rent that doesn’t cost the market rate SF median rent for a 1-bed home ($3,800/month).

Why building more did not make homes cost less:

In the USA, high-end apartments are 87% of rentals built in 2018. In CA, homes and condos built after 1979 are often unaffordable and their landlords can raise the rent to whatever, whenever because they’re not allowed to be rent-controlled!

48 Hills reports:

  • A study by the US Federal Reserve Board said the private market isn’t going to solve this problem.
  • The director of NYC’s Planning Department said the city kept building housing, and prices didn’t come down.

Rent control has no impact on the:

  • Construction of new housing.
  • Quality of housing available. It allows landlords to charge tenants a percentage of operating and maintenance costs and for capital improvements.

A New Republic article cites that:

  • Of all of the cities that have tried to create rent control legislation in the past few years, none have proposed extending rent control to include new construction. Even officials in Berkeley — who have been some of the strongest proponents of rent control — have proposed transitioning apartments into rent control on a rolling basis, exempting newly constructed buildings for 20 years. And, a report published out of University of Southern California shows that cities with rent stabilization ordinances for existing units have seen no decline in new construction.
  • A 2017 poll by the University of California, Berkeley, found that 60% of likely voters in CA support rent control. In Oregon, a research firm in 2018 found that nearly two-thirds of those surveyed support expanding rent regulations.
  • SF tenants in rent controlled buildings are between 10–20% more likely to have remained in the same apartment since 1994 and that “absent rent control essentially all of those incentivized to stay in their apartments would have otherwise moved out of San Francisco.”

And in SF:

Sad things happened when rent control was removed in:

  • Cambridge, MA. The Economist reported rents increased by 50% and home prices did not decrease.
  • Boston, MA. There was not a measurable effect on housing availability, and the median price for a 2-bed unit doubled.

More ways housing stability via Prop 10 can help according to the SF League of Pissed Off Voters:

  • It could let cities decide to create “vacancy control” to limit how much landlords can raise the rent when tenants move out.
  • It could limit rent increases when master tenants leave. So scummy landlords can’t jack up the rent when a renter dies and their surviving spouse isn’t on the lease! Yeah, they do that. ☹️
  • A recent USC study shows how housing stability promotes physical, social, and psychological wellness, as well as educational attainment for students.

Join landlords like SF Supervisor Aaron Peskin and SPORC, the SF Bay Guardian paper, SF Tenants Union, Sierra Club, League of Women Voters, SF League of Pissed Off Voters, and SF Green Party and please vote YES on Prop 10!

But Airbnb is incentivizing small and large landlords to break laws and profit more by hosting tourists.

In 2016, Airbnb announced its Friendly Buildings Program. Airbnb targeted landlords like Equity Residential, which owns 80,000 rentals in the USA. Those landlords are incentivized to raise rents by telling tenants to make that money back on Airbnb.

But many tenants wouldn’t want to host strangers on Airbnb. And their neighbors wouldn’t want that either.

What you can do

If you experience problems as a tourist, host, or neighbor, try the following before contacting sites like Airbnb. Why? In stories we cited throughout this post, Airbnb only addresses people’s concerns partially, and only after getting media attention.

Join lawmakers & sign petitions

  1. Sign this
    CREDO
    petition to join US Senators Dianne Feinstein, Elizabeth Warren, and Brian Schatz in asking the Federal Trade Commission to see how many U.S. Airbnb rentals are taking homes from residents for tourists.
  2. Stop serial evictors like Airbnb from buying your politicians. Sign a Credo petition to pass law to end anonymous corporations used by the super-rich to donate millions in untraceable money to sway our elections via super political action committees (superPACs) and independent expenditures (IE). The U.S. is one of the easiest and most popular places to set up anonymous companies, which fuel crime, terrorism, and tax evasion. Anyone can set up a shell corporation in the U.S. without disclosing its true owners.

Safer, ethical, non-discriminatory legal short-term rentals for all budgets

Have to stay in vacation rentals? Here’s how to avoid 12+% guest fees on sites like Airbnb (and not take homes from residents)

Rent what someone wouldn’t rent long-term or buy (e.g., glamping/rustic treehouse/yurt/dome). Save money and pay via credit cards instead of paying sites like Airbnb. Credit cards protect you from fraud.

Legal vacation rentals often have their own website. So here’s how to book them outside of sites like Airbnb.

  1. Right-click an image of the rental in which you want to stay.
  2. In a new browser window, open Google Image Search and click the camera icon.
  3. Drag photos of the rental, type “-Airbnb –VRBO –HomeAway –Flipkey –Roomorama” and click “search.”
  4. If search results show you other websites for the rental, ask the host via those sites if you can rent their unit without using Airbnb. We know tourists that saved hundreds of dollars renting without sites like Airbnb. They gave hosts links to their LinkedIn and other social media profiles. Hosts were very understanding.

Still plan to pay via unethical sites like Airbnb? Here’s how to protect yourself

When you try to book, ask the host something like:

I’ve had great homestay experiences. But I read that tourists and hosts were:

Evicted or risked arrest and lawsuits for illegal rentals.

Not compensated in the event of damage. Airbnb’s insurance doesn’t cover properties that aren’t insured.

In order to protect you and me, can you email a:

Photo of your business license number with the government website that can verify it?

Confirmation that your homeowner’s insurance covers the place I’d like to rent?

If you’re interested in seeing sources, visit It Might Happen To You on Facebook and Twitter. (Airbnb won’t let users message links).

If you have a bad or unsafe experience, protect future tourists and write a negative review that shows on the rental webpage that other tourists see. If you just write a private message to hosts or Airbnb, other tourists won’t know if the issue was addressed.

If you get hurt at a vacation rental, get a lawyer before you talk to sites like Airbnb. Corporations like Airbnb often contact victims before they get a lawyer to get victims to lowball the price on wrongful death or injury. Sometimes victims settle for too little and sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), along with an admission that the company was not at fault. Then victims can’t speak publicly about what happened.

Get your money back with help from the US FTC.

Where to share your bad vacation rental story

You could put yourself in danger if you talk to the host, tourist or sites like Airbnb. Avoid contacting Airbnb because as we cited in this post, Airbnb does:

Emergency? Call the police instead of Airbnb.

If for instance Airbnb tourists tried to get into the wrong home, call the police. Then sue Airbnb like this woman who was assaulted by an Airbnb SuperHost who had a prior arrest for domestic violence.

For non-emergencies or to anonymously report a nuisance or illegal vacation rental

Do not contact Airbnb. Airbnb forwarded a neighbor’s complaint to the Airbnb host whom confronted the neighbor and her kids.

Sue the short-term rental owner in small claims court. Ask for damages to compensate for your loss of sleep, enjoyment and use of your property. Your detailed log will serve as evidence. The cost is around $50. You and each of your neighbors can file individual suits.

The only way for cities to know the number of complaints is if you contact the rental’s local government:

North America:

Europe:

Since governments often won’t do anything, publicly post on social media addresses of illegal Airbnbs and mention your local government.

If it’s rented for more than the legal limit (e.g., 30 days), or if long-term tenants were evicted there, share monthly screenshots of vacation rental webpages with the rental’s local government and condo association. On Airbnb, you used to be able to click on an Airbnb host and see all their rentals and reviews by month. After Airbnb was criticized for allowing any host to list multiple units all year, the only way to check is to search by an address and take a screenshot of the host’s rental. (Airbnb is getting crafty though: When we search for the illegal Airbnb rental that we’ve been tracking, the Airbnb pointer shows it at a slightly different location.)

Then sue Airbnb. A Vancouver lawyer first tried to fine illegal short-term rental hosts. But though she had photos from illegal Airbnb listings, she couldn’t prove it because Airbnb doesn’t list addresses. So she is preparing a class-action lawsuit against Airbnb on behalf of strata (multi-level apartment) councils across British Columbia.

Don’t forget to share your story with allies below.

Follow, share your story with, get policy support from these allies & lawmakers (not Airbnb)

It’s safer to share negative information about vacation rentals with allies below because Airbnb bullied people critical of Airbnb such as this user. Airbnb suspended a Harvard professor’s account because he studied how black guests face higher rates of rejection than white guests. His wife was also suspended, presumably because they use the same IP address – though she played no role in his research. Customer service ignored his pleas. His account was only reinstated after a journalist asked Airbnb about it.

Also, Airbnb knocks on doors, calls, and emails all tourists and hosts to ask them to lobby lawmakers for Airbnb’s benefit. The only way to get your voice heard is to contact allies below.

Global solutions: Follow us on Twitter (where we post more), or on Facebook. And get our quarterly email. Tell us about allies and articles to share!

Global horror stories: AirbnbHell on Twitter and Facebook

Global lawmaking coalitions, such as your local tenants union and:

CureSTR on Facebook and Twitter

Global data and activist tools: Inside Airbnb

USA:

CA:

DC: ShareBetter DC

FL: AirbnbWatch FL on Facebook and Twitter

HI: Aikea on Facebook and Twitter, ‘A’ole Airbnb on Facebook and Twitter

LA (New Orleans): NOLA Neighbors on Twitter and Facebook

NY:

Share Better
’s online form, or on Twitter and Facebook

TN: Nashville Neighbors on Twitter and Nashville Resist on Twitter

TX:

Canada:

Asia:

Australia:

Europe:

What to do if Airbnb hosts reject you or discriminate

In many parts of the world, it is illegal to refuse services to anyone.

  1. If a host discriminated, take screenshots and/or videos.
  2. Share it with the media and ShareBetter.
  3. Talk to lawyers like Emejuru and Nyombi whom filed a class action lawsuit against Airbnb.
  4. File a complaint with the local, state and national government where the rental is located. In the USA, contact the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, state fair housing agency, state attorney general, and local human rights agency. In Canada, file complaints with the provincial human rights commission.

How to ensure your homeowners association bans vacation rentals

Cities, residents, landlords use these companies to find illegal vacation rentals:

Copy these policies to preserve homes for residents not tourists

Create a Twitter and Facebook account. In your name, profile and posts, put this hashtag so allies can find you: #HomesNotHotels. Share these tips with government officials. Tips at the top will prevent a housing crisis more.

  1. Share this post with your federal and state elected officials, and local electeds. And share this tweet and Facebook post and tag your officials.
  2. It’s not possible for cities to know how many homes are taken for tourists on 60 sites advertising short-term rentals (e.g., Airbnb, HomeAway, Flipkey). State and federal governments need to regulate these websites, just like they created rules for hotels.
  3. Instead of having cities and residents find one illegal host at a time, fine Airbnb (and other vacation rental platforms) for posting illegal rentals. Barcelona is fining Airbnb and HomeAway €600,000 each. San Francisco fines companies $1,000 a day for every unregistered host on their websites. Don’t sell out like Vancouver did.
  4. Cities like Palma, Spain are the first to only allow owners of detached homes to host tourists. Anyone offering a short-term rental in an apartment building risks a fine of as much as 40,000 euros.
  5. Cities need to limit the number of short-term rental units. In 2017, Barcelona stopped issuing licenses and will not renew many existing licenses in the most heavily touristed areas. Barcelona still has 9,600 licensed vacation rentals. Durango last fall passed regulations that capped the number of permitted vacation-rentals at 3% of the total homes in two of the most desirable downtown neighborhoods — resulting in 63, and allows two per block.
  6. Be like Miami and have uniformed officers knock on illegal Airbnbs. When hosts lie and say their guests are friends staying for free, officers tell guests they don’t have to pay.
  7. Join almost 40 cities that don’t allow illegal vacation rentals in residentially zoned neighborhoods. People like homeowners want sites like Airbnb to institute the most obvious long-term fix: ban listings in ZIP codes where cities don’t allow them. Also, New Orleans introduced a blanket ban on short-term rentals in their most-trafficked tourist area.
  8. In Vancouver, basement apartments and other houses that could be rented out to long-term tenants cannot be listed as short-term rentals.
  9. You can only prove where hosts sleep each night if you have the right to videotape their unit, which is almost impossible because you’d have to get their permission. So we don’t recommend allowing vacation rentals at all. As we mentioned, landlords and master tenants are not renting to long-term tenants because they can profit more hosting tourists for as low as 18 days a year. So if you must allow vacation rentals, at least only allow hosts to rent to tourists for less than 18 days a year. Join Washington DC in their proposal to only allow hosts to rent the place where they live and host for a maximum of 15 nights a year if they’re not present. In Amsterdam, people can only host for 60 days and must require guests to stay a minimum of 7 nights, more restrictive than SF’s proposal. Despite Amsterdam’s Airbnb law, nights booked on the AirBnB in 2017 rose by 420,000 to 2.1 million and 38% are from hosts with two or more Airbnbs. So the city plans to create a law so a home can be rented to tourists to a maximum of 30 days a year. SF tried to pass a law in which people cannot host for more than 60 days, whether or not they live there.
  10. Prevent out-of-control parties. In Amsterdam, hosts must require guests to stay a minimum of 7 nights.
  11. Namibia requires hosts to register or to go to jail for two years. Santa Monica presses criminal charges against hosts of illegal rentals.
  12. Fine hosts at least six-figures each time. Miami Beach fined hosts $1,500 for the first violation. But when that was not a deterrent, they increased it in 2016 to $20,000, rising to as much as $100,000 for the fifth. The runner-up might be NY’s: NY fines hosts up to $7,500 for any advertising of short-term rentals for fewer than 30 days. It’s one of the few laws that’s written so Airbnb can’t sue to block it. Unfortunately, NY hosts can host an unlimited number of days as long as they are present.
  13. Join Barcelona and require hosts to submit their government-issued permit number to Airbnb before a listing goes live. If the box were left blank or filled in with a false number (instantly detectable by the system), the listing would not appear on the site
  14. Barcelona, San Francisco, Andalucía and other cities require sites like Airbnb to share data that hotels provide to cities: addresses and names of registered hosts. Require sites like Airbnb to ban hosts with multiple rentals and track IP addresses to make sure hosts don’t just create several profiles with different names. And require vacation rental sites to also use artificial intelligence (AI) image recognition technology (like Facebook does) to detect listings for unsafe, overcrowded “hostels” or to track host addresses according to residential and zoning laws.
  15. At least require hosts to provide their address to city officials like they do in Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Paris, Barcelona and Amsterdam and China. And require Airbnb Superhosts to use their real profile photo. For example, it seems Airbnb allows the same person to host properties under different names around the world.
  16. Hosts we know that registered with cities like San Francisco are abusing the system: SF registers hosts whom only have to provide a Driver’s License or State Issued ID Card with any address and utility bill of the short-term rental’s address. So landlords can just pay the utility bill and live somewhere else. And hosts built illegal in-law units just to rent on Airbnb 365 days a year. One can host multiple Airbnbs by registering each one under a friend or family member. Cities inspect hotels. And so cities need to inspect each Airbnb unit in-person and see if each unit was built with permits so it is safe to inhabit. Barcelona will have 100 inspectors by 2018. SF has 5.
  17. Make sure your city’s vacation rental law applies to all areas, even commercial-zoned areas.
  18. If a landlord hosts on Airbnb and owns the whole building, long-term tenants get no notification and have no say. Common areas like hallways and backyards are not safe anymore, especially for tenants with kids. It’d help if tenants are allowed to request a decrease in rent like tenants can for other decreases in services.
  19. Tenants were evicted so landlords can move in. But landlords lied. Cities need to not allow Airbnbs in owner move in eviction units.
  20. NY proposes to require short-term rentals addresses to be made public. Like most people, you would want to know if your neighbors give keys to your building to tourists year round.
  21. Join D.C. and require short-term rentals to act like hotels and get health and safety inspections.
  22. In Miami-Dade County, hosts living 2,500 feet from a school must have a search conducted by police proving prospective guests aren’t registered sexual offenders or predators; hosts must also maintain a register with names and dates of all guests, and people invited by the guests; The maximum overnight occupancy should not exceed two people per room, plus two per property for a maximum of 12; during the day, capacity is limited to 16 people.
  23. Require vacation rentals to pay the highest rate of property tax like Barcelona did.
  24. Airbnb won’t let cities verify if they’re paying enough taxes: Airbnb’s Voluntary Collection Agreements (VCAs) do not give the verifiable number of nights rented. American Family Voices issued public records requests with governments that signed those VCAs to see what really went on behind closed doors.
  25. Encourage all fair housing state agencies to make reservation requests to see if any host discriminates against guests. In 2017, Airbnb finally let the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) do that with hosts with three or more listings. But there are about 76,000 hosts, and only 6,000 have three or more listings.
  26. Join global Mayors addressing Airbnb.

Post signs “welcoming” illegal vacation rental tourists in buildings & in public places

Post this customizable sign that has wording that might be more effective than other signs:

What Airbnb, VRBO & Vacation Rentals Don’t Tell You (bit.ly/HomesNotHotels)

Tourists:

  • Can’t post bad reviews (bedbugs)
  • Found hidden cameras (legal)
  • Kicked out when housemates & housesitters secretly host others’ beds
  • Discriminated: kicked out, get hate mail

They don’t report crimes, deaths, rapes, won’t require smoke alarms

Their insurance does not cover all tourist & host property

Landlords evict long-term tenants to host

Their 3M+ rentals rentals limit your freedom to rent or buy to live in (housing crisis)

What You Can Do

  • Stay in safer, ethical, cheaper lodging
  • Join lawmakers & sign petitions
  • Where to share your story
  • How to anonymously help a rental be compliant
  • Policy kit

#HomesNotHotels

Signs like these were used to deter Airbnb tourists

How Airbnb is destroying homes in San Francisco Chinatown:

Secretly post about your local Airbnb hosts like these SF Chinatown hosts:

Posters in New Orleans:

http://bit.ly/2dzUXCy

#BoycottAirbnb:

Complain anonymously about a vacation rental evading federal taxes

Anonymously give hosts a friendly reminder to pay taxes to the US IRS (which is different from local taxes).

Remind Airbnb to follow the law for public figures to say if they’re paid to promote Airbnb

The average person should be able to tell if something is an ad or not. If you see influencers posting about Airbnb, share it on social media with ShareBetter and the US FTC so they can see if Airbnb is in compliance.

When celebrities post about a brand on social media, they are legally required to say if they are being paid to post about it or if they got a freebie. Beyoncé posted about her stay in an Airbnb but she didn’t reveal that her $10,000 per night rent was paid by Airbnb.

#GlobalGentrification solutions

  1. Berlin stopped some evictions via a legal tool called “pre-emptive right of purchase” that allows Berlin to buy homes. And they introduced a “rental brake,” under which the rent for a new tenant cannot exceed the local average by more than 10%.
  2. Tax vacant homes to incentivize owners to rent them. SF has 15,000–30,000. Allow units to stay empty for a few months for renovations, exempt probate, etc.
  3. Apply rent control to vacant apartments like some cities did in the 1980s.
  4. Allow renters to buy units through limited-equity co-ops or land trusts. Then allow them to sell without making a profit.
  5. Allow community-based nonprofits to set rent based on income levels.
  6. Try what Milton Friedman called the least bad tax: tax land value for community improvements.
  7. San Francisco has more billionaires per square foot except for Hong Kong. So a UC Berkeley economic geographer recommends placing a high tax on inheritance (which was eliminated by Republicans) and unearned income that goes to capital assets (capital gains).
  8. Try these rent control policies.

Like our tips? Want to know when we update this?

Click the heart below, and let’s follow each other (click below) and share our tweets and Facebook posts. Since Facebook doesn’t show all our posts to all our followers, get our quarterly email.

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It Might Happen To You

Written by It Might Happen To You

35 Followers

Landlords evict tenants like us to profit more on Airbnb: #HomesNotHotels. Global guide to cheaper/safer/ethical lodging/transport, vote guides, policy kits

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