Airbnb party shootings, here we go again!

[Robin4]

When is Airbnb going to stop supporting the guest?

April 9th 2022: ELK GROVE (CBS13) — A party at an Airbnb rental in Elk Grove turned into a nightmare when an 18-year-old was shot and killed, said the Elk Grove Police Department. The incident took place at a residence in the area of Bowmont Way and Brandamore Court around 2 a.m. Saturday morning.

April 13th 2022:  A 23-second running gun battle in which 30 to 50 shots were fired during a teen's birthday party at a rented Airbnb house in a suburb of Houston left one person wounded.

April 18th 2022: Two teenagers were killed and at least eight people were wounded when a barrage of 50 gunshots broke out early Sunday inside a Pittsburgh Airbnb rental house, where police said roughly 200 people were having a party. Some escaped the gunfire by jumping out of windows. One of the gunshot party-going victims was 14 years old!

The dust has only just settled on an Airbnb  Sunnyvale California shooting on the 9th August 2021 where one person died, The 150+ people at that Airbnb party were aged between 15 and 19!

Airbnb, you are killing our industry! Your emphasis on protecting your guests at all costs, limiting them to any liability and shielding them from host scrutiny is forcing experienced hosts to leave Airbnb in droves and it is killing the industry for those of us that remain. Airbnb is now a dirty word, can’t you see what is happening?

@Catherine-Powell  you were lured to Airbnb with an incentive package that none of us hosts would ever dream of receiving in a lifetime. Instead of issuing feel good statements that in reality don't seem to lead anywhere, please start earning something of that $15m package that attracted you to Airbnb as global head of hosting! You are a person of influence within the company, represent your hosts! Please give us hosts the tools we need to stop this sort of mindless behaviour from happening. Local parties don’t just crop up out of nowhere, organisers don’t travel 100s Kms to stage them…..they are invariably local bookings! Work with your hosts to prevent them from happening! Local government authorities around the world are just going to keep on putting the screws on short term rentals!

Give us hosts potential guests verified information prior to booking, not just a generic letter!

Liaise with police enforcement to give a rapid response to out of control situations. You are the ones that hold all the relevant information…..make it available in a timely manner, not expect the hapless host sort it out because nobody in support knows what to do!

We have heard plenty of the talk, now is the time for action while there is still something of respectability in the company left……

Please support your hosts!!!

The thing Airbnb have to realise, good guests don't mind scrutiny, in fact it's their badge of honour......poor guests resent it and abuse it!

Cheers.......Rob

[Robin4]

@Anonymous 

Andrew they don't, but when a party gets out of hand, they know full well it's not the owner who is trashing his own property so, it's got to be a short term rental party......and because these events keep popping up at properties listed under Airbnb, they automatically get blamed on Airbnb. 

We had a situation here 2 years ago where a party got out of hand at a beachside property listed under Trivago, but the media coverage described it as an out of control Airbnb party! 

Andrew it is probable that Airbnb, as a booking platform, do get more than their fare share of these events because, although they don't come up often, when they do Airbnb gets linked to them, so potential party organisers get the impression 'all's fair in love and war' as far as Airbnb are concerned!

Cheers.......Rob

[Fran2]

@Robin4 ,

the “AirBnB” term has become synonymous for “Short Term Rental”, just like “Google” is with “Search” ! 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Jennywould you be so kind and share with us what is written in that "confirmation email" and what happens next?

I would like to be informed and prepared if it ever happens at my place.

[Helen744]

@Robin4 , honestly Rob  , these incidents you are describing are not in Australia ? Where do you live? because if you live in South Australia then you are giving the impression that these things are happening in Australia , with  the addresses being in the US. I had to look twice H

[Robin4]

@Helen744 

Helen I never at any point gave the impression these incidents I mentioned were in Australia.

If you re-read my post you will see that I mention these events happened in Sunnyvale in California (Sacramento actually), Houston in Texas and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania....they obviously relate to the United States, not Australia, and in a follow up post I clearly state we have Airbnb party issue in Australia but, firearms are not involved here, but that is not the point!

The thrust of my post was, Airbnb's  lack of help in isolating and helping steer hosts away from party bookings is damaging to all of us hosts no matter where we are in the world. Airbnb is being seen as a potentially trouble ridden site which will possibly have an effect on both yours and my future business.

Didn't think I would have to explain that, nobody else took it your way but.....there you go!

Cheers........Rob

[Helen744]

@ Robin4 It may surprise you to know that many carers go the Airbnb route myself included . I am a full time carer for my 42 year old son, as such I know how difficult life can become . I have a co host which is vital to take up the slack.  Also I could not ever do one night minimum. The changeovers would be too much.Sometimes I have been on the verge of cancelling especially when I have been  ill, but manage to manipulate my changes ,cleaning and washing, to be done asap after others leave.I suggest giving yourself a break and going for at least a two night minimum or in some other way use your calendar to assist you.This is supposed to provide you with the time to be there for your wife not add to your difficulties. My son and I love going to other peoples Airbnbs, although we dont get a lot of chances but do intend to in the future. Maybe join Carers gateway to hook up with other carers and get some support and tips on how others are doing it . all the best Helen

[Robin4]

@Helen744 

Helen, sorry to hear of the load you also have to carry but, lets face it, we do it gladly, don't we.

I say at times I would like to share the load a bit but, this is the woman who stole my heart all those years ago and there is no sacrifice I would not make to continue to care for her.

I am still fit and able to do what is required, and I am not confident outside help would do as good a job as I do.....nobody knows our turf as well as we do, so I have not considered carer gateways! Also we keep on hearing of horror stories which tend to frighten us off external help........

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/18/disability-carer-sentenced-to-six-years-jail-over-de...

I don't mind the one nighters Helen....after all I get the same cleaning fee whether they are one nighters or 5 nighters and I have got myself into a good turn-around regime. If I have string of over-nighters in a week I do give a couple of turn-arounds a week to my domestic help Fran, she is great, always available on a moments notice and is a cleanaholic, she attends to small details and I very rarely get marked down for cleanliness. 

We are in a good space Helen, everything works pretty well for us and I am looking forward to it continuing for a few more years yet!

Cheers........Rob

[Mark116]

I completely agree that any guest who is found to have thrown an unauthorized party should have their reservation cancelled and forfeit the rest of their money. It's pretty crazy that someone can trash a host house, get their reservation cancelled because of a party, and still in effect be rewarded by getting a refund while the host has to provide world quality evidence to have any hope of getting reimbursed for damages.

[Jenny]

I can totally understand your concern @Mark116, but in a situation where a party has been held, the host should contact CS to report it.  If there is any sense of danger/unlawful behaviour, they should contact the police immediately. Airbnb would then carry out a full investigation. 

The situation you described above shouldn’t happen if this process is followed.

Jenny

[Robin4]

@Jenny 

Jenny, in a way I am sorry I started this thread because, you can see by the anger here, it looks like the hosting community is attacking you and the other moderators. Jenny we aren't, you guys have always been solid support for us. I know you have a duty to represent the company and we respect that. I have worked in support and I know just how hard it is.....it got the better of me in the end.

Please let the comments here on this thread wash away from you, they are simply us venting our frustration at a problem neither you or we can solve.

We love you guys, and we always will!

Cheers........Rob

@Quincy  @Sybe  @Emilie  @Stephanie  

[Helen3]

The issue is @Jenny  when a host contacts Airbnb and provides evidence of a party it often takes Airbnb hours and sometimes a day or more to respond/cancel the booking. Often they will tell you they need to verify this with the guest.

In the meantime more and more people attend the party, getting drunk , trashing the listing and sometimes becoming violent.

then what often happens is the guests report the host for safety violations because they use CCTV to monitor their listing.

The outcome - the booking isn't cancelled so the host can't evict the guests and the host often finds all their listings suspend so not only are they left with costly repairs but they lose thousands in business as their listings are suspended for weeks at a time.

[John5097]

@Robin4 

Hello Robin, I've only been hosting for two years but confused about some of your comments. 

"I felt a sense of elation when Catherine Jenkins with her past history came on board, after a couple of years in the wilderness I truly felt we were getting back to the Chip Conley days when, as hosts we had good host representation, Chip was a hotel entrepreneur and knew exactly what we wanted and he was an active voice for us!

My god, have I been disappointed, we have no representation any more,  just someone who puts out company statements every now and then."

Do you mean Catherine Powell? I hand't heard of Chip Conley, so if you could please be more specific on his accomplishments. As I have only read the comments and post in forums like this.

It seems that several long standing policies that host had been complaining about for many years have been changed in recent months. First, a pet fee was added, and host no longer need to accept ESAs. Some have said that was long overdue anyway. Second, guest can't leave review if they didn't stay at a property, unless the host canceled the reservation same day as check in. Also, the recent ad campaign promoting host "Made Possible by Host" has been widely broadcast at least here in the US. Several topics, including one you posted in, claims guest have been very pleasant to deal with, so it seems to reason that this ad campaign would have added a more favorable opinion of host in general.

I honestly don't know who makes these decisions at Airbnb, such as how much personal info its would share with host, but would think that's something that would out of Ms Powell's decision. I would assume the CEO would be making the final decision on that. Its no secret that Airbnb favors the guest.

Oh and finely two years ago when covid hit, March 2020, Airbnb revenue dropped by 80% in a few weeks time. They had to let most of their employees go as there was no funds to pay them, and the biggest complaint is that customer service took a nosedive, which has only recently started to improve.  

I would also like to see all host and guest verify ID in a way that prevents these kinds of parties and shootings. Two of the three Easter Weekend shootings took place in South Carolina, one at a mall and the other at a rural nightclub.

I do think its a valid and relevant topic with very constructive comments. Airbnb its a publicly traded company and so far hasn't seem any accountability for such slack ID vetting, in which their platform is being used to throw these kind of parties where shootings take place. So with that I'm totally in agreement. 

I've traveled the US extensively and Europe, but it only in Europe where I was almost robbed in the streets. I managed to catch a gang of pick pockets in Berlin in the act of lifting a money pouch, and another one who stole a train pass from the machine in Paris. And was only there for 2 weeks! 

Anyway it seems to me that some progress has been made in recent months. I also like the fact that an executive would take the time to read and comment in the discussions here, and like to think this could be a place for all of us to make more progress. 

 Make no mistake the US is a capitalist society, with a GDP of 20 trillion a year, and its not unusual to have gone to school with a woman who is now an executive or CEO of a huge company, so maybe its just a different culture? Although Cathrine Powell is from UK, right? 

I would like to see some progress. At least in our city, there is a noise ordnance, the police would actually knock of the door of the place that was being disrupted. For Airbnb the guest would be charged. If the reservation was canceled it would be like an unruly guest at a hotel, in which police was called. If someone got shot then I think it would be the host and property owner facing the most liability, although maybe this will change and Airbnb will need to face more scrutiny. 

[Robin4]

@John5097 

Hi John, yeah Catherine Jenkins  was a Freudian slip, I of course meant Catherine Powell. I am going to blame that on one too many evening 'reds' !

Chip Conley was the previous global head of hosting joining Airbnb in 2013. He was well liked and the hosting community felt we had lost our link to management when he departed in 2018. The only aspect of his time with the company we were not mad on was, his desire to promote Airbnb as being part of the hotel industry. It was logical that he would, coming from a hotel management background.

John I do have a habit of wandering 'off thread' a bit, and this has been noted to me by other contributors here. I think this comes about because I am active on a couple of social sites and I tend to take my style from one site to another.

On another site I am a paid contributor. When I say 'paid', I get 1 US cent per up-vote! Not a pathway to riches you might say but with almost 3,000 answers more than half of them would not have more than a handful of up-votes, but they don't expire and are all the time contributing to me. I have maybe 30 that have gone over 1,000, a dozen that have passed 10,000 and a few have gone over 15,000. One answer has got me 84,600 up-votes......that's $846.00 US dollars (around $1100 AU) .........

This is why I possibly tend to answer in a 'newsy' way rather than simply sticking to the question and the facts!

Your comment re verifications was the point of this post of mine John! Airbnb need to place more emphasis on positive verification. A mandatory part of verification should be a screen shot of an identifiable image of the account holder holding their drivers licence or gov identity card in the same frame so the two can be clearly associated.......and that image should be available to the host on request! Other companies do this, why can't Airbnb!

Your comment about theft in Europe is also spot on John. In the times we have been to Europe no mater how careful we might be we always loose something to personal theft. Pick-pockets are a cottage industry in Italy to the point where even the police do not want to be involved, it is so common.

On  weeks stay in Rome in 2011 I was aware from a previous trip that I would be a potential victim so, I had anything important to me in a moneybelt worn inside my underwear! Nobody was going to get to that without me knowing. I just had an old wallet in my pocket with one Euro and a bit of shrapnel in it for quick convenience. The only other thing in that wallet was a card with a note on it that I had hand written by one of our hotel staff that said in Italian.....Ah ah, oggi non è il tuo giorno fortunato!.........

"Haha, today is not your lucky day"!

Sure enough, the wallet got stolen.

Cheers.........Rob

[John5097]

@Robin4 

I appreciate you sharing that and not surprised at all that your post at that other site would garnish vast intrerest and reactions. That's a lot of upvotes! Of course you also create a lot of great post here and are very popular. I think we both have a lot in common and both read a lot of books and like others here put a lot more effort into whatever we do. I also meant to mention that I understood that it was an effective tactic to get attention and drive a point home, kind of like a full court press in basketball. But I'm now thinking that even in 2013 hosting would have been a lot different that it is now days, as even in that short time Airbnb has allowed these party organizers and guest who break rules without any consequences to escalate. It seems like Australlia has guest who try to sneak in too many kids and give lower reviews for really great listings and very good host! Better than getting shot I guess! So I was in total agreement with the central point of your post. I can only guess that you were closer friends with the previous head of hosting, and that maybe the new head of hosting wasn't as responsive to personal messages or being tagged here? A lot of people were enraged and upset with the CEO decision to refund guest against host policy during covid, and I recall Australia also had a unique policy and were able to keep covid out for a long time by total isolation and you and others wanted a custom policy. Although that's fine. I also don't mind outside opinions of gun laws in the US. And sometimes get a little carried away with some topics, as its a real challenge to articulate exactly what you want without any errors, especially for me! 

And while host, including myself, are upset at some of Airbnb policies, the point you are raising, better vetting guest is in my opinion the most important. I know we hear a lot of feel good reassuring post here, mostly scripted, as a tactic to influence opinion. It was kind of off putting since I first arrived, and I was bah humbug for the entire month of celebration, but that too was probably isn't new, but sometimes may want something positive and social.   

There were a few other policy changes in the past few years I forgot to mention. A lot of cities, a listing is restricted to rent 30 days or longer by default, unless they submit their STR permit number to Airbnb. Also for a while Airbnb restricted people 25 and younger with less than three reviews from renting whole house or apartments. This was done without any notice and caused a lot of confusion. I had all young guest thoughout the first wave of covid and they have all been the most trouble free and agreeable guest to host so far. 

Oh, Robin, that is a great story about the thieves in Italy! I very much enjoy reading so many of your comments and experiences. I was actually standing in line on a corner in Berlin for a bakery that had about 20 other people all kind of waiting their turn like at a bar. One of the thieves was acting like he was about to cut in line in front of me, looking at the glass display, which caught my attention, while another was next to me on the other side, and one behind me, both making slight body contact. For some reason I suddenly confronted the little guy trying to cut in front of me and pushed off the other fellow, and when I did he had his hands on my fanny pack that was zippered up inside a pouch on my ski jacket on my chest. He had a blanket over his hands and had my entire fanny pack out of the pocket on my chest that had been zippered shut, and I statched it back out of his hands.

I've also enjoyed participating in the community center. Its been the first time I've used Zoom, have participated in some workshops, so at times it can become a challenge to balance all the different forms of communication and issues regarding hosting. I'm not even that familiar with other hosting sites. 

Appreciate you responding and look forward to future discussions here at the CC! 

[Robin4]

@John5097 

John, I respond to every post that is directed to me, whether it be good or bad. I need to respond, perhaps defend myself, but I feel it is the right thing to do.

I have a **bleep** full life, I have a disabled wife to look after, and that means I have to think as two people. Not only do I have to do all the housekeeping/shopping/cleaning/cooking,  I have to pack every conceivable disability aid that might be required for every outing because, if something is left behind.....it's my fault! Can you imagine how hard that is? At times I would love to let my guard down and have a shoulder to lean on, but I am in this reality!

I have this Airbnb rental to service and many weeks we will have 5-6 one night bookings. That's a bloody lot of work! We have a lot of friends and I have to tell you John, my life is as full as a fat lady's sock!  But I always find time to respond to someones comment!

I would have expected Catherine Powell to respond to this thread because I did personally attack her for, in my opinion, not doing her job.....but all I can hear is, 'crickets chirping' in the dusk of evening! She issues the odd company directive on the 'Airbnb updates' thread but where is that close contact.....'I hear you, I understand you', John, it's just gone. I don't feel we hosts have representation any more.....in the great scheme of things we are not important.....we are simply 'cannon fodder' as far as the company is concerned!

John, I have put my heart and soul into Airbnb over the last 5 years. I remember saying to Kate Hannan (the Australian Airbnb public relations officer) when I was starting out back in 2017 over a lunch...."The only difference between me and a 200 review Superhost is 2 years!". Well here we are 5 years down the track and I have got 500 Airbnb reviews under my belt. I think I have represented this company pretty well.

I am calling on Airbnb to start backing me, make me important rather than shaft me with a guest who's sole desire is to book in secret and potentially have a holiday at my expense!

Cheers.........Rob