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

[Fred13]

@Pat271 Read it whichever way you like, but when a host exercises such neglect to prevent a party to happen than they are facilitating one to form in the first place. Or an absentee owner who doesn't have an active watchdog looking after their place and then complaints about a party taking place at 1am like they are a victim (and then even has the guts to complain about damages), shouldn't certainly be hosting.

The host is not the only responsible one, but is certainly the first one to be looked at, and one that has indeed neglected to implement the most basic safeguards to prevent a party I would throw out of the hosting ranks in a nano-second. Of course, the criminals are the main problem ( i.e. the main punk who was involved in the Florida case has already 34 criminal encounters with the police + 20 misdemeanors by 29 years old; why is he even walking the streets and what type of behavior does the criminal system who has constantly pandered to him expect from this character in the future?).

The Pittsburg case:

https://www.wlrn.org/2022-04-17/airbnb-plans-legal-action-against-guest-who-booked-property-where-a-...

[Anonymous]

@Fred13   It should be easier to distinguish the absentee host whose negligence causes a party to spiral out of control, from an attentive host who catches a violation in progress using the tools at their disposal and takes action. But we've heard from so many hosts in the latter group who have waited helplessly for hours for help and guidance from CS as the situation escalated. That could have been avoided if they'd been able to get fast, qualified customer service on the phone right away, or better yet an emergency protocol to bypass CS and terminate a booking without penalty and freeze a deposit while the damage is assessed.

Of course, all hosts need to be able to get onsite to deal with these emergencies, or have someone on call who can. I can't really sympathize with the ones who think Airbnb or the police are supposed to clean up after them when they failed take that basic precaution. 

@Pat271 

"I blame criminals for committing crimes. 

And so on.

That is why it is called Law & Order.”"

It's almost a haiku....but if you sing it as a little song, you've just auditioned to play Javert . Anyone can do it better than Russell Crowe.

[Pat271]

@Anonymous  Agree with everything you said, especially the bit about Russell Crowe as Javert. OMG that was the worst!😂

[Helen744]

@ Andrew0 good to see you man, still cant completely agree with you but that keeps debate moving eh? Its all good. as an older woman the scariest issues that I ever have to deal with is when you have done your best to vet and id and when you turn up to let someone in,  surprise, full party over load. I in future would still be terrified because I know for a fact that by the time these people are cancelled and asked to leave or the police are called they and more importantly, those without id ,the hangers on ,can and will do damage . some people think i go over the top communicating with my guests before arrival these days but , only one bad experience can make you wise up pretty quick. I would also like to add that IB does not stop you from requesting as much id as you wish. H

[Jenny]

Hi @Helen744 

Sorry to hear this, the last thing anyone wants is for a Host to feel unsafe.  What kind of safeguards would make you feel more secure? 

It sounds like you keep on top of things as well, by communicating with your guests before arrival.

Jenny

[Helen744]

@ Jenny, thanks for that Jenny. I think as Laura pointed out we need an emphasis on guest vetting,and   rules  and IDS before any incidents can occur . Because as anyone caught up in the moment in real time will tell you that when you arrive to greet the ill communicating guests and the reality of who you have invited to your home suddenly is revealed as a horrible surprise then safety is first,ringing Airbnb is way down the possibilities list , after the police. Since the incident that made me realise that someone can and will set people, especially newbies up I have toughened up. The situation most likely to  allow parties and problems is the keyless,hostless entry ,further complicated by poor ids and /or no ids from 'extra guests' I always have an extra guest fee so this underlines the fact that there is a limit to who can be at the property . I always insist on ID in my rules for all adult guests . If I have concerns I will use all of my time before the guest arrives getting to know roughly who they are.Any surprises after that are par for the course and generally manageable . H

[Pat271]

@Fred13 

You said:

“Or an absentee owner who doesn't have an active watchdog looking after their place and then complaints about a party taking place at 1am like they are a victim (and then even has the guts to complain about damages), shouldn't certainly be hosting.”

I may fall under this category, depending on how you describe “active watchdog”. I have “entire place” rentals, with local management support who checks, cleans, and provides support for physical maintenance. They are not policemen, and do not watch my property 24/7. There are no guards stationed in various strategic locations on my property.

Still, I would be shocked if after doing my normal due diligence and vetting, one of my places was damaged and trashed in a major way, or someone was shot. But it can happen.

I see that you have a (beautiful!) island, with only your property on the island, and that you row your guests out to the property yourself. This gives you a unique perspective on what constitutes “watchdogging”. It is unlikely that you would encounter gang-related problems.

But, with all of your care, bad things can happen to good people like you, too. A domestic violence situation, for instance. Or a suicide pact.

I certainly wouldn’t consider you “not fit to host” under these circumstances.

We do what we can to provide and protect, and the rest of life is a crapshoot.

[Fred13]

@Pat271 Of course not everything is under our control but it is easy to decipher who gave enough effort to prevent a fiasco from happening., still no guarantees. It is just as easy to see who could care less what happens to their place because they felt covered with Host Guaranteed, or Air Cover or Space Force or whatever they want to call that false narrative nowadays.

The first thing I would do is remove the classic candidates to party formation; i.e. listings allowing 20+ people to form and hope the owner is up to the challenge. Now as I understand it is 16 max, still way too chancy since very hard to keep track of so many people all at once. Being a host is not a right.

Airbnb has to get tougher on hosts and certainly on guests, and act quicker when the game is afoot and not be so lazy. Hosts in turn must maintain control over their guests and if they can't do that they need to reexamine their offering or choice to be a host since sometimes it could get nasty. Guests need to be held responsible for their crazy actions, lunacy shouldn't be tolerated.

I made four (4) separate exceptions during 2021 and this year allowing 8 vs. only 6 guests; sure enough, I sensed when 8 came the guests where different and everything had a  different tone to it. I can only imagine 10 or 12 guests. Now it is 6 max, any combination is ok: 2 adults/2 kids/1 dog/ pet iguana works for me or 2 adults/2 chickens/2 donkeys, or...

[Anonymous]

@Fred13  We may not agree on everything, but I think you've always had a very good point that the Host Guarantee/Air Cover/Space Force/Unicorn Magic marketing ploy has done more harm than good. It seduces naive people with a bit of surplus housing space into thinking there's a risk-free way to hand it over to some randoms from the internet without a real contingency plan for the inevitable. That's a feature, not a bug, and it seems to be Airbnb's entire recruitment strategy. Of course, there are plenty of veteran hosts who know better. If they're too reliably honest and forthright about what's really going on, they eventually just get banned from posting on the CC under the transparent guise of some "community standards" that nobody in the community asked for. That's lunacy too.

The vast majority of hosts do not know enough about the way insurance works to recognize that "Air Cover" is not a protection for their own business; rather, it's a lot of jargon masking Airbnb's own insurance shield against liability to them. If you get a payout from it, an adjuster has already determined that you would've had a better day in court. But in an alternate reality where it wasn't just a marketing ploy, I can imagine a very limited coverage that simply cut off after a certain number of guests (say, 6) after which point the host was responsible for 100% of the insurance. It at least seems a little more feasible than packing 16 people into a condo and insisting that whatever they do there doesn't get called a party.

[Fred13]

The pity @Anonymous is that in all likelihood it doesn't allow a true deposit system to even be seriously considered and that is a real shame.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Fred13 

I also hosted up to 8 guests and then cut it down to 6.

It seems 6 is a magic borderline... anything more than 6 and you have a flock of chickens running around and you can't get their attention 😄

[Fred13]

How interesting. With me also it is a bear to get them to cooperate as one.

[Stephanie]

Hi @Pat271 ,

On your last question, I found out the following:

"When the party ban was implemented we announced that we would be hiding the "parties and events" part of House Rules for anyone who had opted in, as well as removing the "parties allowed' search filter."

So I'd wager the check box is legacy (and probably should be removed or at least hidden to remove confusion) and, while you can still tick it, it doesn't actually display anything on your listing. 

Hope that helps,

Stephanie

[Pat271]

@Stephanie  That does help, thanks! @Laura2592, it seems nothing related to parties and events will show up for the guest. They really need to get that checkbox for the host removed, though.

[Anonymous]

@Robin4   I'm sure the incidents that in end in fatalities are outliers, but the overarching problem is that Airbnb is now broadly considered the go-to brand for throwing out-of-control, unsupervised parties with few repercussions. It's not an accident - they've made many choices that inevitably created this climate. There are a few steps they could take immediately to change that:

1. Raise the bar of entry for both guests and hosts. No more profiles without complete verifications and face photo, no more active listings that don't meet local STR requirements. And vet new listings with actual human staff to check for red flags before they can go live.

2. Stop baiting hosts with the promise of a fictional "security deposit" and institute a real one. Sadly, most hosts haven't read the fine print and are completely unaware that Airbnb doesn't actually charge or hold a deposit on guests' bookings. Next thing you know, a bunch of unsupervised teenagers with no income have the keys to a stranger's multimillion dollar house for the weekend (which is exactly what Gen Z thinks Airbnb stands for).

3. Stop pushing hosts to be hands-off with their bookings. Instant Book and self-check-in may work well for some people, but they should not be default - especially in homes likely to attract parties. Hosts should be encouraged to ask questions before accepting bookings and decline suspicious requests, but instead they're told that they need Instant Book to succeed and feel fearful that they'll be penalized for declines or cancellations.

It will still be a problem that many properties are hosted remotely by absent-minded owners and bulk property managers who don't feel compelled to keep track of what's going on in them. But by rolling out the red carpet for the managers and setting policies that are increasingly hostile to traditional hosts, the bad actors will only represent a greater share of the inventory.