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, this post of yours is one of the best posts I have ever read, every word, a word of reality!

Our problem is you and I Andrew, are the voice of reality, we are experienced hosts. Airbnb is the voice of money........ reality is something that gets in the way of making money!

How many years have we been telling Airbnb to allow us to advertise and collect security deposits. As you say most hosts see that 'Set Security Deposit' item in the pricing section when they are setting up their listing..........

They are told they can put in an amount up to $500 US and assume this amount will automatically be held for them in the event of a host claim! Most are entirely unaware that this security deposit is not taken and set aside by Airbnb, it is simply a statement that means nothing because Airbnb do not want to subject the guest to any un-necessary costs at the time of booking!

Airbnb verifies nothing! I can list a garden shed at the rear of my property with an air mattress in it alongside the lawnmower and the garden spade. Airbnb require no approvals in order for me to host.

Airbnb will at all times make it easy for the guest to book, but difficult/complicated for the host to refuse. 

Andrew 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.

Andrew as you have seen over this past year many good hosts......superhosts with years of good service,  are leaving Airbnb.....we have seen 3 here on the CC just over this past few days. 

I am now all the time on a knife edge, I think I have learned enough about hosting to take care of myself, but I can't read a guests mind and what they might do to me if something that happens here offends them.  I feel I have no support from Airbnb despite my five years and 500 great reviews. I am just a cork bobbing around in a turbulent hosting ocean!

I love where Airbnb has taken me, in the last 5 years they have put $140,000 into my bank account which has helped give us to a great quality of life, but I can't see a great future. 

You are spot on the money Andrew, but I am not going to hold my breath waiting for your great advice to be taken on-board!

Cheers........Rob 

[Mark116]

@Anonymous  Absolutely.  Airbnb is sometimes shockingly short sighted.  Their failure to curb the party image, in addition to being dangerous for hosts and guests, has been the primary driver in anti-STR legislation, at least in the US....and anti STL remains the greatest threat to Airbnb's long term profitability.  It isn't as if this wasn't forseeable, or well known for many years before the shooting in CA that finally garnered so much bad publicity they took some small steps.

[Jenny]

Hi @Mark116   

Airbnb has had a ban on parties since August 2020, and they have a Party and Events policy in place to protect hosts and the community. 

Any reported parties or disruptive groups will lead to an investigation and consequences for the involved persons.

Jenny

[Mark116]

@Jenny  If only the policy worked as well in practice.  Their party and events policy does not protect hosts in any meaningful way.  Guests who have parties are as free as anyone else to refuse to pay for for damages, to leave a revenge review [good luck to any host trying to get CS to enforce their party review policy], and get a full refund for unused nights after they were kicked out for an illegal party.

And, not to state the obvious, but Airbnb's 'party ban' is clearly pretty toothless since there are still  headlines all the time about people throwing huge raging parties and then having violence break out at Airbnbs all the time.

[Jenny]

Hi @Anonymous , thanks for your feedback. 

While I can’t disagree that there are parties that happen in Airbnb properties, it's also common for bad news to make the headlines rather than the millions of great experiences that happen.  

Can you give us any feedback about why you think Airbnb have a reputation for being the go-to brand for parties?

Jenny

[Anonymous]

@Jenny  Yeah, we all know that argument that rattled PR teams like to trot out: "The media focuses so much on the bad things, but they never talk about the many times we didn't totally screw up!"  Perhaps you got your PR inspiration from Kellyanne Conway, the high priestess of Alternative Facts, who at least had the sense to wait a few days after the Capitol insurrection to make the same case. But you know what? Your brand has been linked to several mass shootings in which real human beings died. Try to sleep on that, if your conscience allows. None of us here think that Airbnb was the murderer, but in this context it's extremely tone-deaf to say "let's just think about the millions of great experiences that happened." You might as well just say "can't we just focus on the really nice summer train trips that began at Bahnhof Grunewald  Gleis 17?"

If you're earnestly looking for feedback (ha), I think you'll find a lot of commentary from my own post, and those of @Robin4 and @Fred13 and @Mark116 and @Pat271 that already answers your question. You'd find a lot more from our most valuable, well-informed, and passionate contributors (Sarah, Ute, and Susan) if you and your colleagues hadn't decided to permanently ban them from the Community Center for telling too many truths that you couldn't handle. Who do you think you're kidding here? You don't want feedback; you want sycophants. I could try to hold a mirror up here, but if it shines too brightly I'll get banned too. 

So please, spare me the willful obtuseness and read what we've already written here. Oh, I've already found the response you're obliged to write, so you don't have to:

"I'll pass this on to the team."

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Jennyyou asked: Can you give us any feedback about why you think Airbnb have a reputation for being the go-to brand for parties?

  Sure, here is why Airbnb is the perfect playground for the worst kind of guests:

- Anonymity is guaranteed - Guest's ID verification is not mandatory (they can unlist and sign up again after every ban or bad review with a new phone and email)

- not requiring the real profile picture

- not taking real security deposits

- refunding for nights not spent even if the reservation is canceled for breaking house rules and the property is damaged

- not allowing the host to instantly cancel the reservation in urgent situations like a party in progress (making it difficult or impossible to be kicked out by police)

- hiding house rules and additional house rules on the bottom of the page behind the "show more>" link

- hiding guest's profile picture, location, age, and ratings from the host before booking

- hiding the "contact host" link at the bottom of the page

- suspending guests after investigation and suspending hosts before investigation  (btw, treating two groups of people differently is discrimination ! )

.... should I continue?

[Fred13]

Oftentimes, it is hard to decipher who came first, the chicken or the egg. That 'Host Guaranteed' hustle is probably at the very core of so many of these axe-battle encounters. It gives license to the lazy and opportunist, and it will never permit a true deposit system to see the light of day and thus hold the guests accountable. One thing always leads to another. 

/Laters, boat work awaits; a bummer these things are happening

[Jenny]

Hi @Fred13 

In the case of a party or a disruptive group, any guests found to be breaking the Party and Events policy will be held accountable, as Airbnb would carry out a full investigation after the party/disruption is reported.

Jenny

[Fred13]

Good show Jenny. These sensational fiascos does no one any good: the brand, responsible hosts nor  certainly spooked potential guests.

[Anonymous]

@Jenny  Just gonna give you one more PR lesson here: the general public is already aware of the fact that when a corporation says it's "carrying out a full investigation," what it really means is "we're going to pretend to care about this scandal for a minute until we can sweep it under the rug." I mean, really, anyone who's ever been on the phone with the outsourced customer service knows you don't have crack investigators on the team, if you can't even get someone on the line who knows how to answer the most basic question. 

Thanks for the laugh, though. Reminded me of that time the AMPAS said they were conducting a "full investigation" of that time Will Smith smacked Chris Rock at the Oscars. Fitting comparison, because it was clear to the whole world what happened and who did it - what new evidence could an investigation uncover? 

If I'm wrong and Airbnb actually has an incredibly skilled investigation staff at its disposal, they have a lot to answer for to the many hosts whose listings have been suspended by a bot.

[Stephanie]

@Anonymous 

Let’s try to stay on topic, which in this case is Airbnb’s Party and Event policy (thanks @Robin4  for starting this thread.) 

Having read your replies on this thread, I’d like to remind you that the Community Center is a space that is managed by the OCM team to be a constructive and supportive place for all Hosts to share their stories, thoughts and feedback while remaining respectful of each other. 

If you truly believe that we do not allow Hosts to share their honest thoughts perhaps this isn’t somewhere you can shine. We will continue to uphold our Community Guidelines and the policies of Airbnb, non-adherence to which can result in account restrictions. If you believe this is in someone silencing Host's opinions, I’d also like to remind you that as admins we can quite simply delete any thread or post that isn’t positive, but then, what value is that to the Host community? 

The Community Center is a valuable resource, no matter where in your Hosting journey you are. It gives an authentic perspective on the realities of Hosting, whether it's how to remove a stain out of a sheet or how to deal with a very difficult situation.

Finally, I understand there are Hosts here that miss the contributions of those that have unfortunately been banned and by all means we can celebrate those contributions, ongoing. However, I will again confirm, the OCM team are human beings doing their job which is to cultivate a safe space for constructive discussion for all members. If you are not enjoying the CC for the purpose that it exists, perhaps the healthy thing for you is to engage less.

Personal attacks will not be tolerated against ANY member on this forum - staff or otherwise.

Thanks,

[Helen3]

Absolutely Airbnb should be quicker to act with problem guests and not suspend hosts automatically when a guest complains about CCTV when this is clearly displayed on a listing in line with Airbnb's T&Cs

But let's also be honest here. Sadly there are some hosts/hosting companies who don't vet their guests carefully. And even where they do have CCTV they don't monitor it. These are the type of hosts neighbours often complain about because they can have anti-social guests and seldom do anything to manage bad behaviour because their main focus is on making a profit.  I remember with a case a year or so back where there were shootings, it turned out there had been eight previous noise violations at the property so the host clearly knew their listing was being used by party-goers but did nothing about it and neighbours were left to notify the police.

So yes to Airbnb not suspending hosts automatically for safety complaints. But also I think hosts who allow parties and who don't monitor use of their listings should be kicked off the platform when they have more than one incident of police verified parties or anti-social behaviour by their guests.

[Jenny]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, @Helen3. 

In their Party and Events policy, Airbnb do mention that they may remove listings if a Host is found to have authorised a party.  Additionally, if a listing is found to disrupt a local community, they may request that the listing is updated or suspend it.

We’d always recommend that the local community should report any disturbances or parties relating to an Airbnb listing, using the Neighbourhood Support number.  They’ll also have access to the Neighbourhood Support team phone number, where they can report a party that’s still in progress.

Once an issue is reported, Airbnb will send a confirmation email explaining what happens next.

Jenny

[Anonymous]

How is a member of the local community supposed to know that the home causing a disturbance happens to be listed on Airbnb?