Violent Shooting in Airbnb - 3 Dead, 2 Injured in Toronto, Canada

[Sean433]

—- A party at a downtown Airbnb condo turned deadly Friday night when gunfire erupted killing three young men and injuring two others.

The bloodshed unfolded during a “social gathering at a rented Airbnb,” according to Chief Mark Saunders. He confirmed three young men were shot dead and a fourth shooting victim was taken to hospital but is expected to survive. A fifth victim suffered cuts, Saunders said. —-

I was really upset to hear of this tragedy that unfolded on Friday, Jan 31, 2020 in my city.  To date, there has been 4 shootings in our city in the last 12 months Jan 31, 2020, September 22, 2019,  August 4, 2019,  April 27, 2019. All of which were booked by guests who were LOCALS.

The most recent shooting at this condo was rented by locals to throw a party. Locals are always the ones who are booking such events and creating violence. I’m sure this is also the case with other such events in other parts of the world. I’ve mentioned many times how hosts should be really careful with local bookings and how Airbnb NEEDS to take more measures especially from local bookings that fall on a weekend. I would even say it is worth banning all local weekend bookings all together. With the current trend of violence, it is not sustainable and the city will just come down harder with stricter sanctions and regulations on hosts. Currently, there are new regulations unfolding on short term rentals that will restrict hosts to only be able to host for 180 days a year. My fear is that if such events continue to happen at the high rate they are currently happening, the city will eventually ban all short term rentals.

As a result of the numerous shootings that have taken place in my city, all of us hosts in Toronto and other parts of the world that have this problem have a dark cloud hanging over us. A lot of our neighbours are mistrustful, fearful and hate us as hosts because they blame us for renting the home located next to them as a vacation rental with transient guests. Such events are broadcasted all over the media and they give all of us hosts a bad name. Even those who carefully screen guests.

I don’t solely blame Airbnb for this. Hosts should be more careful with accepting local bookings that fall on weekends. I think new hosts should be better trained at how to screen and airbnb can facilitate such training with new hosts. Perhaps set up a training page on the website or send emails to new hosts on how to be better neighbours and avoid risky reservations. At the same time, Airbnb should begin to utilize better technology to screen out risky reservations and impose stricter booking rules. E.g a ban on local bookings that fall on weekends. If such a ban took place, none of the 4 shootings that took place in the last 12 months would have happened and all of us hosts would have a better reputation as a result. I hate how some of our neighbours give me an evil eye when I come to check up on the property but can I blame them?

[Sean433]

Also, the condominium building where this happened was one of the few condo buildings in Toronto that allowed short term rentals. As a result of this event, they have now banned all short term rentals in this building. It is said about half of all units in this building are Airbnb's. As a result, perhaps about a hundred listings will now have to be deactivated due to the ban. I think as the long term residents in other buildings begin to push for similar bans, you will see other buildings ban them as well.

This will cost hosts and airbnb a lot of money as listings disappear. I think they need to look at the bigger picture and a decision has to be made. Either ban local weekend bookings all together and create more barriers to risky reservations. This will cause airbnb and hosts to lose some money.  OR continue on the current path and have hundreds, if not thousands of listings disappear over time as buildings and cities come down hard on short term rentals.

[Emilia42]

@Sean433 Touching on the locals subject, the trouble is that Airbnb doesn't hold guests accountable for being truthful and/or up to date with their 'location' on their profile. I live in a university town so no one here has a ture location. People with profiles that say California in reality reside 1 mile away from me for the spring semester. Never once in my four years since joining Airbnb have I gotten a prompt that asks me to update or review my profile information. Essentially, an Airbnb profile means nothing and unless the guest specially tells you that they live on XX street, screening for locals is not always so easy. 

[Sean433]

@Emilia42 

Agreed and that is another issue airbnb needs to look at. Airbnb is a technology company and they can utilize tech to solve a lot of security issues.

They can see the IP address of where the account was created. Say the person created the account in your town, Orono, ME but guests tries to lie and say they are from Seattle. Airbnb will automatically populate the town where their IP address is showing. If they are using a VPN to mask or change their IP, there is technology to detect and block that.  Multiple attempts to lie or mislead will lead to permanent deactivation. Say the account holder then moved addresses to a nearby town, based on multiple log ins from a new IP address, airbnb will change the address on their behalf.

Also, if a guest messages me but has not filled out which city they are from, I will ask them to complete their profile. If they say they are from Vancouver and then I see a local phone number, I will be suspicious right away. Also, I am pretty sure that out of at least 1 of the 4 shootings that took place here, the host was able to figure out they were locals. Hence host training also is required.

[Sean433]

@Emilia42 @Ute42 

Airbnb is now banning new guests under 25 to book in Toronto. This is great news!!

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/AIRBNB-BANNING-GUESTS-UNDER-25-TO-BOOK-HOMES-THANK-YOU-AIRB...

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Sean433this is a terrible event not just for people who were injured or killed, for their friends and families, for the host and neighbors ... but also for all other booking platforms and STR in general.

Airbnb could do a  lot by making a much better vetting process, not hiding guest's info, not refunding guests who break house rules... all of that was discussed many times but with no avail...Obviously, Airbnb is ok with such incidents and with the fact that more and more cities are banning short term rentals.

We have to ask ourselves - if private hosting will be banned across the world - who will benefit from that? And we all know the answer. It makes sense.

If you ask me - we witnessed the epic rise and fall of private STR movement.