That discussion title sounds outrageous but it is actually true! AirBNB is showing burglars exactly where our homes are without ever having to do the booking and in our listing photos we are showing burglars all the nice things in our homes to steal.
Go to AirBNB and search for a home or private room. DO NOT click to select a listing. On the right side click "Show Map" to turn on the map display. Now zoom in and zoom in and zoom in on the map .. until you see street names. Then slide the map around until you see a dollar sign icon for a listing.
The dollar sign marker for YOUR house is right on the exact street name where you live. Now AirBNB will tell you that it is not right on your house. But guess what? It is very close to your house and all a burglar has to do is go to that spot on that street and look for a house that matches the photo of the front of your house. And if you do not include a photo of the front of your house all they have to do is go and watch for someone coming out of the house that looks like the photo of the host. And we all have host profile photos that are close up head and shoulder photos that very clearly show what we look like. Burglars are of course stupid to be criminals but make no mistake they are crafty and smart enough to figure out what became obvious to me seeing the search map function.
Now go to Google search and type in "Burglars use AirBNB to target homes" and you will see about 200,000+ search results.
I have shown this dangerous and irresponsible flaw in the AirBNB search map system to managers at AirBNB no less than 10 times over the last year and they have not lifted one finger to fix it to protect us from being robbed. I even gave they the perfect and simply solution to fix it. Show a red shaded circle on the map that represents a certain number of mile radius. As you zoom in and out on the map it tells you the mile radius currently represented. Then below the map in rows and columns show all of the dollar sign icons that can be clicked to view homes within the represented mile radius on the map.
SO PROTECT YOURSELVES FROM AIRBNB - They obviously do not care one bit if we get robbed. AirBNB is NEVER GOING TO GET IT and never going to change their map function .. I have given up. Maybe if a thousand hosts comment on this discussion demanding they fix it, that might work. I doubt it though but maybe if 10,000 hosts comment on this discussion SCREAMING at them? If you are reading this and care please comment.
TO PROTECT YOURSELF
1) If you have a photo of the front of your house, remove it immediately.
2) Removing your profile photo or replacing it with one that is hard to tell what you look like may not be something that will prove heloful to your booking rate.
The only 100% safe solution is to delete your listing and rebuild a new listing using an address that is not your actual house address. Use an address that is several blocks away and in an obviously different neighborhood when looking at the street map for your area. Use a street address that is not actually a house address that exists. You can use Zillow to see what the house numbers are on a street and then use a street number between the numbers that do exist. This is so that you do not bother another resident with people knocking on their door in the rare event that a booked guest does not follow your instructions you provide with the correct house address.
Doing this of course will requre that you send a message to every guest that completes a booking to give them the correct house address. It is actually easy to do and has just become a simple step I now do. I just copy the message I sent to the last guest and send it to the new booked guest.
Below is exactly what I write to each guest after they book if you want to adopt the text for your own use. I felt it was important to explain to a guest the reason the address is different so that they are not concerned but actually relieved knowing that they do not have to worry about the possiblilty of a burglar breaking in while they are staying at the home. I tried several types of explanations and the one below that I now use produces 100% "no problem" responses from guests.
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Hi John,
Please reply to confirm you got this message with the correct house address I am providing below in this message.
Please ignore the address to Airbnb gives you. It is a few blocks over in the same neighborhood. Burglars use the Airbnb search results map to find homes to rob and so far Airbnb has refused to fix it so we had to use a different address on our listing to protect ourselves.
The correct House address is XXX Street Name, City, State, Zip. The house address numbers are on a lighted sign above the garage doors on the right side
.... And then whatever else you want to say to welcome them to your home .....