People are dead. Dead, never again to see another day. Doesn't that bother you? All that seems to bother you is that I am upset about it?
Nobody ever wants to talk about the big elephant in the room. These companies are evil. They care only about money not community. They hide behind words like community but in the end they cause anguish and now death.
What if a child of yours had innocently attended that party?
What if you innocently happened to be the host?
There was no need for this. Stop hiding traveler information from hosts, charge hosts charge a lot if you have to, but give us the power to protect our self's, our communities, our homes.
To sit here on this board and blame the hosts (as she did) for these unneeded deaths is as bad as what airbnb and homeaway do, except if you do it for nothing than that leaves questions in any sane persons mind.
If people dead is the host fault, then, any damage at all done to anybody's property is the hosts fault.
Somebody has to pay for this, and that somebody will not be airbnb or homeaway, it will be us as our communities forbid rentals.
So in the end, we loose, the traveler looses because all that will be left are homes outside of communities/ Homes with less value, less caring hosts.
I rent 3 homes, all my own homes, I have a home in Europe, one in Naples Florida and a nice family estate in NY. 6,500 square feet of heaven on a private 9 acres just 45 minutes outside Central Park Manhattan. This could have easily happened at my home, I am a prime target for this because my home is so private.
So I call every traveler, but some of then don't call or text back. So I cancel and then I get punished.
Personally I enjoy renting the homes, I don't really need the money. I think it;s great that while I am away in Naples Florida someone is paying me $3,000 for the weekend to watch my home. I give every traveler a great experience because I am proud of my home and love to share it, so for me to be relegated to page 3 billion because I turn people down who I can not verify is no big deal.
But I am not everyone. Most people get a vacation home and can only afford to keep it if they rent it to offset the costs.
They worry about not getting enough bookings, and then there is the constant pressure from airbnb and homeaway to compete, to garb every single inquiry and make it a booking, they treat us like a sales force, a stock broker or insurance sales person with a quota to fill OR ELSE!!!!.
For most people that will eventually result in a slow lowering of standards, slowly they will take on renters they would have flat out refused just 3 or 4 years ago.
Just a few years ago NOBODY would have rented their home without FIRST speaking with the traveler, doing deep due diligence using a photo ID, and finding out everything there is to find out about that group. Now we are INSTANT booked.
As far as I am concerned airbnb and homeaway killed those people, because they failed to consider that this was possible, that they were creating a system where robbery is easy since they publish our homes location and a calendar telling the world when we are away, they have created an environment where you can buy a home in what you think is a safe community and have your child end up dead because your neighbor rented his/her house and did not do proper vetting because he did not have the information and was encouraged to take EVERY BOOKING no matter what OR ELSE you are punished.
Yes I am upset, if you think that's rude then so be it.