Can private rooms be marketed as entire apartments?

[Alexander766]

About a week ago, I booked what had been marketed on Airbnb as an entire apartment in a small seaside village in Holland named Zandfoort.

As soon as I checked in, it was obvious that it was just a private room. The host is living on the ground floor of the house, Airbnb guests have no access to a living room, and the tiny kitchen is shared among all of the separate Airbnb guests. Every single bedroom in this house is being rented out to separate Airbnb guests, with each bedroom being marketed as an "entire apartment". The walls in this house are thin, so whenever I was in my room, I could also hear the other Airbnb guests talking or making out. 

To make this description more concrete, here are the actual listings:

Bedroom 1

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/30686659

Bedroom 2

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/30788972

Bedroom 3

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/30789539

All three of these listings are being marketed as entire apartments, yet all three rooms are in the same tiny house. 

In my review, I mentioned that the host was friendly and polite, but that the unit was being illegally marketed as an entire apartment.

The host filed a complained with Airbnb about this review, so an Airbnb case manager named Angelica stepped in.

Angelica has written me the following note. 

"After careful evaluation, I'd like to confirm here that Airbnb has to remove your review as we have confirmed that the host's property qualified for being entire apartment. "

Yet she has not provided any clarification as to how Airbnb differentiates between  “private room” and “entire apartment”.  I researched the help content on Airbnb, and could only find this brief description:

What do the different home types mean?

Airbnb listings are categorized into the following home types:

• Entire place: Guests have the whole place to themselves. This usually includes a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen. Hosts should note in the description if they'll be on the property (ex: "Host occupies first floor of the home")
• Private room: Guests have their own private room for sleeping. Other areas could be shared.

//

One trouble here is the inclusion of the word “usually”. In my case, the host was interpreting  the word “place” to mean a private room and private bathroom contained inside of a shared house. The kitchen was shared, yet since Airbnb’s definition says “usually”, he apparently decided that a private kitchen was not actually required, and that he could still legally market each one of his rooms as an entire apartment. 

So, let me ask the community .... 

Is it illegal for this host to market his private rooms as entire apartments, or should he be allowed to continue doing so? 

[Emiel1]

@Alexander766 

Zandvoort is a  one of the well known seaside villages in The Netherlands, which can be very crowded in Summer. (I lived there for a year). From a Dutch (tourisme) perspective an accomodation can be called an appartment if having their own entrance, kitchen, bathroom,toilet.If not having their on entrance it is a studio. The way you describe them it is a room with shared facilities. But that is not what the pictures show !

I looked up this accommodation on their private website. The accommodations are called "holiday homes" there, which can be actually anything to spent a holiday in.

Places like this, in tourism regions,  are very easily marketed as "appartments". I would say: it is not an appartment (let alone an entire home), but it also more then just a room. It is something in between....

And last but least: Places like Zandvoort are touristic hotspots. Tourism is a main source of income for them and it is all about  money, not the experiences.. Tourists will come anyway, even if you put a bed in the shed and call it a "chalet with garden view"

Best regards,

Emiel

[Yadira22]

@Emiel1  « chalet with garden view » 😂😂😂

[Sarah977]

@Alexander766  This sounds like a total misrepresentation of the accommodation. I can't believe that Airbnb took your review down and said it was accurately described. I would contact airbnb again, in the hopes that you get a more savvy rep. Don't deal with Angelica again, she's clueless. You should also flag the listing and report it that way.

[Alexander766]

Emial - thanks for your response, and I have one follow up comment to your notes.

You wrote that "The way you describe them it is a room with shared facilities. But that is not what the pictures show !". Actually though, it IS in fact what the pictures show, except that there is one subtle detail that is very misleading. I booked the unit #3. If you study the photos, you will see that there are just three rooms, the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen.

Since it was listed as an entire apartment, I assumed that I would have private use of all the spaces that were in the photographs. In actual fact, I had private use of the bedroom & bathroom, but not the kitchen. So the host was showing photographs of common spaces (the kitchen) while implying that they were in fact a private space associated with an entire apartment. It was this deception that made me decide to contact Airbnb. 

I feel that this particular issue has some important implications for Airbnb.

If they allow this listing to be represented as an entire apartment, how can any guest on Airbnb ever feel 100% confident that they will not have a "bait and switch" experience where they book an entire apartment but then at check in discover that it is only a private room in a shared house? 

Yet it seems that this is what Airbnb intends to do!

After the case manager Angelica deleted my review, I asked her to clarify why it was inaccurate to refer to this as an illegal listing.

She did not respond. I followed up. She still did not respond. 

I followed up yet again. She still did not respond. 

So I decided to open up this community post, and see if any other members of the community can suggest ways to bring this issue to a close. 

To my mind, one of two things needs to happen.

Either Airbnb needs to enforce their current definition of "entire apartment" or they need to expand their definition so that it includes the notion of a private bedroom with a shared kitchen in a shared house (and no living room). 

[Emiel1]

@Alexander766 

I do agree it is misleading, as you experienced the kitchen is a shared space. This host transferred his "holiday homes" from private website to Airbnb listings in a wrong way. Not only the type "entire home" is wrong, also the description of unit #3 says "living room with excellent sea view and an open kitchen with stove, fridge, microwave/oven and water cooker and a french balcony". No mentioning of sharing kitchen and: what about the "livingroom" ?

But... knowing Zandvoort: that's the way they operate !

Airbnb should take your review more serious instead of removing it. Although "illegal" was not the right word, as others and you alread acknowledged in this thread..

If the kitchen and livingroom are shared, then it is a room with private bathroom and shared facilities.

Best regards,

Emiel

[Helen3]

Maybe it was your use of the term illegal rather than saying that it was inaccurate. In what way was it illegal @Alexander766 ?

I would contact them on social media. 

It shouldn’t be listed as a whole apartment if you have shared facilities such as a kitchen. 

[Sarah977]

@Alexander766  I agree with Helen- it's not "illegal", unless the host is contravening some local laws by renting the space out. Airbnb policies are just company pòlicies- a listing being inaccurate isn't breaking any laws, it's simply misrepresented as far as the categories of listings go.

But it is certainly misleading- I read through the listing description just to make sure you didn't miss them saying that the kitchen is shared, but in fact it is written in such a way that anyone would think that you had an entire apartment, kitchen and all, to yourself.

[Shauna28]

Super shady for the host to bill this listing as an Entire Apartment when the kitchen (and home!) is shared and should be a Private Room or Suite. Hopefully ABB allows you to post a review highlighting the inaccuracy of the description.

[Alexander766]

Yes, I agree with everyone's feedback that the term "illegal" might have been the wrong choice. To my mind, it was a violation of a very core principle of being truthful, so the term "inaccurate" seemed a bit too light. To call a room "spacious" when in fact it is just a normal size room would be "inaccurate" but to call a private room an "entire apartment" is a more drastic violation of a core principle of honesty, and thus needs a different description.

Yet perhaps "illegal" was not the best choice.