Mass Shooting in Airbnb house in Orinda last night, 4 dead

[Lan1]

Breaking news:  4 dead, many injured in  an Airbnb party house in Orinda CA last night ( 10/31). The house is just few steps away from my second residence in the same street. About 10:00pm, My daughter and I were driving back to our residence, noticed that the street were full of cars. After a while, we heard police helicopters and ambulances arriving ....Neighboor next door told us there was a mass shooting in the Airbnb house few steps away.

The head of Airbnb trust and safety announced that  they will conduct serious investigation, according to the news.

My dear fellow host, I have been posting  many times regarding my concerns to Airbnb unsafe booking process.  My own house has been targeted several times for huge parties/criminal activities, but it couldn’t get enough attention from Airbnb trust and safety 

department.

 Please protect yourself and be safe!

[Ute42]

.

Hi @Rebecca181 

4 days ago I have stated in this thread that it would require 7000 people to physically verify 7 Million listings. Meanwhile Brian Chesky has checked on my numbers and found them to be correct.

He says:

• „It would be too expensive to physically inspect millions of listings“.

His solution: The PAY TO PLAY model.

That turns a problem, shooting in airbnbs, into a new source of revenue.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Ute42 

this idea is not new, the PLUS program was also charged at first, then, after the fiasco, it became free 🙂  The same thing, different name.

[Susan17]

@Ute42 

This is a classic Airbnb move. They have form for turning a crisis into a cash-grab. Particularly when Margaret Richardson is at the helm.. 

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Surprise-surprise/td-p/1178485

[Susan1028]

@Ute42 

Yes...it's sickening really considering the lack of remorse expressed and the lack of effort to enforce any changes that will actually solve the problem, and the "cash grab" predates Ms Richardson.  It's a leadership thing.

[Rebecca181]

Forgive me, I just love a good laugh, so I had to share. From the article I posted above on some of the 'sprint'-induced changes to come (courtesy of @Sarah977) :

(Regarding Airbnb Experiences and Liability): "Airbnb stated that it already provides $1 million liability insurance to “the majority of hosts,” but will now require hosts to get additional third party insurance when they operate a broader set of technically specialized activities."

Airbnb may provide the IDEA of liability insurance to "the majority of hosts"...But just try to collect on  it. 

[Rebecca181]

@Laura_C @Lizzie  Please read this recent post from another Host. 

This is not good. Someone really should intervene as soon as possible. And these sorts of things are happening all the time. As hosts, we are not supported by Airbnb when criminal activity is taking place in our home. Airbnb's policies also allow for criminals to change their profiles, hide their identities, and continue to commit their crimes on the platform. What is being done about this?  What is being done to protect hosts and their neighbors from crimes?  https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/guest-identity/td-p/1178023

[Michelle53]

I feel for the host. What makes me the most upset reading it is the threat of "losing a ranking".   I was a superhost for my first couple of years, until I had a situation that resulted in a bad review.  Of course, I lost my superhost status, and have never regained it, but, honestly, it's somewhat of a relief, actually. It hasn't reduced my booking rate, and guests no longer have over-inflated expectations of my space. 

But the constant threatening - "you fell below the standard" - "guests denied are less likely to book again" - "your guest cancelled within your strict policy but we want you to refund them"- "you have x number of hours left to respond" - it's tiring being constantly chided by an algorithm.

Hosting is hard work. One puts oneself out there with a host profile that's available for anyone to read, with photos of the space for anyone to view.  One cleans to the best of one's ability. (there's nothing quite like cleaning bathrooms to bring one down to earth).  Puts as many amenities as possible in the space.  I even do a hands-and-knees crawl through looking for critters (in my garden space) since one time there was an unaccounted-for spider. 

I'm glad there is a locked door between my guest space and myself.  I'm glad there is nothing of real value in the space. I'm glad our neighborhood beat cops are responsive, and will show up at any time of the day or night. I had a guest message me at 2am that someone was knocking on her window. I called that in right away, and cops were here is 5 minutes.

It would be nice to feel like we have human support. 

[Denis227]

@Rebecca181 

I found my article on "AirBnb doubling down on Professional Vacation Rentals " as mentionned in my earlier post

https://skift.com/2019/10/16/airbnb-homes-in-on-professional-vacation-rentals-in-resort-areas/

Dated october 2019 so quite up to date with the latest changes 

Lots of fascinating  stuff to read in these  lines AND  between the lines. 

What really *bleep* me off  is the hypocrisy and double language   at AirBnb.  On the one side you have the official PR discourse  constantly poured over hosts' heads  on the air of " Our guests are the best persons on earth and you should be kind with them and attend to all their needs" .

On the other side, when confronted with professional property managers whom AirBnb  can't bamboozle like they bamboozle the media and the hosts, they have to admit that guests  are "abusing"  AirBnb  cancellation policy .

Why do they hide this fascinating information from the  media and  from hosts ? 

Why aren't we  in the know regarding cancellation statistics ? Why are we deprived of information  which could help us mitigate our cancellation  risk ?  

And what else do they hide from the media and from  hosts which  relates  to typically abusive conducts by   guests ? We need to know . 

Abusive conducts obviously  INDUCED and EXACERBATED by their pervert business model.... 

[Michelle53]

I think one is seeing the results of rapid growth.

The original concept of Airbnb was home sharing. Essentially,  a people business.    As things have expanded globally, it seems like there has been huge investment in systems (a very Silicon Valley type approach) but perhaps not as big an investment in people.  The result has been anonymization (or googlization) of bookings. rankings, reviews, host criteria, and communications.    Essentially, management by ArtificiaI Intelligence.  In fact, I believe I heard Mr Chesky mention AI in his remarks a couple of weeks ago, at the financial forum. 

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn than Airbnb executives are recruited from the same background as Google or Facebook, rather than having come from a more people-oriented background, like hospitality.

It also seems like there is a "go big or get out" drift going on here. I wonder if those of us with only one space to share will ever have as much of a voice as those with multiple, large properties, who are, essentially, never in contact with guests at all, and whose primary goal is just to get spaces booked in as streamlined a way as possible. 

There's an enormous difference between "sharing a home" and "filling a space". 

[Susan17]

@Denis227 

I'm not sure why you're surprised at all this though. Airbnb pretending to be one thing, while all the time, being something completely different, is nothing new. I've certainly been writing about if for years, as have many others. The article below is from way back in 2015... 

The Two Faces Of Airbnb. 

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-two-faces-of-airbnb-2015-10

[Denis227]

@Susan17 

Thanks for this  article .

Sorry I didn't reply to your very long post dated a couple of days ago. We had a corporate seminar at our rental this thursday and friday and  my wife and I had to  prepare and serve  all lunches and dinner with cocktail ....followed by a very speedy turnover ( we do get help for the cleaning )  on friday evening right before arrival of a new group on the same day.   So huge amount of work.   I kept your long post aside and  I'll reply to it later this week. 

I'm not surprised for the Skift article of October 2019 ( by the way many thanks to those in this forum  who made discover this Skift website .....). I'm *bleep* off. It's different . I can't stand double language. Hypocrisy I can stand in some instances ( there are times when you can't say the whole  truth eh ?  ) .   But Corporate double language is unbearable to me when it serves the purpose of  preventing customers  from realizing the naked truth. This really gets on my nerves. 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Denis227  then better become immune to it or you will explode 🙂 Corporate double language is everywhere around us from commercials to the news on tv, from politicians to doctors etc... Important is to find out the truth, think with your own head and don't fall for their lies 🙂

[Susan17]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 @Denis227 

We're calling it "corporate double-speak", when in fact we should simply call it what it is - lies and dishonesty. 

[Rebecca181]

@Susan17 It is a constant process of covert control, manipulative tactics, and intentional reality distortion. This is why I often think of the languaging and terms that Airbnb Corporate whips out to remedy Public Relations disasters (also human tragedies, but that seems to get forgotten in the mix, as illustrated so poignantly in the Airbnb twitter and media blitz following the Orinda murders on 10/31/19, e.g., "Party Houses" are now the problem, not Airbnb's policies that invite criminal activity and guest abuses of hosts and their homes) to be it's own 21st Century version of Orwellian 'Newspeak'.

[Susan17]

Absolutely valid points, as always @Rebecca181. I do find the language employed in Airbnb's current crisis control campaign, and damage control efforts - and the changing tone/slant of that , according to the ausience - particularly fascinating to behold. Surreal, would be the best way to describe most of it, I think. Disjointed. At times, nonsensical. But always, always controlling and manipulative. 

We've had