Party House, House Party, and Party School

Mike1034
Level 10
Mountain View, CA

Party House, House Party, and Party School

After Orinda incidence with 5 people shot to death, Airbnb announced to ban 'Party House'.  I googled internet to find what a party house is. Most of them came out related to Airbnb's announcement for banning 'Party House'.

 

I could only find House Party definition in Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_party. It is defined as

A house party is typically a type of party where medium to large groups of people gather at the residence of the party's host. In modern usage, a house party is typically associated with teenage or young adult crowds, loud music, dancing, and the consumption of alcohol, marijuana or other recreational drugs.

 

The term 'Party House' reminded me 'Party School'. Party School appears in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_school

 

A house is a house which is a residential property. There is no party house unless a party is held in the house by party goers. Airbnb bans Party House, which is essentially to delist a house from its listing platform. It actually does not do any good to eliminate the root cause. The root cause is party goers. If party goers are not banned, they will pick other listings to have parties.

 

There are party schools. I have not heard that any schools being closed because of the parties held by party goers in those schools. Hopefully Airbnb management understand what they need to be done to stop un-registered parties held in those listings which do not allow parties by hosts instead of delisting those houses which are victims of those party goers.

 

One side note is about the absence of Airbnb in the hearing held by Orinda city council. Do Airbnb really care about the death and shooting incidence in a host's house? From the absence, I don't see they really care. What they care is to get publicity in various media and internet about their pledge of banning 'Party House'. Ironically, another gunfire was reported yesterday in an Airbnb listing in San Diego less than two weeks after Airbnb announced to ban 'Party House'. https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/gunfire-reported-during-party-at-la-jolla-mansion.

 

I'd like to hear hosts' opinion what Airbnb really need to do to ban parties held by party goers in Airbnb listings which have no party specified in the house rule.

 

 

37 Replies 37
Kath9
Level 10
Albany, Australia

@Mike1034 you are right. There is no such thing as a 'party house' to ban in the first place. I'm sure the host in Orinda did not list their house as a 'party house', and  it sounds like the person who booked it lied to them about who they were. I really don't know how it's possible to vet things like this for off-site hosts apart from having security cameras. It would also help if the US overturned its insane gun laws. However, Airbnb have said they are investing in a response team to work with police and deal with these kinds of incidents more quickly. Let's hope this is the case. 

@Kath9If Airbnb just bans the listing where the party is held, the victim is the host who owns the house. Not only the host suffers damages from the party goers but also suffers from no future income after the house is delisted.

 

In a serious incidence occurred like Orinda, the host could face potential lawsuit as well. Airbnb just delisted the property and deactivated the guest's account who booked the house to show the public that they are very strict. In fact, it is their the fault of their system which encourages bad guests by not enforcing hosts' house rules, allowing a guest anonymously to book a listing, punish hosts for denying and canceling inappropriate bookings, and providing very limited guest data to hosts during booking etc.

 

 

@Mike1034, I wasn't suggesting that Airbnb ban listings where parties are held, I was saying they should ban the guests who cause the damage - these guests should never be allowed to use the platform again. I wasn't aware that Airbnb had banned the hosting in the Orinda case.

@Kath9 Yes, Airbnb did delist the listing after the incidence as reported. The host had no party in the house rule.  But host does not live in the property. They live in a city about 20 minutes away.

100% agree with this.  Dealing with this situation now.  Guest threw a party last week but left the house clean and no damage.  I had no idea until Airbnb deactivated my listing and sent me a vague and threatening email saying it might totally delist me.

 

WTF Airbnb.  I've been a host for 8 years.   How is this an appropriate response???

Kath9
Level 10
Albany, Australia

Just to add to this, Airbnb does need to be much tougher on security and ban anyone who breaches the rules or causes willful damage. 

I've been hosting since 2015 and things have gone well until this past year with escalating unauthorized parties in our Airbnb houses (we have 4)  Our listings state "NO PARTIES"  I couldn't figure it out until lately when my husband says "that's it, no more 1 nights".  So although we have allowed one night bookings all along - it stops now.  This is too bad as we’ve had mostly good results.  We bought a Ring and it helped stop two parties, but who wants to be a watchdog, not me.  I've called the police to help and they don't come unless the neighbors call.  Well I'm not going to call my neighbors to make a complaint.  I was trying to get help from Airbnb and the police so they would squelch it and help save face with the neighbors.  Airbnb said "If you feel it is a safety concern then you should ask the guests to leave"  Of course it's a safety concern when they are most likely young people drinking and using drugs.  Airbnb did not want to get involved.  We had to monitor the house all night and kept asking the guests to leave as people kept coming and going.  Then when I leave a poor review for the guest they retaliate because they got kicked out of the house.  The party planners have lied about the numbers of guests over and over and usually live local.  I think Airbnb should let us collect a higher deposit with 18-25 year old guests who book especially without reviews.  But we've rented to guests with 5 star reviews that allow their siblings or friend to book and it has backfired on them. We have no control over age limits with Airbnb as Airbnb says that is discrimination.  I say it is about responsibility.

So neighbors have been complaining and the laws started changing.  Now in my city they are interpreting the city codes differently....basically have changed the law to say we have to live in the house in order to do a STR.  Many hosts are still hosting in this city, but because of the last party we got a letter.  I will be meeting with the city shortly about the complaints.  After reaching out to Airbnb we got very little help. 

 

Airbnb mostly has candid answers for everything and doesn't seem to care about the hosts.

 

@Starla1 

"I was trying to get help from Airbnb and the police so they would squelch it and help save face with the neighbors"

 

Ultimately, your home, your business, your responsibility to squelch parties and save face with the neighbours.

 

Some customer support kid in a cubicle hundreds or thousands of miles away isn't going to be of much help to you, and the local police forces in many jurisdictions worldwide are flatly refusing to be used as Airbnb's own private security firm any longer. 

Dimitar27
Level 10
Sofia, Bulgaria

Different places-different associations. 🙂

"Party house" for us is a building, usually located near the center of the city, where the local political parties offices or headquarters are located. They can share one floor or use different floors of the same building.

@Dimitar27  Here in the US, it uses Capitol, in which the congressmen gather for meetings.

It's not the same. Imagine, that there is one building in Mountain View, CA, where the political parties offices are located- first floor for the Democrats, second for the Republicans, third for the US Green party,  etc. This building will be the local "Party house". And there is one building like this in every big city of CA. The Party house is not a legislative structure. Not formal at all. Just a building, where the political parties are regular tenants.

@Dimitar27  Many terms cannot be directly translated and still make sense. I've never heard of any place where political parties have their offices in English-speaking countries where the building those offices are located in is called a "party house".

Rebecca181
Level 10
Florence, OR

Chesky's use of the word 'Party House' in response to the Orinda shootings (and to Airbnb's investors anxiously salivating over Airbnb's upcoming IPO) was, in my opinion, a clever languaging device that was intentionally created and deployed to get a rightly concerned public to focus on this idea that 'bad actor' hosts and guests are running a 'party house' operation on the platform, and now that Airbnb knows about it, they will be quick to 'sprint' (aka ride into town on their white horse with their shiny sheriff's badge glinting in the sun) and put a quick stop to such dreadful host / guest behavior.

 

'Party House', therefore, is simply a term that we now may add to Airbnb's 'Dictionary of BIg Brother 1984 Newspeak'. 

 

Or as I said in my original response to Chesky's alarmist (and intentionally misleading) tweets: "Party House, Schmarty House". It is Airbnb's own increasingly guestcentric policies that ultimately led to the Orinda deaths. And other shootings, stabbings, and murders. 

Susan17
Level 10
Dublin, Ireland

@Rebecca181 

Absolutely agree that Chesky's use of the term "Party House" was 100% intentional.  As, of course, was the repetitive use of the word "trust". Not gonna work, Brian - you can say it a million times over, but "trust" has left the Airbnb building a very long time ago.