Nightmare tenant

[Kayla92]

I own a property in San Diego which I rented out to a tenant with the EXPLICIT statement that any subletting must be for a length of 30 days or more. This is a rule of our home owners association, so I really have no control over the fact that short term rentals are not allowed. But what do you know, the tenant has the property listed on airbnb for stays as short as one night. 

I am being fined $5,000 per instance of airbnb stay. ME. Not the tenant, ME. On top of that, now that I have begun the eviction process, I cannot collect rent from my tenant. It takes an absurd amount of time to evict someone in California. At this point we are going on 6 months of the eviction process and I am in the negative quite an insane amount of money. The host also has reviews from other properties where the review mentions airbnb not being allowed. Signs on the door, being asked not to mention airbnb, etc. So this appears to be a common practice of my tenant. 

I have contacted airbnb 4+ times to request the listing be removed and they have refused to remove it. I have sent them letters from both my lawyers and the HOA stating that subletting isn't allowed, but they say they cannot "decipher legal documents". 

I just want to post this so everyone can be aware of how dangerous airbnb can be and how little the company will help you when you need it. I used to love airbnb, I was a superhost for a number of years and only stopped when covid hit. But this experience has shown me how little they actually care. Experiences like mine are apparently rather common in southern California and it is bad for EVERYONE that the company isn't doing anything to stop this from happening. 

[Paola2612]

Hi Kayla, I am in a similar situation and Airbnb refuses to do anything. As owners we have got to get together and make Airbnb liable for allowing this to happen. I would love to pursue legal action to protect owners and the more owners we can get the stronger we will be. It’s beyond me that they take no responsibility at all. How can I contact you outside of this chat?? Or I can give you my contact info if you feel more comfortable that way…..

[Paola2612]

In my case I have my tenant of 2 months illegally listing rooms out of the property she is leasing from me for short term rentals on Airbnb. We contacted Airbnb as soon as we found out, but they were no help to my surprise. They didn’t even take down her listings, we had to get her to do it!! We are evicting her for violating the lease terms, but that will take some time, during which she can still honor upcoming bookings. Just taking down a listing does not mean that the bookings are cancelled. Airbnb do cover the “host” for liabilities, but in this case, we, the owners, who never agreed to this, are liable for potential personal injury and/or county fines as short term rentals are prohibited in sarasota county. Airbnb is a tool that allows these scammers to operate and it needs to stop. It must be hundreds if not thousands of other owners in the same situation and we should get together and make Airbnb liable for allowing these people to operate on their site.