Would you book a rental with security cameras in communal areas?

[Marcus237]

I'm curious to know from people who say they wouldn't rent at a property with security cameras in the common areas (kitchens/living rooms), do you normally book an entire house?

And if you do, would you find cameras in these places to be more reasonable if someone had a 6 bedroom mansion with several full bathrooms, a jacuzzi, and multiple living rooms, where they rented out each of 5 bedrooms separately, and they themselves stayed in the 6th?

I feel like cameras in the common areas in this case provides security, safety, and accountability not only for the homeowner, but also for the other guests who are staying on a property with strangers that they don't know.

I'm considering putting my place on airbnb to do just that, but I don't want to alienate customers. That said, the price to rent the entire property would likely be prohibitive to most people, so I think I'd have more success renting individual private luxury rooms with access to beautiful, high end common areas. But in doing so, having multiple groups of strangers staying in a single place, I'd think having security cameras to provide accountability would be of the utmost importance. Otherwise, if people break things in the common areas or even steal another guest's property, you'd have no idea who would be accountable for it, and guests may even attempt to hold the host responsible.

What are your thoughts, hosts and guests?

[Marcus237]

I just want to point out that there is another Marcus posting in this thread, and that we are 2 different people. While I welcome him to continue posting, I want to ensure that no one else makes the mistake of thinking we're the same person, because his name is very similar to mine. We must have joined the site at very nearly the same time.

#ArmyOfMarcus #WeAreLegion

[Susan17]

Wow! What a mindblowing coincidence, @Marcus237 and @Marcus238!!

You both join the nearly 4 year old Community Centre of 817,870 members, one after the other, on the same week, in the same month, in the same year. You both post almost exclusively on the same topic, on the same thread, on the same days - even though one of you became a member of the Airbnb platform last October, while the other became a member this very week.

Heck, you both even use a very similar writing style, and apparently even share the same views, the same attitude, the same perspecives and the same opinions (on this subject at least) Now what are the odds on that?? 

You could almost be long-lost twins, with a telepathic bond. Amaaazing!!

[Marcus237]

@Susan17 Yeah, he must be the one who joined the platform almost a year ago. I only just joined this week when considering putting my property on airbnb. I don't think we have exactly the same attitudes or writing styles, as I attempted to be far more cordial about my thoughts on a particular poster than he did. He just decided to be a bit more direct than I. We DO both use English and punctuation, though. And I guess that could be considered a lost art these days. 😄

But twins, no. He appears significantly younger than me, we're a black guy and a white guy, one from Atlanta, Georgia the other from Columbus, Ohio. We ARE both Americans though, and tend to have more shared values and opinions than the posters in this thread from Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, the UK, Bulgaria, and Germany. Go figure. Who'd have thought people in the same country would be likely to share similar values, and even names?

I assure you, if I were going to create a phantom account to support my own views, I wouldn't make the username 1 number different from mine. I don't think anyone capable of stringing together a cohesive sentence would do that. The absurdity of it should be a dead giveaway that we're NOT the same person when you really think about it.

Also, I wouldn't have misspelled caliber. I caught that the first time he posted it, but I got his meaning and didn't think it necessary to call him out on a simple spelling error. That would have been rude and unnecessary. I try to avoid being rude when there isn't a need for it.

[Susan17]

@Marcus238, you wrote (to @Marcus237) - 

"Marcus, you seem rather intelligent (I'm not surprised:). Unfortunately, this community doesn't seem to be occupied by your same caliper (sic) of people so you may spend more time defending your logic than receiving constructive advice. Don't waste your energies"

#WeDidn'tComeDownTheChattahoocheeInABubble

#We'reNotThatDumb

#Don'tTakeUsForFools

[Marcus237]

@Susan17Well, I was going to upload my photo to my profile, but unfortunately I can't figure out how to do that. So the other Marcus got me beat, there. 😄

Well, I figured out how to get my picture on here, but don't know why it isn't showing my location. I put my location in my community profile. Oh..maybe I have to do it in my regular airbnb profile instead...I don't know. I'll give that a try.

[Ann72]

@Susan17 Leave it to you to call it like it is!  @Marcus238 and @Marcus237 got some good advice here from really successful hosts and chose to keep whining instead of merely saying thank you and getting on with the job of hosting and making money at it.  #SomePeopleAreAfraidofMoney #That'sWhyTheyWhine

[Patricia55]

Hi @Marcus237 

“I'm curious to know from people who say they wouldn't rent at a property with security cameras in the common areas (kitchens/living rooms), do you normally book an entire house?”

“And I wasn't seeking a specific person's "advice". I was seeking multiple people's thoughts on what they themselves would choose to do as a customer.”

“So, my objective was to determine if anyone inside my target audience would actually be turned off by this. So far, pretty much everyone who has stated a distaste for common room cameras basically has a distaste for "common rooms" to begin with. They don't want to share the space. So, they're generally not my target audience with regard to the security camera question.”

This forum mainly comprises hosts. That's not to say there are no contributors who are guests, or both host and guest, but if you're seeking multiple guests' thoughts, this probably isn't the place to source a significant amount of data. Having said that, we are all people who have frequented many different places in our lives, and can tell you our general feelings about the proliferation of CCTV. (I read somewhere that human beings have an innate need for privacy.)

Marcus265 said: “Marcus, you seem rather intelligent (I'm not surprised:). Unfortunately, this community doesn't seem to be occupied by your same caliper of people so you may spend more time defending your logic than receiving constructive advice.”

@Marcus237  I would disregard @Marcus265's comment, if I were you. IMHO this community is populated by people with a wealth of knowledge, experience, wisdom and common sense – which you may need to call upon in future... However, if you happen to find a better community, do let us know about it – we're all ears 🙂

Given your somewhat unusual prospective listing, I think @Inna22 's suggestions is best, ie for you to try it for a while and see what happens.

Good luck!

[Marcus237]

@Patricia55Thanks Patricia, I think you're right. Inna22's suggestion is probably the best bet, since I likely won't get a lot of guest perspectives here. The best teacher is experience.

Also, don't misunderstand me. I dislike the idea that CCTV is everywhere. I fully understand the desire for privacy, and have that desire myself. But the world isn't becoming LESS surveilled. And most often, the reason for the CCTV is to protect people and their property, which I also understand. So, in a battle between the safety of people and their property, or my feelings, safety will win out and I can just have hurt feelings.

[Ute42]

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@Marcus237 

You were asking for cases where listings were closed down due to cameras:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Account-deactivated/m-p/739889#M165416

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Airbnb-abruptly-canceled-account-amp-future-guest-reserv...

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Help-Airbnb-deactivated-my-account-and-i-cant-get-my-payout...

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/A-Super-Host-Account-Terminated-by-Misbehaved-Guest-Report/...

[Sarah977]

@Ute42  Well done! you're obviously better at searching out posts than I am.

@Marcus237  I agree that your posts have been different in tone from the "other Marcus".

Here's a couple of interesting quotes:

 "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."

"When you say, 'I have nothing to hide,' you're saying, 'I don't care about this right.' "

Both quotes by Edward Snowden.

[Ute42]

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@Sarah977   

I didn't search these threds just now, but I have an extensive collection of cases where listings were completely closed down by airbnb. There are all kinds of reasons for delisting, but I don't want to mention them bc we're in the „help“ section and everyone can read this. I don't want to educate the wrong folks.

Based on the knowledge out of these threads I've adjusted my activity with the airbnb company as to wheter or not and how many stays I'm renting through them.

[Ute42]

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@Marcus237 

Your replypost to mine got lost - pls post again.

[Marcus237]

@Sarah977 We're not talking about government intrusion into our homes here. We're talking about a homeowner's right to know what goes on in their own home, for the protection of themselves, their assets, and their guests. There are ZERO parallels to rights to privacy from the government. I'm a huge proponent of privacy rights from the government, especially in our own homes. But we're not talking about being in our homes here. We're talking about people in OTHER people's homes.

[Marcus237]

@Ute42  Strange that my reply was "lost". Here it is again:

Thanks for digging these up for me! I went through every post in every one of them. Unfortunately because airbnb's policy not to talk to people once they're disconnected, it's difficult to determine if these 4 people fully followed the terms of service or not. In each case, airbnb claimed that they violated the terms of service. If I were them, I'd invoke the mediation clause in the TOS to see what the problem was. With professional mediation, if they followed the TOS, their accounts likely would be reinstated, and there is also the possibility of compensation for damages from lost rents. Mediation is basically the alternate option to a lawsuit that hosts agree to under airbnb's terms of service.

And, while I haven't studied the legal language in depth, as I understand it, airbnb CAN'T refuse mediation without being in contractual violation of their agreement with hosts, which would open the door for a real lawsuit. I suspect that the airbnb legal team is the source of this "gag order" policy when it comes to closed accounts, expecting that most people will either give up well before thinking about mediation, or continuously attempt to contact them outside of mediation, potentially giving them useful information to aid their case during mediation.

In either case, due to the hush hush nature of these four incidents, it's very difficult to determine if there was actually a TOS violation. It's entirely possible every one of these hosts was too vague in their disclosures. From what I've read, airbnb expects that you disclose the location of every camera in your house rules, and (possibly, haven't confirmed this one) include a picture of each camera in your listing. Most people likely haven't thought it's that big of a deal, and so their disclosure consisted of something like "There are security cameras outside and in the common areas." Which is not at all good enough based on airbnb's TOS.

[Ute42]

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@Marcus237 

Yes, You can try the mediation clause but You won't get far with it. There is a stipulation in the airbnb TOS which says, that airbnb can remove any listing at any time for no reason at all and everyone listing with airbnb has agreed to their TOS.

I agree that many hosts do not disclose their cameras properly. In most cases they mention them in their houserules. For my money that's not good enough. I think You have to have pictures of the cameras amongst the listing pictures, You have to disclose where exactely they are and what they capture.

I personally have no cameras inside or outside of my place, but I'm always torn between the security aspect and the privacy aspect. I am considering to at least install a camera to monitor the entrance of the building from the outside. But I can't make up my mind which is unusual for me.