Everything Wrong With Airbnb

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I clean air bnbs. fun fact! we do not get that $200 cleaning fee :) it goes to the host who most of the time never even visits the properties for months at a time. I get paid $16 an hour, clean for about 2-3 hours each property, resulting in a whopping $50 (roughly). not sure what the point of a cleaning fee is when its not even for the cleaner! and oh yeah the company is a failing one, currently looking for a new job :)

What really sucks about AirBnB is that it really started off like an online hostel type situation. It was a way to travel and experience the city like a local. I stayed at a really beautiful Victorian home with a super sweet host and it was really cool to see their personal recommendations and such. Now I can't even think about using the platform because it's been clearly taken over by landlords.

a friend of a friend’s dog died after an airbnb stay when they were exposed to open rat poison even though the property was listed as pet friendly. neither the host nor airbnb agreed to refund them. it was horrifying.

The best airBnB I’ve ever sayed at was a really nice house that the host lived in, he had the whole second floor set up for guests, and cooked us breakfast in the morning. Just a really nice person who ran it more like a bed and breakfast.

People keep saying “getting rid of Airbnb won’t make a dent in the housing market”. I live in a tourist town. More than half of the houses and apartments are used as airbnb. Because of that, myself and every young person are literally sharing bedrooms because there is nowhere else to live. If there were no airbnbs, we all could potentially have a place to live normally

My dad’s girlfriend professionally cleans a lot of Air B&Bs and has found hidden cameras and other creepy stuff numerous times, but everytime she’s tried to get in contact with Air B&B to report the owner, they either make her go around and around about “proof” (even though she has pictures) or outright say she can’t input anything about it because she isn’t a renter. It’s insane. Air B&B is literally knowingly allowing these creepy owners to continue their thing.

I stayed at a bunch of air bnbs when I lived in greece on the islands there and the host would always meet us at the house give us a tour, and show us how to use the hot water and open the door with the keys and what leads where. It was always really nice so its crazy to see how different it is in different places

Earthquake destroys multiple properties. New townhouses built to replace them, new modern and up to code. Immediately purchased and listed as short term rentals, with people proudly posting it on social media

It's crazy that Omegle was sued over the users doing nefarious things on it but Airbnb isn't getting sued or reprimanded for their users doing nefarious things.

the fact that the airbnb website doesn't even ask for proof of owning a property is insane 😭 what's stopping someone from putting up an address for a local Taco Bell? 😭😭😭

Glad I used it at a time when it was still new and good. The host was great (ended up using the same place again later), picked me up from the train station (even late at night), showed me the area, did a bike tour with picnic, brought food, etc, and made me feel less like a typical tourist. Sad how this got abused for greed and the horror stories that keep popping up will make me pick a hotel for the next trip.

I gotta say, I used Airbnb exclusively on my one month trip in Japan, going from Kyushu all the way to Aomori (basically from top to bottom, sorry Hokkaido). I had zero issues, and it's still my favorite method of traveling within Japan now that I live here. Check in is easy, the places are always clean, and the cute elderly couples I swear all become core memories from how sweet they are. Perhaps it's the element of Japanese hospitality? I will confess, there was one example of a dirty place, but I was able to change on the day and get my money back. That single experience aside, I definitely recommend it at least for Japan.

so fun story, when my wife and I were dating, the apartment that we were living in at the time got posted on airbnb. except not by us. the leasing office called us furious and told us that people were there to pick up the key to their airbnb from the front desk. we were obviously insanely confused and freaked out. we reported the psychos who put up the listing, it got removed, we thought it was taken care of. they put the listing back up 2 weeks later. they didn’t even get banned. it’s actually just the wild fkn west out there

Tip: When you stay at an AirBnB (or even a hotel), turn the lights off in your rental when you get there so its dark and then open the camera app on your phone and select video. If there's a hidden camera, when its dark in the room the camera's IR or infrared light will come on and your phone's camera can detect the light which is invisible to the human eye. Smartphone cameras do not have an infrared night vision light but hidden or security cameras do. You'll see the infrared light in your phone's camera app since it comes on automatically in the dark but you wont when you look away from the phone’s screen and directly at or in the direction of any cameras

it’s still wild to me how airbnb developed as a whole. back when it just started, i used it occasionally to rent out my room for the times i was gone to visit my family and basically get a return of my otherwise lost rent money. it felt like it slightly better version of couch surfing in a way, and then it suddenly turned into this insane mega business with all these crazy listings and gobbling up whole neighbourshoods.

If anyone wants a good place to stay, I always recommend residence inn. They have free breakfast, not a big selection, but with eggs, cereal, coffee, juice, oatmeal, bacon, sausage, and different breads, it's a decent breakfast. And occasionally offer lunch as well, again nothing too much. Their lunch area also offers free popcorn when you're hanging out doing stuff on your laptop. Now what sold me on residence inn is that it has a full kitchen. Full size fridge, microwave, coffee maker, and stove oven. You can bring anything you'd like and be able to cook home made meals. I think they only provide one pot and one pan, but that's better than other places that don't offer a full kitchen for the same price.

I worked for an Airbnb host that charged a standard $45 cleaning fee for most of their units, with higher rates for their "premium" properties. They hired their own cleaners to justify this price, so you would think that most, if not all, of this money would go to staff. Right? Wrong. The bosses rushed us to finish the properties quickly rather than thoroughly, which led to several cleanliness complaints, overworked and underpaid staff, and the Airbnb host making a profit off of the cleaning fees as well as the rental rates. This is just the tip of the iceberg; I have many more horror stories about these hosts.

Airbnb is genuinely ruining mexico city for the locals, not only do we have gentrification and a housing crisis, we also get entitled turists or "digital nomads" mistreating employees who make minimum wage because "how dare you not know english don't you see I'm trying to order my overpriced fancy tacos you peasant". The places I enjoyed pre pandemic really suck because of this now.

The fun fact is that most hotels work already on an Airbnb model. Hotels are run on one brand but by different companies and using the brand website to offer their rooms and doing promotions. But you get a quite regulated business and you have many legal protections.