Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: AirBnB in Cohos?

[Allison tom (allison.tom]

I currently live in my own home and have a fully furnished rental suite in my 
home that I rent on short & medium term agreements. So my Airbnb experience is 
not cohousing.  But I've stopped listing through Airbnb because they block & 
limit communication between owner & renter so aggressively.  

Theoretically you can email through their system and even talk on the phone 
through their system before you agree to rent. But they will intercept any 
email that has anything that looks like private email addresses or phone 
numbers.   And the few times I have tried to use their system to talk to 
prospective renters they've blocked the connection.

What this means is that it's pretty much impossible to do a thorough vetting of 
prospective tenants, and I can only imagine how much harder it would be to try 
to communicate community values and rules through the Airbnb screening.

Allison Tom 



> On Apr 21, 2015, at 9:51 AM, Eris Weaver <eris [at] erisweaver.info> wrote:
> 
> 
> R Philip Dowds asked:
> 
>> If any of you out there have had, or are approaching, experience with
>> AirBnB, could you help with some questions:
>> In general, does it feel like a plus or minus?  Does it add life and
> interest to your
>> community, or do you feel mostly puzzled, like, Who the hell was that?
>> What are your rules for transients using the commons?  Can they use the
> exercise
>> room, or let their child join your children?s playgroup?
>> How do you control access to the commons?  
> 
> We had a very unhappy experience with AirBnB here at FrogSong. 
> 
> First, some background on our guest policies. Anyone here can host a guest
> in our guest rooms, which are located in the common house. The host is
> expected to inform them of community rules, clean up after they leave, etc.
> Guests, whether staying in your home or in the guest room, can use common
> spaces like the playground and hot tub, but again host is responsible for
> making sure rules are understood and followed. General custom is to inform
> the community about your guests by email, both so they aren't subjected to
> too many "Hi, who are you?" comments from other residents and we all feel
> safe by knowing who's onsite legitimately. (We are smack downtown surrounded
> by several bars so have occasional trespassing, vandalism, etc. issues.)
> 
> Members who have been away for a month or more - vacation, sabbatical, etc.
> -- have sublet their units. Someone on-site served as the host, and everyone
> is informed in advance. In general, everyone's been great about carefully
> vetting their guests/housesitters/catsitters/subletters to make sure they
> are not a negative impact on the rest of the community. Many of these folks
> have become friends, have become fulltime residents, or subsequently sublet
> other units.
> 
> Our front door keys all also unlock the common house, the hot tub, and other
> shared spaces.
> 
> So, on to the AirBnB experience. 
> 
> One of our members listed her entire home on AirBnB without informing
> anyone. Her family vacated while a group of 3-4 AirBnB guests came and
> stayed in her home. It was a total surprise to the rest of us to have a
> group of strangers arrive, ask where the AirBnB was, smoke on our pathways
> (which while not expressly forbidden, is never done), create some noise
> issues in the parking lot, etc. Her listing did mention that community
> facilities were off-limits to AirBnB guests.
> 
> It was hard to separate the actual action - listing on AirBnB - from the way
> it was done - just doing it without any discussion. Many residents felt
> extremely violated. We discussed a proposal to formally ban such rentals;
> some of our members did not want to formally regulate how others use their
> homes.  (Such rentals actually violate our city codes.) Some felt there is a
> qualititative difference between using something like AirBnB  to rent a room
> while you are home versus renting your whole home while you are gone. The
> homeowner in question removed her listing. 
> 
> At this point, even without a formally consensed policy, I doubt anyone here
> would list their units on AirBnB again!
> 
> ------------------------------
> Eris Weaver, Founding member, FrogSong cohousing in Cotati, CA
> Graphic Facilitator & Group Process Consultant
> eris [at] erisweaver.info • 707-338-8589 • http://www.erisweaver.info
> 
> 
> 
> fa cil i tāt: to make easier
> 
> 
> 
> 
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