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

[Fred-List manager (fholson]

Laura Polich <laura.polich [at] gmail.com>
is the author of the message below.  It was posted by
Fred, the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
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This was brought up as a possibility at Daybreak Cohousing in Portland,
Oregon, but it has not gotten much of a positive response. For many of us
the promise of knowing our neighbors was a major reason for wanting to move
into cohousing. We have made it a policy that anyone having guests staying
over -- whether in one's private unit or in the community's guest rooms --
send an email to the community introducing their guests. Right now, we know
everyone who lives here, and a majority of the recurring guests of our
neighbors, and we have encouraged a policy of approaching unknown people on
the grounds and asking "May I help you?" and if they say they are guests of
one of our neighbors, we introduce ourselves. We fear that Air BnB will
break down this trust, because none of those guests will have established a
personal relationship with their host. We will have strangers walking
around at any time, and that violates a basic reason many of were attracted
to cohousing. We also have a number of small children, and for safety
reasons, we are not comfortable with unknown and transient guests. Many of
us are not comfortable having Air BnB clients having access to our Common
House. Besides safety issues, we have many things stored in our Common
House that could be stolen, including our bicycles. It would just be too
easy for someone with nefarious tendencies to scope things out as an
innocent guest, and return later to do damage. We have shared laundry for
which we all share the cost, and it does not seem fair to make those
amenities available to transient guests who are not members of our
community and who are not contributing to the community.

This started out for us as a way for one resident to earn some extra income
from an extra room. The more it got discussed, however, the more negatives
appeared. The idea seems to have been dropped.

Laura