4 ms·

TL; DR: For one year, a late-30's academic and his artist spouse document the use of Airbnb, as a tool to facilitate law-abiding, temporary living, in varied Ne

TL; DR: For one year, a late-30's academic and his artist spouse document the use of Airbnb, as a tool to facilitate law-abiding, temporary living, in varied New York City neighborhoods. Airbnb comes out looking responsive, to lack of care from certain hosts. Impressions of neighborhoods vary, as you would expect, sometimes from simply finding contaminated pasta. After gaining a few positive reviews on Airbnb, they successfully negotiate their way into spaces above their price range, while avoiding "red flags", like unmentioned fifth-floor walk-ups. Great article, lots of tie-ins to various cultural history of the neighborhoods.

greggman 11y ago
I've been using AirBnb to live all over for the last 2.5 years. Not 100% has been AirBnB but enough that I mostly think AirBnB as a company could use a lot of improvement (edited from something more derogatory) Of the 16+ places I've stayed at 5 of them have lied about their facilities where as of the 20 or so hotels I've stayed at only 1 lied about their facilities and they fixed the issue. But, on AirBnB there's no way to really deal with the issue. Most landlords don't have some other place so you show up, suitcase in tow, what can you do except deal with lies? It's not like you can easily find another place in a few minutes. At best you have to sit there with your cellphone and try to find a nearby hotel and stay there several days until you find a new place. As far as I'm concerned the AirBnB refund guarantee is mostly useless. I don't feel free to leave a bad review because the next landlord might not rent to me if they see I've left other bad reviews. Why should they take the risk of renting to someone that leaves bad reviews? AirBnB provides almost no way to deal with these issues. There are zero repercussions for lies on the facilities and unless you actually rent the place there is no way to contact AirBnB. So for example, once I got used to the lies I started asking the landlords for specifics before I rented. Example: Two places claimed they had "free parking on premises" but when questioned, one said I could park in the street but they didn't actually have any parking on premises. Another said unless I had neighborhood sticker I'd have to park 3-5 blocks away. There was nothing I could. I can't report them to AirBnB unless I actually rent As far as other lies. One claimed they had Wifi. Turned out they were stealing it from a neighbor and it was only accessible from small area in the corner of the living room. Another said the apartment was a 1bedroom but it turned out to be studio. The difference? A 1bedroom has a door so I can shut out the refrigerator sounds, a studio does not so I had filtered out studios. One claimed they had free parking on premises. When got there I was told it was often blocked and I'd have to park on the street. Car was broken into there BTW. Another claimed free parking on premises. Turned out he was on vacation and left is car in the space so no parking. Another no lies I suppose but it wasn't ready to rent. No curtains on the windows and buildings all looking directly into it. Also it claimed air conditioning which was true but in a hot august in LA with it running on high it took til 4am to cool the place down.
- ajb 11y ago
  "I don't feel free to leave a bad review because the next landlord might not rent to me if they see I've left other bad reviews". A hack to deal with this: leave praise in the review, but end it with 'and I'll be sure to tell all my friends'. That used to be code in hotel guestbooks that all the preceding praise should be inverted. (I think that's the codephrase - someone correct me if it's wrong please!) Not sure if it's used in AirBnb, but hey, why not start the tradition now...
  - pavel_lishin 11y ago
    I've never heard of this before; I don't know how many hosts would pick up on it. Also, I think I've left that comment before in various places, and I certainly didn't intend it to mean that I hated it.
  - random_rr 11y ago
    This comment is much, much funnier when I imagine Michael Scott from "The Office" saying it. Thanks for brightening my day. :D
  - knughit 11y ago
    That's s horrible spoilage of communication, and makes no sense in a hotel guest book. i think someone played a joke on you.
- xixixao 11y ago
  I'd list all positives first, then negatives. I guess I'm used to descriptions online being inaccurate, so background check is always valuable, and past comments should help with that. This applies to Uber and any similar scheme, you gotta be honest otherwise the scheme won't work. You can always soften with "in my opinion, my experience" etc.
- pkaye 11y ago
  Right now AirBnB is still a growing business. They are trying to get as much properties on their system so they are playing fast and loose on the accuracy and quality. But once things settle down, they will start tightening the screws on all these listings kind of like how eBay did on the sellers once it finally grew up.
golergka 11y ago
I wish every post here had a TL;DR like this. You saved my time and yet gave me a reason to get back to this article later. Thanks.

greggman 11y ago

I've been using AirBnb to live all over for the last 2.5 years. Not 100% has been AirBnB but enough that I mostly think AirBnB as a company could use a lot of improvement (edited from something more derogatory) Of the 16+ places I've stayed at 5 of them have lied about their facilities where as of the 20 or so hotels I've stayed at only 1 lied about their facilities and they fixed the issue. But, on AirBnB there's no way to really deal with the issue. Most landlords don't have some other place so you show up, suitcase in tow, what can you do except deal with lies? It's not like you can easily find another place in a few minutes. At best you have to sit there with your cellphone and try to find a nearby hotel and stay there several days until you find a new place. As far as I'm concerned the AirBnB refund guarantee is mostly useless. I don't feel free to leave a bad review because the next landlord might not rent to me if they see I've left other bad reviews. Why should they take the risk of renting to someone that leaves bad reviews? AirBnB provides almost no way to deal with these issues. There are zero repercussions for lies on the facilities and unless you actually rent the place there is no way to contact AirBnB. So for example, once I got used to the lies I started asking the landlords for specifics before I rented. Example: Two places claimed they had "free parking on premises" but when questioned, one said I could park in the street but they didn't actually have any parking on premises. Another said unless I had neighborhood sticker I'd have to park 3-5 blocks away. There was nothing I could. I can't report them to AirBnB unless I actually rent As far as other lies. One claimed they had Wifi. Turned out they were stealing it from a neighbor and it was only accessible from small area in the corner of the living room. Another said the apartment was a 1bedroom but it turned out to be studio. The difference? A 1bedroom has a door so I can shut out the refrigerator sounds, a studio does not so I had filtered out studios. One claimed they had free parking on premises. When got there I was told it was often blocked and I'd have to park on the street. Car was broken into there BTW. Another claimed free parking on premises. Turned out he was on vacation and left is car in the space so no parking. Another no lies I suppose but it wasn't ready to rent. No curtains on the windows and buildings all looking directly into it. Also it claimed air conditioning which was true but in a hot august in LA with it running on high it took til 4am to cool the place down.

ajb 11y ago
"I don't feel free to leave a bad review because the next landlord might not rent to me if they see I've left other bad reviews". A hack to deal with this: leave praise in the review, but end it with 'and I'll be sure to tell all my friends'. That used to be code in hotel guestbooks that all the preceding praise should be inverted. (I think that's the codephrase - someone correct me if it's wrong please!) Not sure if it's used in AirBnb, but hey, why not start the tradition now...
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  I've never heard of this before; I don't know how many hosts would pick up on it. Also, I think I've left that comment before in various places, and I certainly didn't intend it to mean that I hated it.
- random_rr 11y ago
  This comment is much, much funnier when I imagine Michael Scott from "The Office" saying it. Thanks for brightening my day. :D
- knughit 11y ago
  That's s horrible spoilage of communication, and makes no sense in a hotel guest book. i think someone played a joke on you.
xixixao 11y ago
I'd list all positives first, then negatives. I guess I'm used to descriptions online being inaccurate, so background check is always valuable, and past comments should help with that. This applies to Uber and any similar scheme, you gotta be honest otherwise the scheme won't work. You can always soften with "in my opinion, my experience" etc.
pkaye 11y ago
Right now AirBnB is still a growing business. They are trying to get as much properties on their system so they are playing fast and loose on the accuracy and quality. But once things settle down, they will start tightening the screws on all these listings kind of like how eBay did on the sellers once it finally grew up.

golergka 11y ago

I wish every post here had a TL;DR like this. You saved my time and yet gave me a reason to get back to this article later. Thanks.