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You're not addressing my question: What "legitimate public health concerns" are different for couchsurfing vs a person renting out their apt while on holiday?

• jbooth 16y ago
  You need to un-ask your question. I already stated my opinion on renting out an apt on holiday, in the comment you originally responded to, and it's totally irrelevant to the point I'm making about how legislation happens as well as the larger point about people running a hotel out of their apartment.
• alain94040 16y ago
  There actually is a difference (although I'm not taking sides in that debate): If you allow people to not be present at all, then some will turn this into a business and operate a real hotel room, 365 days a year. Operated like a cheap hotel. I can see why the government may want to regulate that. An easy way to distinguish the above situation from legitimate friends staying over, is to ask for the owner to be present. Or couchsurfing. That tends to make it a more casual and better controlled environment. I can understand why the government may want to stay out of this. My impression is that the real criteria should be how much the room is rented: if you have guests 300 days a year, you should be regulated. If it's 10 days, leave me alone. The problem is that it's probably hard to define, and may impose its own set of requirements (such as, everyone would have to keep a registry of all visitors, just to prove that they don't fall into the hotel category).