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You're forgetting that this problem is already solved by contract law. Tenants sign agreements not to rent out their units all the time. Home owner's associat

You're forgetting that this problem is already solved by contract law. Tenants sign agreements not to rent out their units all the time. Home owner's associations often have rules against short-term rentals as well. If you don't like the idea of short-term rentals in your neighborhood or building, choose one protected by one of these types of contracts. In fact, they're so common, you probably already have such protections, even if you don't know it. The government making something illegal really should be the last resort for societal problems. I'm not convinced short-term rentals are really so harmful as to meet that threshold.

muzz 14y ago
If you own a single-family detached home, this is not likely to be the case (if there is no HOA).
tptacek 14y ago
What's the contract law remedy for a tenant in a building whose unscrupulous landlord has decided to dump his spare inventory onto Airbnb as an ad hoc hostel? Break the lease? Sue for moving costs and to recover the security deposite? What if you're rent-controlled and the landlord says "go ahead, break the lease! woohoo!"? What's the contract law remedy for unscrupulous businesspeople who buy entire buildings and convert them into Airbnb hostels? I've used and appreciated Airbnb, but I think 'cletus is ultimately right and threads like this have a hard time of seeing the (valid) other side of this issue.
- Zak 14y ago
  What's the contract law remedy for a tenant in a building whose unscrupulous landlord has decided to dump his spare inventory onto Airbnb as an ad hoc hostel? One long-term solution that could emerge is for it to be common to have provisions in leases that forbid both tenants and landlords from doing such things. It might take a while for that to happen, but if what you describe becomes much of a problem, it's likely to happen. What if you're rent-controlled and the landlord says "go ahead, break the lease! woohoo!"? Then your bargaining power is reduced in exchange for your below-market rent. Sounds fair to me. What's the contract law remedy for unscrupulous businesspeople who buy entire buildings and convert them into Airbnb hostels? That's a slightly different issue. I don't think this is necessarily unscrupulous to do this, but there's certainly a potential for externalities.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    "Could emerge"? Have you ever read a residential lease? I've rented (counting real quick) 8 different places in 3 different cities and every single one of them gave the landlord control over sublessors. I could not have lawfully put any of those apartments on Airbnb. This came up last Abnb thread, and a bunch of my fellow message board nerds insisted that it was a commonplace to have leases that didn't forbid Abnb, but I don't buy it. I think the right rule of thumb is "you can't do it without breaking the promise you made when you rented the apartment and exposing yourself not only to eviction but to civil liability". Incidentally, the case law behind landlord oversight over sublessors is very solid; this issue is some substantial fraction of every tenant dispute ever, because people very commonly want to break their leases, and expect their landlord to accept the very first person the tenant finds to occupy the apartment.
- hyperbovine 14y ago
  > What's the contract law remedy for a tenant in a building whose unscrupulous landlord has decided to dump his spare inventory onto Airbnb as an ad hoc hostel? Demand a no-hostel clause at signing. It's silly, but there's your answer. And BTW, having lived in a truly rent-controlled (1/5th market rate) place before, "go ahead, break the lease! woohoo!" is all your landlord says anyways.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    And so your remedy, when your landlord, who has promised you an apartment for a year at a specified price, is to move apartments, and then spend 2 years chasing them in court? Incidentally: I sued a landlord once a few years ago over a very simple issue (they unlawfully withheld my security deposit) and did not pull "2 years" out of my butt.
    - hyperbovine 14y ago
      Inadequate enforcement of contracts is a separate debate. But living somewhere with strong tenant laws helps. For instance, where I live, people can (and do) sue their landlord for damages when their quality of life is affected by the landlord breaching some part of the lease.
larrys 14y ago
"The government making something illegal really should be the last resort for societal problems." Except that the ease to which people can now rent out an apartment short term has created a situation that was not contemplated by existing laws (or if there were existing laws they were not violated to the extent to make enforcement necessary). Let's take as an example, spam. The founding fathers of the Internet didn't anticipate that the scholarly people who first used the internet would violate the unwritten rules to not spam. The community was small enough and the members respectful enough that it wasn't even designed into the system (let's assume there could have been a technical way to prevent spam in the original design for a second). But with the success of the internet and it being opened up to everyone the game changed. "I'm not convinced short-term rentals are really so harmful" If you've ever had bad neighbors you will understand why people often want a single family home with lots of land or want to live in an exclusive building.
- alberich 14y ago
  I wonder if protecting people from bad neighbours is really the intent here. It looks more like they are trying to shut the short-term rental business down, to please the large hotel business.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    I don't think Hilton, Hyatt, Wyndham or Marriott give a shit about Airbnb; they do a full Airbnb valuation of real revenue every other quarter, and the market they service isn't "random places to stay", it's "hotel rooms". The preponderance of evidence available to message board nerds like us suggests strongly to me that enforcement of these laws is being driven by real complaints.
    - alberich 14y ago
      If it is like you say, it sounds a bit overboard to shut down everything. Maybe with some effort they could come up with regulation to solve those complaints while keeping the good renters legal.
rprasad 14y ago
Once you have children (or nieces/nephews), there is a 100% chance that you will feel differently about short-term rentals. Long-term rentals indicate tenants that are stable enough to at least afford the lease. They are subject to at least some vetting (including background checks) prior to moving in. Short term tenants can be anyone. No background checks are conducted.
- stephencanon 14y ago
  There's a 100% chance that I won't. Strangers, even unvetted ones, almost never pose a danger to children. The vast majority of harm done to children is done by friends and family. Having more strangers around makes your kids safer, if anything.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    This is why, when I need sitting for my middle-school aged kids, I drop them off in the middle of Union Station instead of bringing them to their grandparents.
    - gcb 14y ago
      At least they won't get fat! Those grandparents...
  - walkon 14y ago
    > Strangers, even unvetted ones, almost never pose a danger to children. The vast majority of harm done to children is done by friends and family. Having more strangers around makes your kids safer, if anything. I hear this a lot and my guess is this is simply a function of how much time family and friends spend with a child (in relative privacy) compared to complete strangers. The surface area of attack is way smaller for random people; they don't have the "reasonable" opportunity.
  - geebee 14y ago
    So if you were looking for a babysitter, would you prefer someone randomly selected on airbnb by your downstairs neighbor to someone you've vetted yourself?

muzz 14y ago

If you own a single-family detached home, this is not likely to be the case (if there is no HOA).

tptacek 14y ago

What's the contract law remedy for a tenant in a building whose unscrupulous landlord has decided to dump his spare inventory onto Airbnb as an ad hoc hostel? Break the lease? Sue for moving costs and to recover the security deposite? What if you're rent-controlled and the landlord says "go ahead, break the lease! woohoo!"? What's the contract law remedy for unscrupulous businesspeople who buy entire buildings and convert them into Airbnb hostels? I've used and appreciated Airbnb, but I think 'cletus is ultimately right and threads like this have a hard time of seeing the (valid) other side of this issue.

Zak 14y ago
What's the contract law remedy for a tenant in a building whose unscrupulous landlord has decided to dump his spare inventory onto Airbnb as an ad hoc hostel? One long-term solution that could emerge is for it to be common to have provisions in leases that forbid both tenants and landlords from doing such things. It might take a while for that to happen, but if what you describe becomes much of a problem, it's likely to happen. What if you're rent-controlled and the landlord says "go ahead, break the lease! woohoo!"? Then your bargaining power is reduced in exchange for your below-market rent. Sounds fair to me. What's the contract law remedy for unscrupulous businesspeople who buy entire buildings and convert them into Airbnb hostels? That's a slightly different issue. I don't think this is necessarily unscrupulous to do this, but there's certainly a potential for externalities.
- tptacek 14y ago
  "Could emerge"? Have you ever read a residential lease? I've rented (counting real quick) 8 different places in 3 different cities and every single one of them gave the landlord control over sublessors. I could not have lawfully put any of those apartments on Airbnb. This came up last Abnb thread, and a bunch of my fellow message board nerds insisted that it was a commonplace to have leases that didn't forbid Abnb, but I don't buy it. I think the right rule of thumb is "you can't do it without breaking the promise you made when you rented the apartment and exposing yourself not only to eviction but to civil liability". Incidentally, the case law behind landlord oversight over sublessors is very solid; this issue is some substantial fraction of every tenant dispute ever, because people very commonly want to break their leases, and expect their landlord to accept the very first person the tenant finds to occupy the apartment.
hyperbovine 14y ago
> What's the contract law remedy for a tenant in a building whose unscrupulous landlord has decided to dump his spare inventory onto Airbnb as an ad hoc hostel? Demand a no-hostel clause at signing. It's silly, but there's your answer. And BTW, having lived in a truly rent-controlled (1/5th market rate) place before, "go ahead, break the lease! woohoo!" is all your landlord says anyways.
- tptacek 14y ago
  And so your remedy, when your landlord, who has promised you an apartment for a year at a specified price, is to move apartments, and then spend 2 years chasing them in court? Incidentally: I sued a landlord once a few years ago over a very simple issue (they unlawfully withheld my security deposit) and did not pull "2 years" out of my butt.
  - hyperbovine 14y ago
    Inadequate enforcement of contracts is a separate debate. But living somewhere with strong tenant laws helps. For instance, where I live, people can (and do) sue their landlord for damages when their quality of life is affected by the landlord breaching some part of the lease.

larrys 14y ago

"The government making something illegal really should be the last resort for societal problems." Except that the ease to which people can now rent out an apartment short term has created a situation that was not contemplated by existing laws (or if there were existing laws they were not violated to the extent to make enforcement necessary). Let's take as an example, spam. The founding fathers of the Internet didn't anticipate that the scholarly people who first used the internet would violate the unwritten rules to not spam. The community was small enough and the members respectful enough that it wasn't even designed into the system (let's assume there could have been a technical way to prevent spam in the original design for a second). But with the success of the internet and it being opened up to everyone the game changed. "I'm not convinced short-term rentals are really so harmful" If you've ever had bad neighbors you will understand why people often want a single family home with lots of land or want to live in an exclusive building.

alberich 14y ago
I wonder if protecting people from bad neighbours is really the intent here. It looks more like they are trying to shut the short-term rental business down, to please the large hotel business.
- tptacek 14y ago
  I don't think Hilton, Hyatt, Wyndham or Marriott give a shit about Airbnb; they do a full Airbnb valuation of real revenue every other quarter, and the market they service isn't "random places to stay", it's "hotel rooms". The preponderance of evidence available to message board nerds like us suggests strongly to me that enforcement of these laws is being driven by real complaints.
  - alberich 14y ago
    If it is like you say, it sounds a bit overboard to shut down everything. Maybe with some effort they could come up with regulation to solve those complaints while keeping the good renters legal.

rprasad 14y ago

Once you have children (or nieces/nephews), there is a 100% chance that you will feel differently about short-term rentals. Long-term rentals indicate tenants that are stable enough to at least afford the lease. They are subject to at least some vetting (including background checks) prior to moving in. Short term tenants can be anyone. No background checks are conducted.

stephencanon 14y ago
There's a 100% chance that I won't. Strangers, even unvetted ones, almost never pose a danger to children. The vast majority of harm done to children is done by friends and family. Having more strangers around makes your kids safer, if anything.
- tptacek 14y ago
  This is why, when I need sitting for my middle-school aged kids, I drop them off in the middle of Union Station instead of bringing them to their grandparents.
  - gcb 14y ago
    At least they won't get fat! Those grandparents...
- walkon 14y ago
  > Strangers, even unvetted ones, almost never pose a danger to children. The vast majority of harm done to children is done by friends and family. Having more strangers around makes your kids safer, if anything. I hear this a lot and my guess is this is simply a function of how much time family and friends spend with a child (in relative privacy) compared to complete strangers. The surface area of attack is way smaller for random people; they don't have the "reasonable" opportunity.
- geebee 14y ago
  So if you were looking for a babysitter, would you prefer someone randomly selected on airbnb by your downstairs neighbor to someone you've vetted yourself?