> There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story that would explain why building codes for permanent residence are not good enough for temporary residence as

> There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story that would explain why building codes for permanent residence are not good enough for temporary residence as well. The law is there to protect hotel operators from vacation rental competition. I think Uber and Airbnb stand on different ground here. The building codes issue is a red herring; Airbnb faces more severe problems. I can think of plenty of "traveler protection", "hotel protection", "tenant protection" and "landlord protection" stories. Real stories detailing Airbnb's failure to answer these issues are already circulating the internet: http://www.google.com/search?q=airbnb+nightmare http://www.google.com/search?q=airbnb+nightmare (to be fair, these stories seem to focus exclusively on bad tenants, while I can see bad landlords being an issue as well)