Ex-NYC landlord here. I'm glad to see how many people realize that re-rental of a rental property in a multi-tenant building is problematic. NYC rentals are so

Ex-NYC landlord here. I'm glad to see how many people realize that re-rental of a rental property in a multi-tenant building is problematic. NYC rentals are some of the most regulated in the country; nearly half of rentals are covered by rent stabilization law, which makes it all but impossible to evict tenants as long as they pay rent, and dictates annual rent increases regardless of the gap between current rent and fair market value. Rent-controlled tenants who rent out through AirBnB are, quite literally, rent-seeking -- using their government-granted preference in the housing market to extract a profit. Beyond that, there are very real issues of security and disturbance of community when strangers are coming in and out of a property. My wife and I lived in our building, and it was like a little neighborhood. People left their boots and umbrellas in the hall on rainy days, and we had a communal BBQ grill in the backyard. If you haven't lived in a super-dense city like London, NYC or Tokyo, it's hard to understand how sacred the interior of an apartment building is. One way to look at it is that AirBnB is "disrupting" the stale hotel industry. Another way to look at it is that hotel laws and regulations were put in place to put paid to the crush of illegal/dangerous/unhealthy boarding houses that cropped up near the turn of the last century. Stories like laxatives' make me fear that we are headed right back there.