4 ms·
Particularly painful is the fact that losing one's apartment in San Francisco is also effectively a banishment from the city. If you're like many people curren
by scelerat 13y ago
Particularly painful is the fact that losing one's apartment in San Francisco is also effectively a banishment from the city.
If you're like many people currently living in SF, you can't afford to rent an apartment at current market rates. You don't merely have to find a new apartment; you have to move to a different city. And guess what? If you worked in the city before, your commute costs likely just went up $100-$200 a month.
AirBnB absolutely should be bearing some responsibility here if they have been knowingly withholding information about the legality of subletting in San Francisco. Their risk very low, while the consequences for an unwitting AirBnB host are potentially life-altering in a very real way.
- bradleyjg 13y agoCome on -- you have a rent control apartment well under market value and no inkling that you might be limited in how you can directly profit from that circumstance? No thought that hey maybe I should check with my landlord, or at least give it a google?
- scelerat 13y agoYes I was being serious. Big red warning: "by using in AirBnB in this zip code you are likely behaving as an illegal hotel and subject to eviction." To reiterate, the consequences for AirBnB if a host is caught is virtually nothing. The consequences for the host are potentially severe. AirBnB bears an ethical if not legal responsibility to clarify these laws for potential hosts.
- shittyanalogy 13y ago"Likely"? it's either illegal or not. In SF it's illegal.
- mikeash 13y agoIt is at least theoretically possible that they have the appropriate hotel permits, is it not? An actual hotel could advertise their rooms on AirBNB if they wanted to, not that I can see why they would.
- lizardking 13y agoNot if you own the property and have the proper permit.
- waps 13y agoOr if you rent out a room in your house while you're still staying there.
- Houshalter 13y agoIf only there was a way to more efficiently allocate housing to people that need it. Oh wait.
- bsder 13y ago> AirBnB absolutely should be bearing some responsibility here if they have been knowingly withholding information about the legality of subletting in San Francisco. Um, AirBnB is effectively illegal everywhere. The number of places it is legal dwarfs the number of places it is illegal. Of course, if AirBnB decided to operate in places like Vandergrift, PA, people would welcome them (renting a hotel there is normally easy, but becomes a nightmare at times like high-school graduation because of almost no supply) as a way to cushion event-based scarcity. Like Uber, these companies don't want to operate in the suburbs where people would welcome and defend them. They want to operate in the cities, show hypergrowth, and cash out for billions. No sympathy for all parties.
- waps 13y agoThe parent is wrong though. It is not the duty of merchants to inform you that something is illegal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorantia_juris_non_excusat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorantia_juris_non_excusat In the case of uber you might attempt to make the case that uber is enabling/encouraging/paying people to break the law. That is illegal by itself.
- bsder 13y agoA good point, but not one I was trying to make. My point was that if AirBnB did anything which limited itself to operating in legal areas, it would be several orders of magnitude smaller.