Tag Archives: airbnb illegal subletting

Ruining NYC: Airbnb Neighbor Nightmare

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I would suggest a new category of victim for this website: Airbnb neighbor. My home and four other apartments in a small 6-unit building were all unwilling dragged into the pitfalls of the sharing economy. We had involuntary, front-row seats to the joy of when one individual volunteers access to your doorstep to the world without your consent and lies to everyone involved for her personal financial gain. Stephanie Browne is a serial Airbnb “host” who at one point listed up to three separate full apartment rentals in Bushwick, Brooklyn; this is illegal to do in NY for less than 30 days.  Having reaped much financial gain as a full-blown gentrifier with two separate rental apartments in one building, she proceeded to expand her hotel room business by signing a lease in another small 6-unit apartment building. Our new “neighbor” proceeded to rent the apartment out as early as two weeks from when she moved in to the unit.

Why, we wondered, are families of five who obviously don’t know anything about the neighborhood carrying bottled water and coolers into a one bedroom apartment when our “neighbor” was nowhere to be seen? Sure enough, the apartment was listed on Airbnb for rent, with Stephanie Browne claiming to be the owner. This started a full year of random vacationing strangers parading through the building at all hours, with one guest at one point threatening the host by calling the police when she was locked out, and causing the entire building’s locks to be changed. She gave out building keys like party favors to the whole world. Meanwhile, she was not even residing in the country and had moved full-time to Europe.

Stephanie Browne is the diametric opposite of the “good actor” Airbnb claims makes up their hosts who only need to rent periodically to afford their rent. Browne, by holding three leases for apartments she neither owned or resided in purely for the use of temporary guests, is the exact cause of why everyone’s rent in NYC is going up. After much complaining and lackluster enforcement of the law by NYC Department of Buildings, she gave up the rental unit one year early. As a parting shot, she tried selling the books and furniture from her hotel room to her “neighbors” in the building and wrote this pitiful, inaccurate justification of her noxious lifestyle.

Meanwhile, she still continues to list two illegal rentals while living in Europe. Airbnb’s community complaint line is joke: they enabled her lies to the guests, the building owner, and the occupants of the building she put at constant inconvenience and risk. The moral of the story for other afflicted neighbors who become unwilling concierges to hotel rooms in their own building: know your rights, contact your management company, elected officials, local enforcement agencies, and get these hosts that are your neighbors where it hurts, their wallets.

In Three Words? Unethical, Illegal, Unprofessional

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We’ve used Airbnb for years, both as hosts and as travellers across four continents. While we have loved many wonderful hosts and delighted in hosting guests, we have stopped using Airbnb in favour of booking.com due to Airbnb’s unethical management. You need to be aware that by using Airbnb you’re supporting a company that:

1. Has an arbitrary review process. We wrote a review of a nightmare host who had positive feedback. Our review didn’t appear, so we had to manually check for it. We had to contact Airbnb to ask why. They said that they ‘should’ have emailed us, and when it turned out they failed to, they investigated why our review wasn’t published. It turned out the host had objected; Airbnb had published her review about us, but not ours due to a technicality (we pasted a text message our host had sent us). We were happy to revise our review by simply removing the pasted phrase. Airbnb wouldn’t allow this. I don’t know of any serious site that conducts such a one-sided arbitrary (and faulty) review process. This was most likely the reason this nightmare host’s feedback didn’t feature anything negative – she uses Airbnb’s arbitrary feedback process to block reviews. So, you can’t trust reviews on Airbnb.

2. Sees nothing wrong with renting out properties that have been stolen. Yes, you read that right: stolen. Check out the campaign on SumOfUs and other sites. Airbnb will rent you property that by international UN law has been stolen in Palestine. Many have written or handed in petitions (over 150k signatories to date) and used other methods to get Airbnb to cease their unethical and illegal practice, all to no avail.

Evicted while Renting on Airbnb

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My landlord sent me an eviction notice while my apartment was being rented on Airbnb but Airbnb provided zero support. I was in Africa at the time and could do nothing. It took me three days to get hold of an Airbnb representative who then said there was nothing they could do to help me. They could not even give me advice on how to proceed. They could not even recommend a lawyer. Nothing. Airbnb were very supportive in getting my apartment rented. They even sent a photographer to take photos of it for free. I really had no idea they were encouraging me to do something illegal and that it would cost me my home. Why would I do something illegal on a website that everyone can see? If I buy something from Amazon I don’t first check to see if it is illegal. I thought Airbnb was similarly a reputable company. But I was naive. Airbnb is pure evil.

Airbnb is allowing illegal subletting!

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Airbnb has some very serious due diligence problems. They obviously have grown too big, too fast and too greedy to properly vet Hosts who are illegally subletting, especially single family homes in R1 neighborhoods. Worse, airbandb seems only vaguely interested in correcting or taking down illegal listings, preferring to hide behind boilerplate excuses. The customer service reps are either total nincompoops or obviously trained to do as little as possible to fix problems. Calling 855 424 7262 is pointless, all you’ll get is a frustrating run-around. I am speaking from a very unpleasant experience where a tenant I am trying to evict for non payment listed with airbnb, even got their pro photos and a very exaggerated posting and is illegally sub-renting my property. At this writing it is reserved as a party house for New Years and airbandb has done nothing to help. Airbandb was a good idea now gone very wrong, more Hosts and Guests alike are going to be bitterly disappointed. But, the unaware property Owners are at greatest risk. Airbandb should check real estate title and contact Owners for permission and approval before accepting and posting renters who sublet. They don’t and this is bordering on criminal aiding and abetting. 855 424 7262 is useless BTW.