I’m too tired for words right now but it is total hell – worse than hell – living next to a Airbnb with a pool in the backyard. It’s like every weekend or every day there’s a pool party, living next to a water park, and kids screaming their heads off from 8:00 in the morning till 8:00 at night. It started out last night; I didn’t go to work. I work overnight shifts at Amazon and when I can’t sleep, I can’t work. During the summer, it’s particularly hot; we don’t have air conditioning. These houses were built with no air conditioning. We didn’t need air conditioning in Southern California when we moved here. However, now that it’s getting overcrowded there’s more humidity and it’s hotter than hell. Not only that, but this neighbor built a wall in his backyard on the hill so they can look right into our bathroom window, and my bedroom window. It is very uncomfortable and noisy and I’m tired of it. I don’t care where we go on vacation; my parents never allowed my sister and I to scream like that all day long anywhere. It’s ridiculous living next to an Airbnb property.
Tag Archives: airbnb neighbors
Airbnb Guests Steal Firewood from Neighbours
When I bought my home in 2009, it was not beside a hotel. Now it is. The property adjacent to mine in a quiet, rural area sold a year ago to new owners who obviously bought it to run a full time hotel. Short-term rentals in the area are illegal, but the bylaws are enforced on a complaint basis and the fines are low. I find it very unpleasant to have new strangers arriving at the house beside me every 3 to 5 days. I don’t feel safe in my own home.
Although it’s in a rural setting, the houses are close. Airbnb guests and workers servicing the “hotel” have parked in my driveway blocking me in repeatedly in spite of “no parking” signs I installed after the parking problem started when the new owners showed up. The new owners’ realtor, building inspector, cable company, cleaning staff and guests have all parked in my driveway, parking me in and completely blocking the driveway.
Each time I have gone down and knocked on the door and asked them to move their vehicle. Each time, they rolled their eyes at me and indicated that this was a big inconvenience to them – but they did move their vehicles. I took photos of their vehicles and I was ready to have them towed. Although they always moved their vehicles, how many times a week should I be expected to go down and ask them to move?
If I need to get my car out to go to work, I don’t always have time to deal with an Airbnb vehicle blocking my driveway. Airbnb guests from next door have rung my doorbell early in the morning awakening me (I was thinking there must be some sort of dire emergency) to ask me where they might find a good swimming beach. Swell.
Even if I live beside a neighbour who I don’t like too much, I get used to them and I know who is there. Living beside an Airbnb hotel with a high turnover is much worse. Most guests are quiet and don’t cause any problems. But still – we don’t know who they are. This creates a sense of uneasiness and insecurity for the neighbours.
Some Airbnb guests are more problematic. With the average stay being 3-5 days and the Airbnb rented out solidly all year long, we were bound to get some problematic guests eventually. That happened the first two weekends in June 2018 when two separate groups of Airbnb guests were caught red-handed stealing firewood from a neighbouring house (not my house – I’ve had to install security cameras on my house to deter them).
The first group of thieves acted belligerently when confronted by a neighbour and absconded with the firewood anyway. The weekend of June 9th, the exact same scenario occurred: same neighbour caught the guests red-handed stealing firewood. He made them put it back this time and reported it to the police. The police won’t do anything; they have bigger fish to fry.
The neighbour who caught the firewood thieves and I have both filed complaints with Airbnb and with the municipality. We’ve requested that the municipality enforce their own bylaws. The municipality sent a representative right away to the door of the Airbnb. The owners happened to be present at the time, even though they are rarely present. I don’t know the outcome… likely a small fine and it carries on.
Airbnb has not replied at all to any complaints and the firewood thieves still have rave reviews about how wonderful they are on the Airbnb website. I’d feel slightly better if the firewood thieves had been called out and received bad reviews on the Airbnb website. There are no bad reviews on Airbnb. All reviews are positive. No one wants to risk giving a bad review because then they might get a bad review in return. That’s bad for business.
The review system doesn’t work because all reviews are positive. The picture of the BBQ shows my house to the left. The rocky garden in the background in that picture is my property. The owners do not tell the Airbnb guests this, so the guests are angry when I am out weeding my own garden. They have no qualms about trespassing. These guests got rave reviews. They could be staying beside you next week.
Has Anyone Tried Airbnb Neighbor Complaint System?
I live next door to an Airbnb that could serve as a case study in everything that is bad and wrong about Airbnb. You name it: late night parties, daytime noise, outdoor speakers, irresponsible fires, trespassing, and so on. It is an illegal operation that the town is well aware of, yet they claim they are powerless to stop them, despite clear violations of town ordinances.
As with many municipalities, the problem here is big and growing and overwhelming to a small town. The police have been useless. All of the neighbors complain about this place amongst one another, yet most are afraid to take any action, both from a natural aversion to confrontation, but also for fear of retaliation by the Airbnb operators, including myself; they have been aggressively hostile to those of us who lived here before they bought their place and turned it into a hotel and “event house” and destroyed the privacy and tranquility of our little corner of the California desert.
It is hard to describe the destruction of a neighborhood and a way of life, but everything we moved here for has been ruined by Airbnb. Many ask: why don’t you just put up a fence? Part of the beauty of the place was the absence of fences. Everyone lived here and respected one another’s property. All that is gone. Some have asked: why don’t you just move? To that I would say: where to? Where can I live without the risk of an Airbnb opening across the street?
It is a great thing for people looking to make money with their second home, but for those of us who live next door, it is a plague. What I’m trying to find out is whether anyone has had any success with Airbnb’s neighbor complaint line. Are they genuinely responsive or are you dealing with a chat bot? How much evidence do they require to take a neighbor’s complaint seriously? Has anyone ever been delisted from Airbnb based on a neighbor’s complaint? what was the nature of that complaint? How long did it take? Thanks for any feedback with a success story.
With Airbnb, There’s Always That One Guy…
How does the saying go, “There’s always that one guy…”? Well…. Here’s the ultimate case in point. Meet our neighbor, who is an Airbnb Superhost. For the last two years, against our repeated requests to desist, has fraudulently included pictures of our land, and that of our adjacent neighbors in her listing, describing our lands as a “wildlife preserve” and a “treat for those who love hiking, bird watching and nature in its pure, undisturbed form.”
Needless to say, the fraudulent advertisement of our lands has created an ongoing problem of Airbnb guests trespassing on our property and/or stealing our kayaks, crab pots, fishing gear and boats. At our wit’s end, we finally filed a formal complaint with Airbnb over four weeks ago, but to date, no action has been taken by either Airbnb or the host to remove the pictures, and all of our inquiries on the matter have been stonewalled by Airbnb.
Although we feel badly for the unwitting Airbnb guests, we foresee a lot of ruined vacations on their end, as we intend to press charges for every future incident of trespass and/or theft. Good fences make for good neighbors, but non-Airbnbers make for the best kind of neighbors. Just say no to Airbnb.
Airbnb Party Houses Are Out of Control
“I’m in hell. This is hell and I’m in it.”
That was the second to last complaint I left with Airbnb about the McMansion next door. The last one I just left a few minutes ago, at three o’clock in the morning on a Friday. I have to get to work in a few hours. I live in a residential area of Los Angeles. There’s a high school nearby, lots of homes and apartments, and it’s comfortably far from noisy areas and nightclubs. Within the past couple years, one of the properties right behind our apartment complex underwent construction, and when it was completed there was a massive open-plan mansion there. Just kind of wedged in among the other houses. It’s a quaint little neighborhood just off of Melrose.
Walled off, it’s like a fortress that you can’t see into, but you can certainly hear everything happening within. There’s a large pool area and a patio in the back, about ten or fifteen feet from the bedroom windows of every rear-facing apartment in our building, and you can hear the rushing of the swimming pool’s water feature with your windows closed. That’s actually quite nice… it’s like camping near a tiny, douchebag waterfall.
When there are guests staying there, you can hear the water feature and literally everything else, and that’s why I’m in hell. The property owner rents this property out at $600 a night. That attracts two types of clientele: people pooling their cash and looking for a place to party, and rich douchebags. The difference between the two groups is negligible. No matter who the guest is, it always results in some form of party, with shouting, blaring music, and general assholery until around four o’clock in the morning on any given night. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Saturday or a Tuesday.
These people paid $600 to party in a mansion in our back yard and – by god – they’re going to make the most of it. We can close all of our windows and crank up the volume if we want to watch a movie and it makes no difference; the noise carries so well and so aggressively that any music or shouting drowns us out in our own home. It’s like they’re bringing the party into our apartment, into our living room, into our laps, sitting right down and screaming in our faces.
To escape the noise, I’ve devised a lot of tactics, mostly involving a variety of white-noise devices and noise-cancelling headphones. What a future we live in. Several people in my apartment building have complained, either to the police or to Airbnb. It’s not like we were expecting much, but Airbnb somehow exceeded our expectations in not giving a single f#$k about us or our complaints. The police – I was told the last time I called – are generally putting up with too high a volume of calls to deal with noise complaints.
The property owner, who lives (I think) in France most of the year, is the kind of guy who charges $600 a night for strangers to party in his party mansion, so his capacity for caring about whether or not his neighbors sleep at night is buried away somewhere in the wretched cavity of his decomposing soul. One of our neighbors was talking about going to the local courthouse, but as of yet, nothing has materialized there.
I spent an hour one night just trying to make contact with the guests who were having the world’s loudest bachelorette party. Or maybe it was a birthday party. Or maybe I don’t give a f#$k what it was. All I really care about was the five hours of shrill screaming that started at 7:00 PM and somehow lasted throughout the entire night. I discovered that the wall surrounding the mansion is apparently very good at letting noise escape, but also very good at keeping noise out. I shouted, I pounded, I shouted some more. The front gate was locked, of course, and it wasn’t until the next day and I was speaking to a neighbor that I discovered the property owner had disconnected the front gate’s buzzer, so that if you buzz it for an hour in the middle of the night, no one inside the mansion can hear it. Ultimately, I wound up scaling one of the property’s walls in order to get the attention of the guests so they might be so kind as to shut up. Great times, all around.
The long and the short of the matter is, the poor suckers who live in my apartment complex – all of whom have jobs we need to be rested for, some of us having children who definitely do not manage well when they don’t sleep – are living within ten feet of a nightclub. A shitty, horrible nightclub. For me, the ordeal will be over on the 15th of December. That’s when I can move into a new place in a different part of town, where I’ll be able to sleep at night. My roommate is moving out on the 8th. For a moment we entertained the notion of sticking out the rest of the month, like normal people living in a normal apartment, but there’s nothing normal about this. There’s nothing normal at all about this. This is hell. I’m in hell.
What to do if your Neighbors are Airbnb Guests
Whether it’s legal in your area or not, Airbnb has done a horrible job cracking down on listings that shouldn’t be there. As a result, many residents in big cities have been complaining about guests moving in and out at all hours, throwing parties, and generally just disrupting life in the building or neighborhood. While it’s tempting to think neighbors can just calmly walk next door and say “please, stop it,” there are a number of issues to overcome, not the first of which may be a language barrier by international guests. Other more pressing ones may include the entitlement guests feel at having paid for a vacation home, then being told to shush. What are some of the actions you can take when you discover your neighbors are Airbnb guests?
1. Alert the Owner and Homeowner’s Association
Some homeowners and hosts are completely absent from properties they rent out, save a visit or two every month to ensure the building isn’t on fire. Though this can make them difficult to contact, it’s far from impossible; as a resident, you should have the contact information for the Homeowner’s Association for your home, and reporting an illegal sublet isn’t taken lightly.
Certain hosts may be blissfully unaware of the negative impact of their Airbnb business on the community; they just want to raise a little income. Alerting them that things are not all sunshine and lollipops in the area may get them to reconsider, or at least be more selective in guests.
2. Call the police
If things get bad enough – shouting at 2 AM, violence, theft, property damage – the homeowner is probably the last one you should call. Calling the police won’t necessarily result in the guests getting evicted that day or stop the Airbnb from being rented, but a report will establish a paperwork trail that can be used down the line.
3. Just for fun: the passive aggressive approach
If you’ve ever had an annoying roommate or neighbor and didn’t respond to their petty infractions because you wanted to be the bigger person, there’s no better time to live out your passive aggressive fantasy than with Airbnb guests. If all else has failed and you don’t have any hope of removing them from the property or preventing the host from renting again, you might as well enjoy yourself at their expense (assuming they deserve it).
There are few repercussions to such actions – the police won’t get involved because you should have already tried to get them to do the same to the guests – other than making the guests’ Airbnb experience a bad once, resulting in the host getting a bad review, and reducing the likelihood of future guests. As the real residents in the neighborhood, you’re morally justified in annoying the Airbnb Hell out of disruptive guests… just be careful of your safety and well-being.
What’s the Worst That Can Happen After a Stay?
Our group of 18 rented out a cottage this weekend. Our stay was great. Our host was great. We had no complaints about the property. After checking out, I wrote a great review and our host left us a great review as well. We left the place immaculately clean (especially since there were 18 of us). Later that evening, I got a message from our host (through text) that their neighbour was very unhappy and that there had been a lot of noise, excessive partying and loud music playing. During our stay, we did not have a complaint by the neighbours even once and we were very respectful about turning down the noise after 10:00 PM. I only remember us getting loud while playing card games since we get competitive, but that was way before 10:00 in the evening. Anyway, I told our host that wasn’t the case with regards to the neighbours’ complaint and that we were very respectful and apologized for troubling their neighbour. They seemed very understanding and thanked me for clarifying what really happened. I was wondering if there will be any repercussions on our end since we’ve already submitted reviews? What’s the worst that can happen if they don’t believe us?
Evicted by Owners Illegally Converting to Airbnb Hotel
In June 2017, my apartment building was sold to new owners. Within two weeks, the new owners converted one full apartment in the building into an Airbnb, which is illegal if the host is not present in NYC. Day and night, guests cycled in and out of the building. They were loud, rude, and unneighborly. By the first week of July, the owners served my family, who have lived in the building for seven years, with an eviction notice, as well as the other long-time tenants of the building. It is September and our former apartment is now listed on Airbnb. Rather than being a year-round apartment for a family, it allows visitors to treat a place where people live and work as a playground. Airbnb has allowed building owners to turn apartments into hotels, destroying neighborhoods, communities, and worsening housing availability and affordability in a city with a 2% vacancy rate.
Airbnb Party House Keeps Getting Worse for Neighbors
Our next door neighbor has turned his entire property (large house and guest house) into Airbnb rentals. He does not live on site. There have been multiple loud rave-like parties and there doesn’t seem there is anything we can do. We always call him personally and he refuses to take any responsibility. He says it’s Airbnb’s fault because they get the renters. He says to call Airbnb (haha, a lot of good that does) and then he says to call the police, which we do. They have come out so many times and there’s not a lot they can do either because the owner isn’t on site.
The latest rave resulted in a near riot in front of the house when drunken partygoers screamed and fought in the front yard when the police came for the third time that day. The party had started before 1:00 PM and this was at 1:00 AM. The whole day, disgusting foul music was pouring into our back yard. We couldn’t use our yard at all. There was screaming, fighting, and lots of free flowing alcohol. This was the worst that it has gotten but there have been plenty more events like this. He has been getting $1000 per event beyond the rental fee. These people did not tell him that they were having a party so he was mad also but still, he just told us to call the police. In the past, he actually had the nerve to ask me to go and quiet the partiers.
This last weekend, he sent his 70 year old mother over and she was afraid to introduce herself to the police. Then when I called him; he called his mother a coward. We are at the end of our rope and don’t know what to do. He has now posted “no events” on his Airbnb website but that isn’t going to help if the renters lie to him. Besides rave-type parties, we have had to endure a drug intervention with a poor addicted woman screaming and shrieking as she was detoxing. I did find an online form to complain to Airbnb as a neighbor. We’ll see how that goes. Not betting it does a thing.
Apartment Above Turned into Airbnb, Ruined Everything
This spring my landlord decided to terminate my upstairs neighbor’s contract and let out the flat on Airbnb. The reason was plausible: she wants to use the apartment when visiting from overseas and needs the flexibility. The apartment is being rented out on Airbnb now by a third party who manages about 15 other properties around our region (a big touristy region in the Alps which is very popular in summer).
Despite having an arrangement that the guests are supposed to arrive by 9:00 PM and be quiet by 10:00 PM, reality is totally different. Most of the guests completely ignore the arrival time and then because they must have major jet lag, stay up half the night crashing around the kitchen, walking up and down, and generally being a pain. Since the minimum stay is only three nights and they can use Instant Book. We get all the people that couldn’t give a toss about anyone else. I often get no more than two hours of sleep a night and have to scream and shout at them and bang on the walls.
Why?
Because we live in an old wooden chalet where you can hear everything. Life is hell. I hate Airbnb and the whole business it has morphed in to the past few years. It has nothing to do with the original idea. Where I live, everyone is getting on the bandwagon; homes are being bought up and rented out on Airbnb. They guests arrive at all hours, can’t figure out where they’re supposed to go, Walk into other people’s houses, leave their trash everywhere, and put out cigarettes in the garden. All these little things become so annoying over time. I wish someone would clamp down and regulate it more.