Alert!

Tenants seen at risk as ads flood B’klyn apts.

SOMEONE IS papering a rentstabilized housing complex in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood with flyers urging tenants to list their homes on Airbnb, housing advocates told the Daily News.

New York Communities for Change canvassers were knocking on doors at the Ebbets Field apartment complex in Crown Heights when they spotted flyers for an “Airbnb agent and manager” promising big bucks without all the hassle of setting up the listing.

“A few of our folks were canvassing and stumbled upon this ‘Airbnb, earn $2,000 to rent out your apartment’ — which is ironic, because they’re up in a rentstabilized apartment where it’s illegal to do that,” the group’s executive director Jonathan Rosen told The News.

The advertisement (below) isn’t from Airbnb itself, though a passerby might easily mistake it for being from the company — it uses the logo and doesn’t include any other obvious business name.

“Leave the work to us,” it promises, saying an Airbnb agent sets up cleaning, screens guests and “makes sure you are meeting all Airbnb guidelines.”

But renting out an apartment in the Ebbets Field complex would run afoul of city guidelines — which make it illegal for tenants to rent out an entire apartment for fewer than 30 days. And when it comes to rent-stabilized apartments, courts in New York have upheld the evictions of tenants booted for commercializing their rentstabilized apartments through Airbnb.

The flyer even encourages people to rent out vacant units — and when canvassers called and said they were going to move, the “agent” encouraged them to hold on to their rentstabilized lease and rent it on Airbnb full time, he said. “The fact that the apartment is being used, a rent-regulated apartment is being used for something other than housing a family that desperately needs a roof, whether it’s a tenant or whether it’s a landlord or whoever it is, they’re clearly taking advantage of the system and they clearly don’t need that apartment,” Westin said.

When The News called the number on the flyer, a man who later said his name was David Smith answered.

“There’s no name,” he said of the service advertised on the flyer. “It’s just a private agent.”

Smith said they simply post the flyers around and, if people are interested, explain the mechanics of Airbnb to them.

Asked if he tells tenants they could be violating city laws by renting or even advertising their apartments — and could be at risk of big fines or eviction in some cases — Smith said he does.

Airbnb said it wasn’t on board with the flyer.

“Airbnb condemns any misleading and abusive marketing to prospective hosts, and especially to those in rent-stabilized housing. These agents are not officially affiliated with or supported by our platform,” a spokesperson said.