Party houses plague Airbnb
$18B firm tackles risks to reputation, business before it goes public
The luxury cabin in Incline Village, Nevada, just north of Lake Tahoe, has a hot tub, sauna, pool table, firepit, two patios and a backyard full of towering pine trees. It sleeps 14, according to its listing on Airbnb. And it has been a nightmare for Sara Schmitz, a retiree who lives next door.
The home is frequently the site of raucous bachelor parties and weddings, Schmitz said. Recently, a crew of college students stayed there, blowing weed smoke into her house. When she asked them to stop, the students threw trash in her yard.
“It’s a constant party house,” said Schmitz, 57. She has called the police a dozen times about the property and joined the Incline Village STR Advisory Group, an organization that fights short-term rentals — for which the largest source is Airbnb.
What Schmitz encountered is part of the “party house problem” facing Airbnb. That’s when guests who book its properties hold parties in them, something that appears tobe happening more frequently in the coronavirus pandemic, as people look for places to socialize with bars closed and hotels appearing risky.
In July, New Jersey police broke up a party at an Airbnb with more than 700 people in attendance.
The party houses pose a risk to Airbnb’s reputation and business as the $18 billion company prepares to go public this year.
In many neighborhoods, people have been turned off by the rentals’ noise and annoyances. Complaints about party houses across sites like Airbnb and Vrbo soared 250% between July and September compared to last year, according to Host Compliance, which provides neighborhood hotlines across the U.S. and Canada.
Worse, the party houses raise safety issues. Between March and October, at least 27 shootings were connected to Airbnb rentals in the United States and Canada, according to a tally of local news reports by Jessica Black, an activist fighting shortterm rentals. The tally was verified by The New York Times.
Over the years, Airbnb employees have pushed executives to do more to address the party houses, said six people who worked on safety issues at thecompany. But they said the startup largely prioritized growth until a deadly shooting last Halloween at an Airbnb made national headlines. Five people died.
The issues are now fueling Airbnb’s many fights with communities over howto regulate home rentals. Groups like the one in Incline Village are becoming more vocal and are sharing their strategies for fighting short-term rentals. Cities including Atlanta, Chicago, San Diego and Ann Arbor, Michigan, have recently proposed or enacted stricter rules or bans on the properties.
Christopher Nulty, an Airbnb spokesman, said the company is combating the party houses with “robust new policies, products and technologies to stop large gatherings, which far exceeds measures taken by others.”
Airbnb began rolling out new rules against party houses around the same time that it was preparing to file to go public. In July, it said guests under the age of 25 with fewer than three positive reviews on the site could not book entire homes near where they live. In August, the same month it filed for a public listing, it placed a 16-person cap on reservations, banned parties and sued guests who were responsible for the events.
Last month, it started testing technology to block suspicious bookings and suspended some party houses from its listings. And ahead of Halloween — the one-year anniversary of the shooting at the Airbnb in Orinda, California — it banned one-night rentals on Halloween.