Air Bnb has ruined my life

I’m so very sorry OP

i have boycotted AirBnB for years now as it is unethical and damaging people’s lives as well as communities. But I can still afford to go on holiday and stay in hotels, campsites, rent a holiday cottage or holiday apartment from a tourism company.

It stinks that an American tech company is making so so so much money from this and cares not a jot about the impact they have in Europe or anywhere else. The AirBnB CEO is as bad as Facebook, Amazon, Meta, Uber and all the Silicon Valley broligarchy put together. Make lots of money with something bright and shiny, keep that money in the US, and to hell
with the consequences for the rest of the world.

And pay as little tax in these countries as possible. I’d feel slightly less sore if AirBnB was a European owned company! All this foreign money killing our communities…

We had two rental properties that we were happily renting out for £750 a month and Tenant trashed them from top to bottom about £30,000 worth of damage in total once we actually got them to leave the property
And that’s why they are Airbnb’s now

@itsafan before airbnb was a thing we used other website marketing holiday properties, cottages4u, holiday villas etc. I’ve been doing it since about 2007.

Exactly. In my area of London, the hotels housing asylum seekers, I would never have touched with a barge pole anyway. Complete dives.

It sucks. Airbnb should be banned. DH was always against it for the reasons you state, then we moved overseas and tried to use it sometimes to come home to see family because hotels were really difficult for long stays with toddlers as family not in a location aimed at tourists and hotel options weren't good. Had so many shit experiences we've realised we should have stuck to our guns, it never felt good going against our principles anyway. We just stay in the shitty hotels now. And don't see our family as much.

I think there's even less excuse in a lot of Europe anyway, Europe does hotels a lot better, in Britain they are often either terrible or far too expensive for what they are (often not the owners' fault, partly Airbnb's fault in fact, but I still can't afford them.)

What about those Airbnb’s that are people’s homes? Do you want restrictions put on them.

I cannot afford hotels and we went a few years ago to a villa in Southern Spain that had its own private swimming pool

We have only used a hotel once since then.

No hotel can give you your own private swimming pool. It’s also the cost of things like having a few drinks (for me who doesn’t drink alcohol that means lemonade, juice even a coffee etc) It all starts to add up. Our bill just for brunch, drinks snacks, fruit etc each day if we didn’t restrict our selves I would imagine could be the best part of £100 then we would eat out at night

But in an Airbnb, we will spend around £140 for the fortnight. We would still eat out at night but it’s the amount we would spend during the day that has to be taken into consideration and the fact there are others around.

OP, are you based in a Spanish tourist resort? I’d have thought there are areas that are more residential and those that are kind of desirable for tourists (but not locals). I’m a Londoner so do feel your pain in terms of being pushed out by accident. Wherever you are in the world it’ll always be someone’s holiday. And you can bet they will be dragging a wheely suitcase 😂

I haven't used AirBandB in years, since I became aware of how they are destroying the housing market in so many counties.

My friends are generally nice liberal types, who think that there should be some regulation, but they still use AirBandB. These are people who could afford to stay in hoteks, guesthouses, aparthotels etc, but they're so used to AirBandB.

We all need to boycott it, except for the rent out a spare room function, which is how it all started, with actual hosts rather than property management companies.

There's believr definately a place for holiday apartments, but purpose built aparthotels or university accommodation during the vacations could fill this need.

er no. The hotels that are used for the ‘purposes’ she is talking about were themselves largely responsible for the downfall of hotels and service in this country, before hospitality went down hill for other reasons. Cheap, nasty people buying beautiful old buildings and turning them in run down piles of shit that they charge cheap rates for and let rot before they burn them down for the insurance. It was lucky for them that this ‘purpose’ came along as they could continue provide shit levels of care to their buildings and the people staying in them while still managing to be paid. These hotels are not the ones to feel sorry for. They’re not the victims. They’re run by awful people who want a quick east buck without having to do any of the things expected from a hotel.

the rest of the hotels (the legitimate businesses who tried and wouldn’t get a government contract for this ‘purpose’) have gone out of business because of a whole load of compounding reasons including air bnb, energy rates, changing habits, cost of living, Covid, etc. but no, the cockroaches who run those shitty hotels are the last ones standing who haven’t - and they weren’t competing with air bnbs they were going for cheap cheap cheap don’t complain if there’s a rat running around type holiday makers long before this new money making opportunity came up for them.

The problem in the UK with Airbnb is a government created one

To stop the rise of BTL landlords the government took away tax relief on mortgage interest for people with a BTL mortgage.
Which made letting a property more expensive. Contrary to popular belief this didn’t mean the landlords wouldn’t be picking up the bill and running at a loss or only breaking even, that was going to be the tenant. Landlords also started to look around at how to side step this legislation and getting rid of their tenants when the lease ended and turning their properties into holiday lets where not only do you get more than your monthly rental up front, No non paying tenants and if they wreck the place you can sue and the people are likely to have something to lose. You can change your non tax right off btl mortgage to a tax right off holiday let mortgage.

I think the government expected the landlords to put multiple properties up for sale and that would help FTB’. Unfortunately landlords came up with an alternative solution and since then every bit of legislation that has tried to manage private landlords has just made rental properties rarer and with supply failing and demand rising, rents are now at an almost unaffordable level.

OP is most likely talking about overs over. Where I am a 300k property requires 30k PLUS 20% + over the home report value which must be paid cash so it actually is very normal to need 100k to buy a basic family home

Why only male teens? Where are their sisters, mums? Why don’t the women escape these countries?

It is a difficult one. I don't like hotels, and always opt for a self-catering place which I find more relaxing, and where I can prep my own food. Hotels ae too formal for me, and I have to eat out all the time.

no hotels seem to have connecting rooms. So if with kids its either all the family in one room or put your kids in a seperate room (not safe) or one parent in each room. not ideal. Hotels really need to be more family friendly.

I understand @booksunderthebed. I would hate that set-up too.

The only family-friendly hotels really are in tourist places (think All Inclusive).

Hotels in cities are more geared to individual travellers, couples, business people.
During term-time no families will be staying there.

I use airbnb because we need cooking facilieties due to special diets.

Also, once I tried booking a hotel in a city but no hotels seem to have connecting rooms. So if with kids its either all the family in one room or put your kids in a seperate room (not safe) or one parent in each room. not ideal. Hotels really need to be more family friendly.

But I agree airbnb seems to be a major problem. When its too big a proportion of properties, just like second homes, it becomes an issue.

airbnbs may be more lucrative for landlords but they are a lot more work. I was visiting my sister once and she spent a lot of time dealing with her airbnb guests causing issues.

These people are exploited by traffickers from their own country and greedy hoteliers/ landlords cash in on this. The hotels are actually paid huge amounts to house these people.

People probably don't go to hotels anymore because they're 'closed' for other 'purposes'...

I don't suppose you travel much then.

Or maybe you are referring to hotels that are housing refugees??

I travel solo and always stay in hotels, much safer than some random apartment in the middle of nowhere. Never mind trying to pick up or drop off the key.

I have 24-hour reception, usually a bar and restaurant I can chat to people either staying or working there, or next door or so and feel much safer than some place out of town. They also have all the information you need to walk or get a local bus or metro to get your bearings to get to a museum, whatever.

AirBullshit and Bullshit has ruined the rental and buyers' market. You even have to clean the fucking place!! LOL. Fuck that! I'm having a break!

My friend lives in a lovely modern town house in a very industrial small town. Next door to her became an Airbnb. It's mostly used for Stag weekends and the noise levels were terrible. After about 2 years and dozens of complaints, the hosts agreed not to let it to all male groups.

Please don't let ignorance feed your prejudice. A hotel near us was used to house refugees. The staff were laid off which is not good for local employment, I agree, but that's not the refugees' fault. But there was no food on offer and they couldn't cook in their rooms, obviously, so they often went hungry as they had very little money and couldn't afford to eat out. No one was cleaning the place and they had no access to cleaning products. The people housed there were very young men, often in their teens, who had been through absolute hell, losing loved ones - parents, brothers, cousins murdered by armed militia. Then travelling thousands of miles frightened, starving cold and alone. Imagine your own son doing that in his mid teens, knowing you or his beloved grandparents had been murdered by thugs, the family home torched to the ground.
Please find some compassion before you make comments like this.

Too much over tourism in particular places - if it was spread out over a wider area it would be pretty universally helpful. And it is vital even as it is to many places.

There needs to be restrictions on airb&bs, it’s ruined so many communities in the uk and abroad.

But what are the alternatives for tourists? . Hotels are so expensive for us as a family with a boy and girl teens. They can not share a bed or sofa bed now. Very few hotels do interconnecting rooms and it’s hard to find purpose built self catering/ holiday accommodation. We stayed on a euro camp type site in Italy to avoid air B&B but currently looking for a few nights in London and I can’t find anything. Aparthotels seem to be 1 bed and a sofa bed only for an extortionate price. Interconnecting rooms are still is paying for two hotel rooms. I’m not paying £2k for 5 nights in a premier inn!

There are nearly 10,000 hotels in the UK (more than 225 in Brighton alone). Fewer are being used now to house asylum seekers than under the last government. Get a grip.

225!!? That’s far more than what I thought. Absolutely bonkers. What are they going to use when they run out of hotels? Probably holiday parks.

I love airbnbs. I’ve stayed in some lovely ones over the last few years. The majority of Airbnbs are above average valued properties. You wouldn’t really get first time buyer stock if you released them onto the market. The housing crisis is about affordable housing for people on lower salaries. The major problem in this country is too many people trying to access housing, hospitals, GPs.