To complain about the Air B'n'Bs next door?

[thatdamnwoman]

30 years ago I made a decision to leave the city and come and live in a rural area of Wales, near the coast, for a calmer, quieter life. The houses in this little enclave are nothing special but they're all detached and in decent-sized gardens and most of the neighbours were looking for a similar quiet, low-key existence. Quite a few of the houses are second homes but that didn't seem to cause much of an issue. Fast forward 25 years and now about half the properties here are being offered on Air B'n'B and the whole atmosphere of the place has changed. The two houses closest to me are both second homes and are both let out almost permanently on Air B'n'B. From Easter to the end of September they are chock-a-block, often with large groups. Both houses have a minimum 2-night stay, so there can be three or more changes of tenants each week.

Weekends, in particular, are a nightmare. Large groups of probably perfectly pleasant people arrive from town and then want to sit out in the gardens until 2 or 3am in the morning, drinking and barbecuing and whooping at the sheer wonder of being able to see the stars. I do understand how lovely it must seem if you spend most of your life in town and how tempting to want to sit out and play music and keep the fire pit going all night — but what about me, next door, having to sleep with the windows shut because of the smoke and noise?

I've asked the two neighbours who own the properties closest to me to change the wording on their Air B'n'B listing to tell people that there's to be no noise after, say, 10pm (I've stayed in a number of Air B'n'Bs where this has been a stipulation) and they have both adjusted the wording to ask people to 'respect the neighbours' — which of course they don't do once they've had a few glasses of wine. One of the neighbours has responded to my complaint about noise by installing a piano outdoors on the covered terrace in their garden, so at 7.15am this morning I was woken by a child 'playing' the piano 30 feet from my bedroom window. It might not be such a big issue in town but here, where it's quiet and there's nothing but birdsong, it's really intrusive.

I've complained to Air B'n'B and the council, but the council is stretched beyond capacity and when I've tried to get Environmental Health officers to come out at 2am and monitor the noise themselves I've been told that there's no one available. Am I being so unreasonable to want the Air B'n'B guests to be quiet after 10pm?

ooh yes @m00rfarm although personally I'd just check with HMRC...

@squee123 The Gestapo would have loved you...

went and installed a fucking piano
I agree that this is a shocking response to a reasonable request, it tells us that these people are not reasonable people, that they will respond with fire and fury to any kind of criticism, surely it is prudent to bear this in mind when weighing up how to deal with this problem?

@ginginchinchin, the first time it was only a bag, everything mixed together dumped in my recycling (including used nappies). So I split it out into recycling and put the rest with my rubbish. I thought it was a one off. I live in a very densely populated area so it could have been anyone.

The second time was 7 bags full of rubbish. So I went through it and found a print out of an email for the air bnb letting. Schoolboy error! They'd never make it to MI6. Got hold of the host who promised to come and take it away. Of course she didn't, but they didn't dump rubbish again. I see the flat isn't listed anymore thank god, but just that small incident made me see the rage.

I didn't think to dump it straight back. Good one!

I certainly don't want it banned. Me and DH use it all the time, at least once a month, here and abroad and think it is brilliant. For less than the price of a budget hotel we can get a whole apartment or house. So we have a nice comfortable sofa instead of just the bed in a hotel. We can cook for ourselves if we want, we can have breakfast at the time we want and not when the hotel tell us and we can stay in all day if we want whereas hotels usually want you to go out so they can clean

Wow. Talk about I’m all right Jack.

The Gestapo would have loved you...

But not as much as @MohairMenace
Fucking hell

Wow. Talk about I’m all right Jack.

I know. Fancy people wanted to do what they want on their own holidays. Lol

Also bear in mind that if there is a record of disputes with neighbours it can be very difficult to sell a property

Name change fail OP

There can be issues with these types of let. Pal can’t buy property so rents a flat. She has a young child. The flats surrounding are also rented but increasingly for short holiday lets.

She feels they are surrounded by ever changing strangers so no community and worries about her child playing out.

In OPs case I’d keep going back to the owners.

Damned - we have a similar situation. Owner has gone to live abroad and rents the house out as a party / wedding venue on air bnb. As a collective, the others on the road (we're estate cottages and they're the big house) have complained repeatedly to Air bnb (there's a special system for neighbour complaints). We've also complained to the council with sound recordings via an app on the council site. We've rung doorbells and complained / barged into parties / been abused by security hired for the parties. The most effective thing we did was call the licensing team who were out in a flash when there was a ticketed event (think coach loads of late teens with NOx cannisters who left shoes, knickers and bottles in the lane).

You should keep a log of dates as they're only permitted 30 days / year air bnb use before they have to pay business rates / change use to holiday rental etc. so that's worth tracking.

Bothering both the tenants (for poor feedback) and the owner (for hassle factor) is worthwhile. ULtimately what has calmed it down for us is that big ticketed event which caused £50k of damage to the house and of course the hirer vanished into thin air.

Do you have a local Facebook page you can comment on?

YANBU at all. there's a huge problem with Air B n B generally - I wish they'd ban it.

I agree. We have a few around us and one is next door. I think it should be banned. Its a disgrace. Its a residential area for homes not for businesses. I think something needs to be done about it.

I come from a family of musicians, and even with sound proofing in place, we always had a strict rule of no playing before 12pm or after 9pm. Many venues with live music that are nearby residential areas are not allowed to play loud music after 11pm. I think this should translate to your neighbours too. It's really disappointing that no one will come to assess the situation. Keep a spreadsheet of the incidents, and email the council during each incident. They may take notice after an influx of emails.

She feels they are surrounded by ever changing strangers so no community and worries about her child playing out.

This is what I worry about. Really, it has to change.

Incandescent, the houses on each side of me have three bedrooms and offer sofa beds too — not sure how many. One says it can sleep 8 people, the other up to 10 (bunkbeds, iirc). In the last few days there have been party after party of young people all celebrating the end of exams: some of them are 6th-formers, some students. We are a 15-20-minute walk from a beach and the houses are advertised as being great for group get-togethers, lazy days on the beach and in the garden etc. Both houses have firepits and barbecues and one of the selling points is the outside space. Both houses have had glazed canopy-type things erected so that even when it's drizzling (this is Wales) people can have a barbecue and sit out with a chiminea going.
The houses are cheap to rent: when I last checked a weekend for 8 people will cost just £280. These aren't lovely holiday homes with a high standard of decor and design, they are just ordinary houses that happen to be within walking distance of the coast. There's no matching bedlinen and I notice that recent guests at one of them have complained about the lack of hot water.

From mid-June and through to the end of the school holidays both places are booked pretty solidly with large families and groups. If both houses are full and both turn over every two days, that can be dozens of strangers coming and going over the course of a week, with all the parking and rubbish issues involved. It makes a massive impact on those around.

You can accuse me of lying all you like but it's true — and it's clear that others have had similar experiences.

Get your own outdoor piano. Play it very early whenever they've kept you up late with their noise.

Ring their doorbell every morning at 6. make sure you complain about the noise.

We live in a seaside town and used to let out a room in our house through airbnb. We too live in a very quiet area and stipulated we did not want any party revellers coming late and loud up the street. The thing iswe live here and care about the area and our neighbours. It's a different thing when property is bought to let out by people who live elsewhere. We have a lot of this too and it is emptying the area of a sense of community. I hope airbnb fails soon and also hope our council addresses the second home/holiday let issue as it's killing the neighbourhood- less and less people actually live here

...want to sit out in the gardens until 2 or 3am in the morning, drinking and barbecuing and whooping at the sheer wonder of being able to see the stars

We don't whoop, but this is exactly the kind of thing that we escape on holiday for. Which is why I make sure that we only rent properties that are isolated, with no near neighbours at all. I wouldn't dream of doing that around other people.

YANBU at all.

Wow. Talk about I’m all right Jack

People are allowed to, y'know, go on the kind of the holiday they like...We use Airbnb as well, it's enabled us to see some wonderful places. We're not inconsiderate knobs though.

That is a terrible situation OP.
Your neighbours are very irresponsible AirBnB hosts. If I were a host, I would be horrified if my neighbours were adversely affected.
I understand your feelings about a 10pm cut-off, but the government definition of night noise is 11pm-7am.
Almost all AirBnBs I've stayed in have had stipulations about noise and time-cutoffs.
As others have suggested: Keep a log, of absolutely everything - dates, times, duration, type of incident, what they're doing, effect on you etc. Keep contacting the council, that will create a log there, and maybe one day they'll send someone out. Keep council informed of ALL incidents. Consider recording some of the noise? Keep complaining to the people that own the houses - at 3am if necessary, the houses are theirs and it is their responsibility to contain the noise/disturbance. And complain to the visitors directly - if your useless neighbours who own the houses won't do anything, keep complaining to the visitors. (Unbelievable that one of the owners was horrified that you complained to the visitors!)
Good luck OP, I'm sorry you're being subjected to this.

Our work has banned staying in AirBnB for work because they are entirely unregulated. No smoke alarms, no appliance checks, not to mention the hidden cameras and pervy “hosts”. They are a pox on communities and need much tighter regulation.

Get on to your ward councillors. The council needs to deal with this. Presumably there are zoning laws, and also presumably the premises in question are not licenced to operate as businesses.

Borrow a cockerel and some hens for a while.

Also the council doesn't need to "send someone out"—they can install recording equipment to monitor the noise. Get on to Environmental Health at your council.

You need to go round with an airhorn at 6am as you're leaving for work! Am I right in thinking there's no restriction on Airbnb in terms of planning etc? Have you checked the rateable values of these properties. Our rates on small houses are around £1,400 but one is unused and listed as business used for less than 6 weeks with a nominal rates. If these aren't in occupied houses but second homes what is the legal situation?