This woman’s story is true. I did Air B and B for 6 years and 98% was great. The 2% that were not were truly HELL. Two days ago a woman was shot through the door here in Portland by her “guest.” And no, I am not linking the story. If you want to verify look it up. You are a perfect Air B and B person: just like the disaster of an agency that doesn’t respond to a damn murder. How dare you chastise this person.

No need for you to apologize

If nothing else, I hope this story reaches the people it was intended for. I believed in two things when I decided to host through @Airbnb; that their verification process of guests meant something and if they failed miserably there, they would stand behind me as a host to make things right. Neither of those showed to be true in my situation. If they had put minimal effort into truly vetting the Government ID they had on file for this verified guest, it would have shown an extensive criminal record for this person.

@Airbnb could have prevented a destructive house party, a destroyed sense of safety due to people who had access to this home, and most importantly a loss of human life.

I found a news story on the very first hit with a google search for “Airbnb homicide July 2019”

https://www.wndu.com/content/news/Homeowner-rented-out-her-house-on-Airbnb-the-night-of-July-homicide-her-message-to-renters-562780861.html

Unfortunately ABB doesn’t train hosts. It’s just a website with tools many hosts don’t know how to use.

I see so many red flags as a landlord and super host on airbnb for 4yrs.
1.)A host needs to ask/require answers to a couple questions from guest before allowing a booking! Airbnb recommends this and has a place for selecting it during listing creation.

2.)Look at a request and see if your questions are answered in a clear honest manner! Typical questions are … what are your travel plans and who will be traveling with your group?

3.)Don’t be using a lock box to rent! What are you thinking when you rent to an unknown person and just go away and leave your animals on site! Would you rent a monthly rental like this too? OMG … Yes you have responsibility as a landlord to confirm the renter is a good match and respectful renter for your property! Maybe a younger local person for a 1 night rental could be a bit suspicious?

4.) I am just wandering how you got any money for a claim of damages caused by someone you actually just gave your keys to without knowing them, or even meeting them to check them in as a tenant. How can your justify leaving horses on site with no training, or at least to see some experience for guests around animals? That is a hazard in itself!

It is just not that hard to research or get an experienced landlord/listing consultant to help you with a new business. It is not that hard to just search and read about tips on listings and renting. How can newbies just expect any company, especially a website/listing service to deal with onsite problems or claims when they have not even verified that you are the owner of listed property… that they never inspect,or verify the owner background to weed out repeat fraudulent uses or other items like an insurance company would do!

So the big secrete is out! Email is not really a good verification … other than that a random person might have a computer/phone. Airbnb will not cover damages or even assist with collections of damages from its users even when they are documented repairs/fee costs agreed to upon damages on the hosts online contract. All they do is invoice, sending a message to ask a user to pay! Yet airbnb holds the damage deposit and has access to every guests credit card. The one exception is when you get in the media as was this situation. I would bet that local news had a call from airbnb before the host. This host probably lost an opportunity to leverage airbnb into some damage payments by not taking action…. and networking with her own local news and trying to push the story up to a bigger news area.

The real issue here is if an adult has the right to give away all rights on these onsite terms, even when they are giving away rights of animals, children, or a neighbors privacy/risk exposure. When is the gov going to step in (as they do for long term rentals) and regulate the industry? Yes .. this is more of a problem with old laws that do not cover new technology.

I feel the current “unregulated information internet” well only get better if it is allowed to evolve into a “value based internet”. I fell it will get much worse before people might notice that an alternative is or was available. This new verifiable, certifiable, even currency level encrypted protocol would be magnitudes (100s to 1000s time better) better than anything from the past. That is still hard to comprehend since we have never experienced it! It would be a replacement of our old dysfunctional institutions with new automated institutions using blockchain technology. This is what we need to make the shared economy work and integrate it with a new type of perfect government that has laterally no corruption or dysfunction.
This block chain technology would also allow individuals to own their identity, unlike the current facebook and Google situation where you give your rights away for a “free service” not knowing you are giving most privacy rights away needed to exist in democracy and promote prosperity!

On June 15-16, 2019, there was a party at an Airbnb listing only a few blocks from me where a young man was shot an killed. According to the neighbors, there were 30-50 people there.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/chandler-breaking/2019/06/16/1-dead-following-shooting-chandler-house-party/1471728001/