Bobbie – I’m in North County San Diego & our STR laws are quite similar to LA…

•Buy a BLINK (or similar) camera that offers audio recording. DO NOT install it to record her property, just the edge/border of you’re adjoining lots so partying will trigger the recording feature.

• Use your phone’s voice note feature to record any excessive late night noises & store the files. You can go a stop further & buy a noise detection monitor which will read the decibel rating (use video in this case to record the reading + noise).

•If you have an HOA or similar regulatory office (coastal commission, etc) – find contact info for CURRENT BOARD MEMBERS. Email them evidence collected along with factual, non-emotional, information about the ways in which it’s causing a disturbance in your ability to live a normal life.

In regards to “public shaming” – yes, she can sue you for defamation….However, you CAN go about making her life just as uncomfortable if you’re willing to withstand the effects of going to war w/ a neighbor.

•Buy some of the brightest motion detector spot-light available & install them so the party motion causes it to blind your neighbors.

•Install a sprinkler system within your lot which contains MANY heads that ‘just happen’ to overspray her yard every morning at 2am.

•Develop a very loud & annoying early morning route (at the very hour that local quite-hour ordinances end). Keep it up far beyond the point of patience…

•Google & Reddit can provide far more creative ideas along these lines….

Even in Small Claims Court? I don’t know Texas, specifically, but my understanding generally is that you can sue in small claims court for nuisance, and even better, you can sue again and again and again. Yes, each individual suit would be capped by the small claims court limit (not sure what that is where you are these days, I think it’s $7500 here in CA) … but you solve this problem by documenting an event and suing, getting a judgment, documenting the next event and suing, getting a judgment, etc. Yes, you have to collect … and that might mean filing a lien on the property itself, so that you get paid if/when it sells …

You sue them for being a public nuisance and for diminishing the value of your home.

Nope. That was struck down by the state in late 2019. And the very next day they updated their listings from 10 to 14 people.

Hi – isn’t there a rule against advertising for more than 10 people in Austin?

Thank you so much for the link, Kristin! I will definitely take a look – any and all resources are welcome at this point. And the owners do have house rules in place prohibiting parties. Their attorney-in-fact even contacted us, assuring that they’ve tightened the rules about parties and after-hours noise, but as we told him – it doesn’t matter. If you rent out a big house to large, unscreened groups of mostly 20 somethings, and leave them unsupervised for the weekend – they’re not going to care about house rules! We saw proof of that nearly every weekend. House rules mean nothing when there’s no one on site to enforce them.

that’s the question what kind of system and government you want – if you choose pro-business then some will profit, other’s won’t.

It’s incredibly hard to sue over something like this in a “property rights” state like Texas. The state legislation is on the “host”‘s side, being so rabidly pro-business. Our governor had previously made a statement that residents affected by this should just call the police, and that they’re not putting any further regulations in place because that would be duplicating efforts with existing enforcement measures. They (the state) also gutted Austin’s LOCAL regulations about what investors like this can and can’t do with their properties, like removing occupancy limits. We could sue for a private nuisance, but it would be a long shot, and of course would cost a huge amount of money. Lobbying for further citywide action seems to be the most logical approach, but realistically, we will probably just end up moving. Which is insane.