It was less an issue with AirBnB and more with wondering how a property owner could get away with renting these places to tenants, then who rent it on AirBnB!

I think the whole AirBnB thing will begin to slowly collapse as the laws begin catching up with them, and I suspect a lot of illegal rentals will go with it.

Should Saudi Arabia be able to impose it’s laws?

———————————-

However NYC and it’s metro area is not the largest in the world. The WikiP links below are interesting…I will likely spend too much time on them after I click Post, then maybe I will send the links to family and friends who likely don’t share my interest and might not even click them (well maybe I won’t if they’re going to be like that !!!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_by_population

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population

/end pedantry

p.s.
Hopefully your super’ or management isn’t asleep at the switch.

But the rumor of the AbnB hipster bureaucracy neither following the law nor assisting when things go wrong is hardly reassuring.  Nor are the majority of the postings I seemed to find particularly desirable: ‘give me money to stay in my small, charmless extra bedroom while I’m living there!’  

Maybe it works for some folks…if so; that’s grand.  But IMO sharing a bathroom with strangers is not worth saving a few bucks.  

Plus…I have a sneaking suspicion my landlord would make my living situation problematic if I ever tried a public advertisement of ‘my’ domicile.

Plenty of people sublet illegally just to get by. In NYC, I’d wager there are countless people willing to pay a decent proportion of someone else’s rent on an apartment just to have a couch to crash on and acess to a kitchen and bathroom, and the people they’re living with are extremely grateful for the help paying for the place so they can have enough money to eat more than just ramen.

It’s quite another to allow people who live in close quarters with many other people to circumvent both the city’s health laws and their landlord’s or coop board’s screening procedures for residents.  When I see an Airbnb listing for an apartment in my building, I have no qualms about letting my building’s management know so they can ask the resident to take it down.

The tenant upstairs from me in San Francisco was herself an illegal subletter, and even after the owner of my building volunteered to speak with AirBnb to get them to take her listing down, it was still a tedious struggle. I wrote about my experiences on one of my blogs, and ended up on the front page of the SF Chronicle for my troubles….

http://mesoscope.net/2012/04/16/airbnb-makes-for-bad-neighbors/

It seems to me there would be a reasonable compromise where the city allows individuals to rent out their home for a certain amount of time per year, and Airbnb helps them root out the scumbag landlords. If the city’s not willing to extend that olive branch, I don’t really see the motivation for a San Francisco company to pay attention to New York law.

Now, large scale “illegal hotels” are a bad idea. I get that. This just smacks of 1%-er privilege and anti-competitive gaming of city “laws.” Reminds me of a neighbor of mine who bought land in Texas for a retirement retreat. He went to the local city or county offices to get required permits for building and sub-letting an apartment for someone who could watch the place while he and his wife were not there. He relates that the gentleman he asked was the local head-honcho (mayor or the like) who replied, “OK. So do it. You don’t need my permission.” “Don’t I need a permit or something?” he asked. “For what? It’s your land isn’t it? You wan’t to build? Build. You want to rent it out? Rent it out. You want to paint it pink and stick feathers on it? It’s your place and you get to live with it.”

The officials sound more than a little petty. If they want Airbnb to make changes, they should be willing to compromise as well.