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I stayed at an airport bnb once. Never again.
Ha, with a great Veteran discount (off season), I’m staying at a Fab hotel in downtown Burlington, VT for $130/night.
My favorite hotel is the “C’mon inn” in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, etc. It’s a small family-owned chain that charges about $100 per night and has rustic decor and always has a pool and a bunch of jacuzzis. Amazing service, tasty breakfast, low price, and I’m not feeding some gigantic corporation. It’s a matter of finding the smaller outfits, I tell ya.
I’d love to try if weren’t for the fact that you have Trump harassing foreigners.
You think he’s leaving the citizens alone? We’re all fucked.
I don’t know what to tell ya. This country sucks and always has. I’m just hoping this is things getting worse before they get a lot better.
$225 a night seems pretty stiff but it depends on where you are
I stayed at one AirBnB where the owner had replaced all the kitchen counters with untreated butcher block. The instructions basically said “don’t use the kitchen”. For bonus points, my parents got the one bedroom and I had to sleep in the kids’ room … on the bottom bunk with the actual kid’s sheets because there weren’t any other sheets in the house. I just felt sorry for the kid.
Hope they wash them at least
You can’t truely wash porous surfaces.
I’ve stayed at dozens of ~$80 a night motels in my day and never once has it been a negative experience. I check the room over with a UV light regardless, but I’ve never found anything. The service is always under paid burnouts so if you’re cool they’re cool. Plus the vibe is always this beautiful liminal emptyness that you can’t get anywhere else.
beautiful liminal emptiness
Love that!
I’ve seen roaches, which was gross, but never any bedbugs thank Christ.
Roaches are easy to avoid picking up. When you travel, take a “kitchen” size garbage bag with you and if you land at a place that’s got roaches and it’s the only available option for the night, put your travel bag into the garbage bag and hang it off of the shower stall rod.
Bedbugs is a sleep in the car option OTOH… Yikes!
You can sleep in the tub if there’s bed bugs. They can’t grip the surface and do not fly or jump. The caveat being if they are so bad they are climbing to the ceiling and literally falling on you.
The caveat being if they are so bad they are climbing to the ceiling and literally falling on you.
New nightmare fuel unlocked.
Even in the short, almost 5 years, that I did pest control, I saw and learned things that have scarred me for life.
Subscribe to me for more horrifying facts of life you are currently blissfully ignorant of (don’t actually)
To me, it’s simple.
Crash our in the evening, be gone in the morning? A bed in the dormitory will do fine.
Stay for a few nights, go out every day to see the city/hike/etc? Gimme a cheap hotel room with a shared bathroom.
A longer stay for a workation/etc? Get a cheap apartment (at least a studio with a bathroom and a kitchet), because going out to eat fucking sucks.
I’ve never used AirBNB. What’s so special about it?
Location and large parties. You can usually find a short term rental in places where there aren’t any hotels (like near national parks, remote beaches, specific parts of certain cities).
It’s often cheaper to split a short term house rental between a large party than it is to get everyone rooms in a hotel. I’ve spent $700 a night at an AirBnB before because it was for a house with enough bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens for 14 people (with beach access). It was like renting an entire small hotel for a weekend.
It used to be the cheaper option compared to hotels. Because it used to be people renting out a spare room.
And now it is (helping) ruining the housing market for us normal folk, with all these “entrepreneurs” buying up houses to list for high short stay rents on airbnb.
I would be shocked if it had any appreciable impact at all, but it certainly isn’t helping.
In large cities there are entire apartment buildings that have been converted to illegal hotels on Air BNB. It’s a huge problem, not the entire problem, but a damn big one.
I go to a lot of estate sales. A subset of the customers are people who have Airbnbs and are there for furniture and decorations.
Supply and demand are not really issues with housing, so again, it’s probably not an appreciable impact. Don’t believe the YIMBY lies.
There’s a reason it is banned or considered being banned in some cities around the world.
Correct! The reason it could be banned is because it is acceptable to ban under the neoliberal order. Notice how they haven’t banned rent even though that permanently solves the problem.
You’re wrong, sadly.
I’d be happy to be wrong but since supply and demand aren’t really impactful on market rate housing, it probably doesn’t do much except piss off morons.
You’re right on a micro level, but on macro scale, it’s absolutely making an impact.
I’d love to see some evidence of that since I’ve only ever seen reactionary YIMBY lies about it.
Yep! And those hosts bend over backwards. Like here’s a spare room, here’s some local chocolates from our town chocolatier. I made these jerkies. You’re invited to our 8pm fireplace time and have s’mores.
It was a real community. They still exist. But they’re overshadowed by shitty Airbnbs that want you to clean the gutters and mop the floors now for twice the price of a hotel.
jerkies
Reading the plural form of “jerky” makes me feel oddly uneasy.
Is that just like… several pieces of beef jerky or deer jerky?
I’m something of a jerkonnoisseur myself, and I have never considered the plural form of Jerky. This is like experiencing semantic satiation for the first time.
Rent a house instead of a hotel room. We’ve used that and other services like VRBO to rent cabins in the mountains. There’s nothing really “special” about it and it’s not really different from those other services like VRBO that came before. I think originally the difference was letting people rent a spare room, but I’ve personally never met anyone who has used that functionality (leasing or renting side).
Why would anyone want to stay anywhere but a hotel/resort on vacation? How does AirBnB handle housekeeping services? It’s not really up to the guest to clean, right?
15 years ago it was much cheaper than a hotel. Depending on the type of reservation, you may also get a kitchen and basically a house.
But things have changed and now they’re not the cheapest route anymore. Some people get horror stories as you can imagine because… People do shitty things sometimes as is human law of statistics.
I have a fondness for AirBnB. It’s gotten way bad in the past decade, since it’s being gamed.
Back then, there wasn’t much of a review system for shitty places. Today, Google Maps, Yelp, forums, social media - they can warn you about shitty places. And from my experience back then, a lot of hotels were scams.
Need a place to crash? You can either get a scary motel for like $40 that might have bed bugs, or a hotel for $300. I remember my first time in 2000 booking a hotel over the phone, having them save me a room, only to get there and these fuckers tried to upcharge me. I walked and they said, “Good luck finding a room in the middle of the night!” My mom eats specific foods because of her health issues, and Airbnbs often have shared kitchens. Hotels only recently started adding kitchenettes. And some hotels had locked devices. TV was extra. Fridge was extra. Touch snacks, fucking extra. You expected to pay $250 and here’s a bill for $600. Don’t want to pay? Well we’ll call the cops.
Airbnb and Uber gave people options, and you can give bad reviews to these bad actors. Having all this competition, hotels and taxis improved dramatically.
Of course, now Airbnb hosts (not Airbnb the company) took a lot of the shitty behavior that hotels used to do. Not to mention a lot of the Airbnbs are now owned by real estate companies who are trying to squeeze every penny.
So yeah, hotels have come back around to being a better service. And now if you get fucked over by the Marriot or something, take photos, leave a bad review, and they bend over backwards to apologize.
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I’ve recently rented an AirnBnB with 6 other People and at 21:26 the owner knocked and complained about noise. At that time we were playing cards and just enjoying each other’s company. The next day they wanted to kick us out because “partys” were not permitted. In no way other than drinking like 2 beers each we were having anything close to a party. I don’t know what they expected when they decided to offer a room for 8 Adults, but apparently they only welcome monks with a vow of silence.
8 people? Sounds like the perfect excuse to rent the penthouse. (Disclaimer: I’ve only seen penthouse hotel suites in movies)
Oh this sounds like a challenge.
Yeah if we’ve got a big team together for work we use AirBNB. I’ve stayed in some nice houses, and if everyone pitches in to keep the place clean it’s no big deal. This included plenty of drinking and weed, on outdoor cameras. Only problem I had was in NH right over the state line from Mass. The old-ass neighbor bitched multiple times every day about us having a fire in the fire pit and talking. Nobody was loud or drunk. We had to get up at 5 every day so it’s not like we were up late. He complained to the owner, she looked at the cameras, and took our side. Gave us a great review. She was probably tired of his shit too.
I’ve never Airbnb’d and I never intend to. I like my hotels thank you very much.
Tbh I’m a bit surprised how quickly Airb’n’b enshitified. It’s not even a competitor anymore imo.
Tbh ive booked no less than 8 airbnbs in the last 3 years and have always had zero issues in any of them. No ridiculous rules or deposits or anything, and a lot more privacy than getting a hotel. More importantly, always far cheaper than getting a hotel that isn’t questionably shitty
In that same span of time, Ive booked like 4 hotel rooms. One was a four star property that was great but stupid expensive. One was a “3 star” property that was shoddy as fuck, had bedbugs, and refused to give me a refund despite bringing one of the bugs to the front desk and politely declining to be put in another room. The other two hotels were decent but cost more than what they were worth compared to a STR. Hence I roll on with airbnbs
Why anyone would pay more for less space and less privacy I fail to understand
STR?
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Short term rental, an umbrella term for airbnb, vrbo, etc
Ugh just say the words.
Just an FYI, since privacy seems to be a big concern for you… AirBnB used to allow hosts to hide cameras inside of their rented spaces. It was explicitly allowed in their renting rules, under the premise of allowing owners to enforce rules and collect evidence in case of excessive mess/damage/theft. They banned hidden cameras in 2024, but over half of rental owners still admit to using them, and about half of all guests still report finding one inside of their rented spaces if they bother to look.
AirBnB never allowed hidden cameras; they allowed visible indoor cameras in common areas like a living room or kitchen. This isn’t to say that some nefarious hosts might have hidden cameras, which has always been an issue, but to say that they explicitly allowed it in their policy is patently false.
Here’s the archived version of the policy page in 2022: Use of cameras and recording devices
Horror story from Germany: colleague from my former workplace was living a bit after away and always rented local AirBnB locations until she found several hidden cameras, including one in the bedroom. This was before the official ban, but I’m never going to use the platform again.
& the host quite likely committed a felony under German law.
I meant privacy moreso as in coming and going as I please without interacting with anybody or being surrounded by other guests. But that is a valid separate concern I suppose
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Says something about how awful some people are to interact with when anyone would rather the alternative, doesn’t it?
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This is blatantly false. Got a source for your claim?
Which part are you suggesting is false?
That it was explicitly allowed in the rental agreement for the purpose of collecting evidence of rulebreaking.
I don’t know if you’re going to find anything that explicitly states that the security cameras are intended for security, but
https://news.airbnb.com/an-update-on-our-policy-on-security-cameras/
you’re looking for this.
From your link:
Historically, Airbnb allowed the use of indoor security cameras in common areas of listings, such as hallways and living rooms, as long as they were disclosed on the listing page before booking, clearly visible and were not located in spaces like sleeping areas and bathrooms.
How do you read that and conclude “they explicitly allowed hidden cameras”?
What sort of hotel are you staying at?
I just looked and the cheapest air BNB in my city is literally someone’s RV for $100 a night.
In most cities I can grab a room in a nice hotel for $100 to $150 per night. Cheap hotels are more like $80 a night.
worst, its behind the housing crisis in many countries.
I think that enshittification is inherent to our culture and the only thing that prevented it in the past was slow communication.
The way I see it is that enshitification is inherent to late stage capitalism, which has unfortunately become endemic in our culture.
I suppose that’s a 6/half-dozen distinction, though
Too many people who should not own and rent investment properties bought investment properties to rent as ABnBs. It broke the spirit of the thing, which was to rent space in your house, not a property used solely for that purpose.
Why haven’t zoning laws caught up?
They do but it’s apparently hard to enforce.
Couldn’t you just search Airbnb for your jurisdiction, then catch the landlord red handed?
I would agree.
I say it less as I know why and more that I know a lot of municipalities (including mine) have laws and codes in place that prevent using properties as hotels, and have had them for years, and yet they still operate.
So either they’re hard to enforce or they’re understaffed to do so.
They can pretend they live there. It’s harder than you think. And legislation takes time that a new app development does not. It is also local, so you are talking about thousand of civic governments not in concert with each other, and often playing the game with rental properties themselves.
The early days were actually great. People renting out spare rooms for cheap was a win/win, but of course “entrepreneurs” had to turn that into a side business and AirBnB had to maximise profits so it all went to shit.
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Criminal money actually have real utility for being criminal money, the only problem is it being used as an investment vehicle.
It’s interesting how the newer ones are more valued. Piracy isn’t even on there anymore. 🧓
Holy shit, I love this!
I think about it once a month
Once again, Late Stage Capitalism in the root problem in all enshittification of an otherwise innocent and slightly innovative idea.
It’s so funny because that’s exactly how capitalism ruins great ideas. I’m actually proud to have never used AirBnB, but when it first came out, it was probably a great way to save vs hotels that were overpriced and have massive overhead anyway.
They have also destroyed rent in lots of places. Here in Spain prices have more than doubled for rent since AirBnB is a thing. Landlords even tell you that they get way more money from airbnb, so supply and demand and all that.
Supply and demand isn’t really a thing with housing. I understand that Spaniards are upset, but that’s why you tell your socialist government to convert everything to public housing.
Okay I see this meme a lot, but just curious, is taxis/rideshares in the same situation or not.
I rarely ever need to use those but just curious in case I might need it someday.
A lot of taxis also work for the apps, it’s kinda like hotels that are listed on airBNB for some reason.
I’ve had too many bad experiences with taxi drivers demanding too much money or trying to drop me off too early, I almost exclusively book through apps now. I know the app takes 20-30%, why tf are you trying to charge me 2-5x what the app would for this route?
Before you take any taxi, look up what the route would cost on an app, then use that as the max you would pay.
I rent apartments a lot on booking.com for staff travel, it’s never any hassle.
Used Airbnb once, never again.
Family book it often if I don’t get ahead of them, apart from one time the places are always sub par and half the stuff is broken.
On the other hand, I’d pay extra to not give those cunts and their israeli buddies a cent. But it’s almost impossible now. I call the hotel and they say “make a booking through booking.com (or one of its thousands of sites)”
Before I would hang up and look for another one, but I realise now that the cancer has taken total control.
Airbnb, Amazon, this shit… Only someone insane would refuse to bend to our benevolent overlords, and I am still insane, putting up a fight I already lost.
Wasn’t aware they had ties. Fuck sake
Sorry I made your life worse, because you’re probably not going to escape them. They probably own whatever other website you’re thinking of using too.
Before ABB was forced to add all the cleaning fees because Big Hotel was losing their ass. I loved getting a good Airbnb.
Two bad experiences with airbnb. Will never use them again. I’d prefer hotel now. Actually cheaper, closer to right things and much much less hassle.
