Airbnb:
New Year's Eve disaster stories around the world
Airbnb
homeowners count the cost of renting to guests who turned their
spaces into party pads on New Year’s Eve
Will
Coldwell
Thursday
7 January 2016 18.35 GMT
Having your wedding
night interrupted by a drug-fuelled orgy is not the best way to see
in 2016, but for one couple who rented out their apartment on Airbnb
for New Year’s Eve this is exactly what happened.
Still, some comfort
might be found in the fact that they were not the only homesharers
who fell foul of unscrupulous guests on the night. Here, we take a
look (occasionally through our fingers) at their story, as well as
other reports of New Year’s Eve guests from hell that have graced
the news this week.
Montreal residents
Justine Smith and husband Francisco Peres have two rooms in their
apartment which they rent out through Airbnb. The first room was
already booked for New Year’s Eve, when a request came through for
the second. As it also happened to be Smith and Peres’ wedding
night, they hadn’t planned to fill their house with any more
visitors, but they’d forgot to turn off the instant booking on
Airbnb so decided to roll with it. Plus, they needed the money.
According to Buzzfeed, Smith initially tried to cancel, but the
renters promised her they’d “be super chill”.
“Stepping
out of my room I was faced with two naked strangers”
Justine Smith
Cut to 2.30am and
the newlyweds return to their flat to find their guests out
(presumably partying) and their flat a mess. They decided to deal
with it in the morning. Shortly after they were woken by the guests
returning, which was followed by the sound of people snorting cocaine
in their living room and others having sex in the room next to them.
The impressively patient Smith – who detailed the evening in an
account for Vice – didn’t lose her temper until the next day,
however, when she found two naked strangers on her sofa, surrounded
by empty cocaine baggies, and discovered that three extra people had
been invited back to stay. After being caught short, the guests did
at least tidy up the flat, leaving a five-star rating and a note
saying: “Sorry for being such bad guests. We have no excuses for
our behavior. We were honestly just fucked up. Congratulations on
your wedding!”
“Sofas
were outside. The TV was in my bathroom”
Reshma Vansanwala
In Oakland,
California, Reshma Vasanwala and Jim Santi-Owen found their house had
been used for a much bigger party after they rented it to what they
thought was an older man from Chicago. Instead, it was an 18-year-old
who wanted to celebrate his birthday … and invited around 200
people to the party.
The couple first
heard what was going on when a concerned neighbour called them and by
the time they returned home, the revellers had dispersed leaving the
house looking like a bomb site. “Sofas were outside. The TV was in
my bathroom. Objects … photos, memorabilia … I have pictures of
my nieces that are on my fridge that were on the floor, trampled on
and torn, with shoe prints all over their cute, little faces,” she
told local news channel Kron4. To add insult to injury, over the
following day the couple had kids showing up trying to find pieces of
clothing they’d left behind. Owen has said he plans to press
criminal charges.
In London, Airbnb
was used once again as a means to book a cheap party venue. Magazine
designer Christina McQuillan rented out her apartment for one night,
but returned to her home in Putney to find hundreds of people
spilling out onto the street outside. Speaking to the Evening
Standard, McQuillan said: “We entered the property and we told her
to shut it down immediately. This girl just laughed and said, ‘no,
I’m holding a party’.” Damage totalling £3,000 included
ripped-up floorboards and a television pulled off the wall. There
were also reports of (are you noticing a theme here) a couple having
sex in the upstairs bedroom while another man watched, cue reports of
yet another NYE “orgy”.
This
girl just laughed [when we asked her to stop] and said, ‘no, I’m
holding a party’
Christina McQuillan
In all three cases,
Airbnb has been in touch with the hosts to help resolve the
situation, adding that the offending guests had all been banned from
using the site. In a statement it said: “We have zero tolerance for
this kind of behaviour and when something goes wrong we work quickly
to make it right … our Trust and Safety team has reached out to the
hosts to work with them under our $1m Host Guarantee, which covers a
host’s property in the rare event of damages.”
Though these NYE
disasters have struck a chord, it is worth noting events like these
are rare. According to Airbnb, over a million guests used the service
for their New Year’s Eve accommodation and out of 35m guests last
year worldwide, just 540 cases of “significant property damage” –
damage costing more than $1,000 (£680) – were reported.
Man
who let out home on Airbnb for new year suffers £12,000 damage
Nigel
Broome’s south-east London flat was left trashed with holes punched
in walls, flooding in kitchen and window ripped out
Ben Quinn
Saturday 9 January
2016 08.00 GMT
The new year had
barely rung in when Nigel Broome learned that his decision to rent
out a brand new family home on Airbnb to holidaymakers might prove
rather more costly than he anticipated.
A week later he is
still counting the cost – about £12,000 – after a New Year’s
Eve party which Broome suggests rivals any other on a list of alleged
disaster stories linked to the short-term homeletting site.
Damage listed by him
at the luxury new-build in Forest Hill, south-east London, includes
flooring ruined after the kitchen was flooded, holes punched in
walls, destroyed furniture, broken crockery and a window ripped from
its hinges to create an extra door for dozens of partygoers.
According to Broome,
the police were also called on the night to investigate a report of a
sexual assault.
“The people who
rented it from me presented themselves as holidaymakers, but they
basically came and just held a massive New Year’s Eve party,”
said Broome, who came back to find the house owned by his family
“trashed”, with laughing gas canisters strewn around as a
reminder of the festivities.
“I found out about
it while I was in Colombia, when I got a message through from one of
the neighbours who had 18-year-olds walk around the development
looking in people’s windows. She gathered from one of them that
they had booked it on Airbnb, so she got on Airbnb and contacted me
via an enquiry form about the property.”
Broome’s
experience is one of a series of new year-related episodes linked to
the company. Others have included the Montreal couple whose wedding
night was interrupted by a drug-fuelled orgy, a Californian couple
whose 18-year-old client invited 200 people to a birthday party at
their house, and a Londoner who hit the headlines over reports she
was punched in the stomach when she arrived to try to shut down a
party at her apartment.
Airbnb said: “We
have zero tolerance for this kind of behaviour and this guest is no
longer on Airbnb.
“Our trust and
safety team is supporting the host and is working with them under our
$1m host guarantee, which covers a host’s property in the rare
event of damages. Over 1 million guests stayed on Airbnb on New
Year’s Eve, and problems for hosts and guests are extremely rare.”
The company has been
in contact with police and is providing assistance in relation to
alleged criminal damage at Broome’s property.
The Metropolitan
police were unable to confirm to the Guardian on Friday that officers
had been called to a report of sexual assault at the property. Airbnb
was unaware of an assault.
Airbnb published
figures saying it helped 35 million guests make stays worldwide and
that only 540 cases of what it described as “significant property
damage” were reported to it.
Broome said the
person who rented the property quickly cancelled his profile and he
has not kept a record of their contact details. He is also not
impressed by Airbnb’s handing of the case, saying the repeated
calls he made to the company ended up with different junior members
of staff in the US, and that information was not passed on and he was
not called back.
It was only when
Broome contacted the Guardian that the situation began to change and
the company has since been in touch. Broome is sceptical of the host
guarantee. “They are going to have to sort out the insurance,” he
said. “The impression they give is that they have this best
possible insurance. But when something happens and you read the
terms, it says that it’s basically at their discretion.”
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