If you’ve been thinking that your side-hustle running an unlicensed apartment
rental ring on Airbnb would fly under the radar of The Man, it might be time to think again. Santa Monica has just booked their first criminal conviction of an Airbnb host who refused to play by the city’s rules. Put into place last year, Santa Monica’s restrictions
on Airbnb are considered among the most stringent of any city….

Visitors who abuse drugs. Guests who
lock dogs in bathrooms (with predictably awful results). Apartment owners who crawl into bed with renting couples. All of these nightmare scenarios have actually happened to Airbnb hosts and guests, and just scratch the surface of a recent thread on Reddit.
About 4,500 comments detail memorable experiences from those who host and those who rent….

Want to list your Vancouver home on AirBnB? You might soon need a business license for that. The city is crafting a new short-term-rental bylaw which could go into effect by the
end of the year. Councillor Geoff Meggs says the city has growing concerns the rentals are eating into already scarce rental housing stock. “It’s been doubling every year since 2013. It’s incredibly easy to register as a host, and AirBnB is very, very aggressive
in encouraging its hosts to rent and rent and rent again. We’ve known for some time that this market for AirBnB alone is one of the 10 most important in North America.”…

New technology is disrupting all kinds of industries, everything from newspapers and taxis to music and now hotels. The latest technology allows homeowners to rent out rooms of their
house, or sometimes the entire house. That’s causing alarm among lawmakers, who are now engaged in an effort to craft new kinds of regulations. For many neighborhoods across Virginia, the dawn of the new Airbnb era has brought with it a sense of uncertainty
— a watchful and suspicious eye toward strangers parading in and out of their neighborhoods. Mike Rioux says his Fairfax County neighborhood was recently transformed into a location shot by an Airbnb rental on his street. “It started at 7 o’clock in the morning.
They erected tents in the street, blocked mailboxes, had all kinds of trucks. I mean this is totally outside the bounds of what’s acceptable to us as far as what we think Airbnb should be doing.” During a recent hearing in Richmond, lawmakers heard from speaker
after speaker about how their neighborhoods have been transformed from quiet suburban streets into clandestine commercial strips….

As an unseasoned traveler, I just returned from Paris more exhausted than
when I left. No, I’m not a party animal or an unstoppable museum lover. I’m just an Airbnb newbie who had no idea how to decipher a listing. As a result, I was kept up to 3 AM every morning with my new friend Kesha blaring into my room….

Airbnb will not be sharing information on Amsterdam residents not complying to the city’s rules on renting your house to holiday-goers, the rental
site said in a blog post. The information Airbnb is giving to the Amsterdam municipality has been made anonymous. “We want to protect the privacy of guests and owners.”…

ALBANY — Airbnb on Friday is set to unleash an ad campaign opposing a bill designed to crack down on the home-sharing industry in New York City. Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, the Manhattan Democrat who sponsored the legislation, questioned why Airbnb is fighting so hard to kill a bill dealing with the illegal posting of housing units. “Obviously if they’re willing to spend seven figures to urge the governor to veto the bill, it just shows what an integral part of their business model the advertising of illegal units is,” Rosenthal said….

An Airbnb listing in Broadway-Flushing had state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) and residents up in arms over zoning violations at a July 1 news conference. Now Avella has issued a letter to the city Department of Buildings demanding that the agency enforce the law requiring single-family dwellings and non-commercial use within the neighborhood….

A new study is raising concerns that Airnbnb is pushing much-needed housing units off the GTA market. Nearly 85 per cent of Airbnb revenue in the area comes from renting out entire homes as opposed to spare rooms in shared spaces, the study shows. It’s an indication that people are buying properties specifically for the purpose of running “ghost hotels” — properties reserved for short-term leases….

Putting a new spin on treating a holiday rental just like home, guests have been pushing the boundaries in their behaviour. Users of a popular internet forum have spent the last 18 days revealing their worst experiences hosting and staying in private vacation accommodation. From guests using their home as a venue for orgies and weddings to hosts giving out wrong addresses and locking visitors in their room, no story was too extreme for this thread. Over 4,300 people responded to the Reddit question: ‘AirBnb hosts of Reddit. What is your most memorable experience with a tenant?’…