This is a logical fallacy and it’s hard to believe that you can’t tell. You think that since an incident hasn’t happened, that it somehow means it never will happen. Security cameras are there for when something does happen. Your same logic applies to every single driver with a dash cam. You can see videos online of collisions that have happened.
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Sneaking in extra guests is something I didn’t even consider using my cameras for, but that is a good reason to do it. It’s happened to me with two guests. I always lock my door in case a guest tries to enter it by mistake. I don’t think any have ever attempted to do so deliberately.
I never claimed it was impossible. I simply said that events that were a regular feature of some hosts’ experience had never happened to us. To use your car accident analogy – if someone else has repeated accidents and I don’t have one in ten years, I wouldn’t say “I’ll never have an accident,” but I would say “It seems either the way you drive or the way other drivers in your local drive doesn’t match me in my location… there is a different pattern when you compare the two.”
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Indoor cameras are way more important for hosts who live in the same residence as the Airbnb they are hosting. Stuff turning up missing is not even near the worst thing that can happen.
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I’ve been a homeshare host since 2016, with a private room/private bathroom for 1 guest and they share my kitchen.
I’ve hosted around 80 guests, I don’t lock my bedroom door, don’t have any cameras, and would never have one. If I felt I needed to have a camera indoors, I would stop hosting.
I’ve never had anything go missing nor any guest do anything I would have wanted to have a camera to document.
I do think they are useful, outdoors, for entire house listings, though, where guests could be sneaking in extra guests or pets, throwing a party, etc.
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A better analogy would be insurance. It’s not hard to understand the purpose of insurance. I have homeowner’s insurance. Some people have it their entire lives and never need it. But if something happens and they do need it, thank God they have it. Security cameras are exactly the same way. Even if they’re never needed, they give you peace of mind in the meantime.
Okay, but do you think other people also don’t need them? Maybe you live in a very nice neighborhood and your Airbnb is a bit pricier than others.
A few months back, there was a domestic violence incident in one of the Airbnb rooms. The man was yelling at the woman. I was worried. Shortly later, the police come knocking on my door. She had called them. There aren’t cameras in their rooms, of course, but I was able to use the cameras to show support that the police came and knocked on that person’s door (inside the home).
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I don’t really have an opinion on whether other homeshare hosts “need” indoor cameras. Some people are just more fearful in general, or their location, and the type of guests it attracts and the reasons they might book there means they get worse guests than other hosts get. It’s not for me to judge what makes other people feel secure, but I would never book a place with indoor cameras.
No, my listing is not in some upscale neighborhood, it’s in the countryside on the outskirts of a destination touristy beach town. And no, my listing isn’t “a bit pricier” than others- it is actually about the least expensive for what I offer, to the point that several guests have told me “You know, you could charge more for this”. (I really dislike the “low prices bring low quality guests” statements- it might in some locations, but it’s a myth in my own experience)
I have always marketed my listing towards the type of guests who will be a good fit for my place and my lifestyle, rather than just put it out there trying to attract anyone and everyone, and that has always worked for me- I get lovely guests and have never had to contact Airbnb about any issue with guests.
I also don’t use Instant Book, and dialogue with guests before accepting their requests.
Of course, I’m not so smug as to think I could never get a problematic guest, any host could, but having only had one issue with a guest in all my years of hosting, which was worked out amicably between me and the guest, and which a camera would not have been of any use for, it’s never even occured to me to have any surveillance cameras, either indoors or out.
Insurance isn’t intrusive and doesn’t spy on you.
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Anyone’s opinion on the matter is irrelevant anyway. It is like insurance, as I said. Someone can feel they don’t need car insurance because they’re a good driver, but then someone else hits them who has no insurance and now they are out of luck because the other person doesn’t have liability and you don’t have collision.
On the contrary, low prices tend to bring worse guests. It’s like hotels, right? You have a fancy hotel that only rich people or vacationers can afford, then you got someplace like Motel 6 and you’ll find some shady people booking rooms there. I know because I worked the graveyard shift at Motel 6 and I got some stories.
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As I said, that has not been my experience at all.
Not all guests book inexpensive listings because they can’t afford to pay more, or because they are cheap. They just have different priorities. As long as the listing is comfortable, clean, and in the right location for them, and they see it has excellent reviews, that’s all they care about. Fancy digs aren’t important to them. They may prefer to spend their money on activities, souveniers, eating out.
I have had many guests who have very well-paying jobs who could well afford to book a place that is far more expensive than mine.
And I have read plenty of posts from hosts who have upscale listings who have found that some of their guests who were the wealthiest, doctors, lawyers, and such, were their worst guests, having a huge sense of entitlement, criticizing everything, left the place a mess, treated the staff like dirt.
What people are willing or able to pay is not any reliable indicator of whether someone is a decent, respectful person or not.
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That’s what this forum is - a collection of hosts’ opinions. Every host is different, every rental is different, every location is different, every situation is different.
It’s unusual for hosts here to agree 100%, although what we do do is respect the opinions of others.
So here’s another opinion. Before though, a speculation on the question of why Airbnb has made this decision.
One reason could be forthcoming legislation. Another is that by disallowing indoor cameras, Airbnb is attempting to return to some extent to the world of hospitality, hospitality being as far removed from automatic this and filmed that as it possibly can be. In other words, the interaction between two parties, hosts and guests. Real people.
And my opinion (after all, that’s what this forum is for) is that hosts can film and monitor and spy on guests but those cameras cannot solve problems, they can only record them.
Good hosts, or their co-hosts should be able to deal with issues when they occur and not rely on cameras to ‘prove’ those issues.
We all have had a good moan about Airbnb in our time but the answer remains - those who don’t like Airbnb’s policies are welcome to use another listings service.
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Exactly. The one guest I had an issue with, had brought some guy back at 3 am her first night here, them both drunk and noisy and of course waking me up.
I didn’t phone Airbnb, providing them with camera footage proving this happened. I didn’t get up at 3 am and have a confrontation, either. I went back to sleep, told her the next morning that this was totally uncool, not allowed, and that it wasn’t to happen again or she’d have to find another place to stay. She apologized, it never happened again, and we got along fine for the rest of her 4 night booking.
Are you seriously arguing against security cameras? No one is being spied on. They are in shared areas. I don’t think you’re being reasonable here. I explained my logic very well and you’re ignoring it. I’m not continuing this conversation.
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Cameras most definitely can be used to solve major problems. As I’ve stated many times already, if I am accused of doing something, my cameras will prove I did not do the thing I have been accused of. Because, as we know, when a man is accused of doing something, he has the impossible burden of proof that he didn’t.
Do you watch the news? Are you aware of what happened with Donald Trump? He was accused of sexual assault that happened more than 30 years ago. Not one single shred of forensic evidence was presented. The only evidence was anecdotal and testimonial. One of the pieces of “evidence” was the Access Hollywood tape, which is -not- conclusive of anything he was accused of actually happening. It was only proof that he said some pretty nasty things during a private conversation in a locker room.
As I said before, I presented these concerns to Airbnb support. I asked them very specifically what would happen if such an accusation was made with no forensic evidence whatsoever. I asked them if the insurance would cover me entirely through a legal process and if I would not lose my status as a host. They merely acknowledged my concerns and gave me no answer to the question, which actually is an answer in itself. For them to strip me of security cameras and then not have my back when the security cameras could prove what did or didn’t happen is incredibly immoral. My logic is perfectly sound. Many other hosts have these concerns.
The reason they are doing this, from what I understand, is because of certain bad hosts who’ve had hidden cameras in private spaces. Forcing all hosts to remove clearly-visible indoor cameras in shared spaces that are even announced on the listing will not stop the bad hosts from putting their hidden spy cameras in private spaces, so this policy makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Guests can look at a listing, see it has cameras, and then decide whether or not they want to book it.
What are you accused of doing? As someone who has been in this business since the 1980s, I can truly say that I have never been accused of anything at all.
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No, he said it on a bus to Billy Bush on their way to an Access Hollywood filming, as part of him bragging about trying to seduce a married woman and how he can’t help himself from assaulting women. It was on tape and replayed on national TV.
This is irrelevant and it was not my intention to bring up a conversation about politics. The only thing relevant in this example is that no forensic evidence was presented 30 years after an incident took place and still he was ordered to pay a substantial sum. Things like this have happened countless times. Plenty of men have went to prison on nothing more than an accusation and were later exonerated because it never happened.
Is it difficult to understand, then, why people want security cameras? Many Uber drivers have security cameras pointer inward for this exact same reason. Many hosts want security cameras for the very reason I stated.
My logic is undeniable, yet people choose to continue arguing.
And despite all of this, I inquired to Airbnb what they would do if such things ever did happen and they provide no answer, which is the same thing as saying they will do nothing and how the world works will be what happens in that situation, which is absolutely unfair because they forced their hosts to get rid of the security cameras.
I never said I was. I did explain how the world is and gave the modern example of Donald Trump. Do you not understand how the world works?