I truly do not think that there are that many “bad hosts“ out there who are going to be bribing guests. What I am much more concerned about is the number of bad guests who will intimidate and coerce hosts because they know that they control the fate of their listing.
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I like “control the feet.” I’m sure you meant “fate,” but “feet” is much more entertaining. It really has legs.
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Yup, I just made that change. 
ETA: and I realize that now I’ve made it completely confusing by making that change…
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I agree, there probably aren’t that many hosts, but some of the worst hosts reported have been hosts with hundreds of listings.
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These should be the easiest to detect and manually review, then, don’t you think?
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@KKC I have reported one nearby listing, as have other local hosts. It was flagrant, unsafe, against local ordinances in many ways. Nothing happened. The listing remained up…So, we began to wonder if reporting a listing accomplished anything…
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I don’t think it has unless you were reporting clearly discriminatory language. And even then they just warn the host and let them carry on. Maybe things will change going forward.
I read somewhere online that there were two citations. One was for exceeding the maximum number of guests allowed, the other was for overflowing trash. I can easily see how in both cases the guest might be at fault (especially the first one). I absolutely think that good hosts can get screwed very quickly just by having two or three bad guests.
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In Palm Springs if you get a trash bin citation they give you an hour to remove the trash before they issue you a ticket which is fair. If you had your local contact available, by law you should, then he/she could easily avoid a citation. Another way to avoid this entirely is by paying extra for walk up trash service for your remote hosted properties. And if an extra messy guest makes a lot of trash, we simply charge them for the extra haul.
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That’s totally fair. I agree that having a local contact/co-host is essential; someone should be physically available to get to the property within a reasonable amount of time.
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Problem with what is stated in this article is that only the guests are being protected. This is squarely counter to what happened in Orinda that it indicates as one of the catalysts for this verification process. Just more things To give money to guests that they promised to hosts, like their Extenuating Circumstances Clause.
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You are generous here in my opinion.
More clearly written - to protect guests from GETTING SCAMMED by hosts.
I should clarify again that I initially thought these measures were a response to the shooting alone. They aren’t. They are a response to the shooting and to the article in Vice about scam hosts.
Actually I don’t think that would be evil but would certainly be interesting and increase the number of photographers!
Right. How comforting to know that they seem to be more concerned with the Vice article than the shooting (at least when you see how they are responding).
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I guess this points out my main gripe with AirBnB overall…lack of FAIRNESS.
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Another reason the listing verification thing is a sham: so what if they verify how a place looked, how clean it was, what was available on one particular day?
Hell, my own home looks completely different at Thanksgiving than it does the rest of the year. Thank goodness my in-laws are two hours away, with virtually no chance of dropping in unannounced.
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Or the hosts just say it’s the cost of doing business, like bed sheets and towels at my low budget listing the percentage of the booking price is about the same yet hosts here often say that is the cost of doing business…
Airbnb should follow the comedian Gallagher’s lead and use something like his sticky-dart-gun method for delisting problem hosts (explained in the first 45 seconds of this video):
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