Air bnb

[Zaphod]

Hank wrote:

There are several things that could go wrong with short term vacation rentals. However, there doesn’t seem to be solid evidence that there’s some sort of epidemic of child abuse as a result of hosting Airbnb.

This sounds like the latest moral panic. (Al and Tipper Gore might be proud.). Let me clutch my pearls and add it to the list of moral panic in the last 100 years:
Comic books
Pinball machines
Marihuana cigarettes
Jazz
Rock n roll
Hip hop
Video games
Dungeons & Dragons
Satanism
Strangers in white panel vans
Pizzagate

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I wouldnt say its that serious. I was just saying the risk is non zero with them just in the spare bedroom in your house, and the payoff for any material nonzero risk in this case isnt worth it at all. There have been lots of issues with property, etc...that are much more common, and again, wouldnt be worth it outside a dedicated space.

Certain set ups are amazing, hightowers, a dedicated unit, etc....

For moral outrage you forgot He-Man, there is an amazing video on youtube about how its the devil taking the kids, fascinating.

[Hank]

There are several things that could go wrong with short term vacation rentals. However, there doesn't seem to be solid evidence that there's some sort of epidemic of child abuse as a result of hosting Airbnb.

This sounds like the latest moral panic. (Al and Tipper Gore might be proud.). Let me clutch my pearls and add it to the list of moral panic in the last 100 years:
Comic books
Pinball machines
Marihuana cigarettes
Jazz
Rock n roll
Hip hop
Video games
Dungeons & Dragons
Satanism
Strangers in white panel vans
Pizzagate

[G]

mobilehomegurl wrote:

For anyone interested, here’s a crazy story I just read about tenants illegally listing a landlord’s property on Air bnb:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/01/airbnb-nightmare-homeowners-fined-after-renters-illegal-listings.html

What a nightmare, yikes!!   

Click to expand...

Ha, I read that--and immediately checked to make sure that my tenants weren't listing on airbnb or vrbo!

[mobilehomegurl]

For anyone interested, here's a crazy story I just read about tenants illegally listing a landlord's property on Air bnb:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/01/airbnb-nightmare-homeowners-fined-after-renters-illegal-listings.html

What a nightmare, yikes!!   

[AR]

Rogue Dad, M.D. wrote:

AR — this is a weird and frankly dumb conversation so I’m going to exit after this. Feel free to post a final rebuttal.

The premise of this was about the dangers to your kids of letting strangers into your home via Airbnb.

In a regular situation, that doesn’t happen. However by inviting random people into your home, you are no longer acting in a traditional manner.

Kids don’t regularly have strangers sleeping in their home. However I’ve seen many children physically and sexually assaulted by strangers. Some outside of their home, and some in their home.

As I said — it’s more common for it to be someone they know in part BECAUSE that’s who they are more commonly around.

You are welcome to do whatever you want. I don’t plan on reading any studies on the matter unless I get desperate for cash to consider renting out basement out to someone.

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Rogue Dad,

I think the conversation is dumb too, but mostly because I think you forgot what you said and consistently miss the point.

I assume everyone agrees that letting strangers in your house increases the risk to children by some amount.  Literally no one is disputing that.  The problem that I had was extremely specific and had to do with only a single statement that you made.

Here's what you actually said:

"I’ve taken care of plenty of kids hurt by “strangers” as well as family and friends who are in their home"

I specifically said (scroll up if you need to) that the friends and family part makes sense, but the strangers assaulting kids in the kids' home seemed uncommon. In attempting to substantiate this claim you've given numerous examples of people who are not strangers assaulting kids in the home and people who might be strangers assaulting kids somewhere.   I think the closest we came to even an anecdote was people invited to a gathering at someones house and abusing a kid.  Few people would describe guests invited to a gathering as strangers.

At this point, I think I'm convinced that your statement is likely to be untrue. If we are using a conventional definition of "plenty" and "stranger".  And no, stranger is not defined as any human that you don't know well.  

You have, however, gone to great lengths to prove things that I didn't need to be convinced of.  Namely:

-There is lot a child abuse around

-Lots of it is done by friends and family

-Lots of it is done by people who the child doesn't know well at unspecified locations

-Exposing kids to strangers probably increases their risk of abuse

I don't disagree with any of that and never have.  None of that substantiates the claim that there are lots of kids being abused in their own homes by strangers (assuming reasonable definitions of "lots" and "strangers").

 

[hightower]

jsr52 wrote:

I ran an airbnb for a year with my roommate during our last year of our medicine residency. I did it mainly since I was staying at my girlfriends so we figured my room could make some extra money. Needless to say, as a resident, it was a pain having to deal with hosts when I was working so hard during the day. Money was pretty good though. 90% of the guests were quite pleasant. A few hit or miss guests every now and then. We hosted a couple from Paris expecting our apartment to be a Ritz Carlton… needless to say they were pissed, but thats airbnb for yeah.

I respectfully disagree with Hightower. If an Airbnb guest is drunk and causes damage that is far more likely to happen than a random person breaking into your apartment.

 

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It can happen.  Not going to deny it.  But, there are lots of safeguards.  For instance, we only allow guests with previous, positive feedback to stay with us.  No new Airbnb members allowed.  We also stay at home the same nights that we have guests.  So if we were to hear people getting rowdy, we'd know it and we'd intervene immediately.  Finally, we have homeowner's insurance that would help us if they damaged things, plus airbnb will work with you if a guest damages your space.

I would not want an airbnb guest renting my entire home/apartment though (unless it was strictly an investment property).  I am cool with our arrangement only.

[Complete_newbie]

jsr52 wrote:

Do you manage the condo Airbnb on your own?

Click to expand...

No. 50% partner: I do opportunity eval, capitalization, marketing. Other partner does day to day operations etc.

[RogueDadMD]

AR -- this is a weird and frankly dumb conversation so I'm going to exit after this. Feel free to post a final rebuttal.

The premise of this was about the dangers to your kids of letting strangers into your home via Airbnb.

In a regular situation, that doesn't happen. However by inviting random people into your home, you are no longer acting in a traditional manner.

Kids don't regularly have strangers sleeping in their home. However I've seen many children physically and sexually assaulted by strangers. Some outside of their home, and some in their home.

As I said -- it's more common for it to be someone they know in part BECAUSE that's who they are more commonly around.

You are welcome to do whatever you want. I don't plan on reading any studies on the matter unless I get desperate for cash to consider renting out basement out to someone.

[AR]

Rogue Dad, M.D. wrote:

AR wrote:

I’m not sure I’d describe people invited over for a party as strangers.  But I guess it’s possible that people have different kinds of parties than I might.  Or maybe if someone crashes the party and then goes on to assault a child, I guess it would count.  If you’ve seen a lot of those, I’ll take your word for it, but it is pretty surprising. Even after all you’ve typed, I’m still not convinced that kids abused/assaulted by “strangers in the home” is a thing that happens on a frequent basis.  Unless you have a very unorthodox definition of “stranger” and “frequent”.

Click to expand…

I don’t know what YOUR definition is of frequent.  It almost certainly happens every day of the year in this country, and probably many many many times a day in this country.

http://victimsofcrime.org/media/reporting-on-child-sexual-abuse/child-sexual-abuse-statistics

“Self-report studies show that 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault or sexual abuse incident;

According to a 2003 National Institute of Justice report, 3 out of 4 adolescents who have been sexually assaulted were victimized by someone they knew well (page 5).”

That means that 25% were assaulted by someone they did NOT know well.  I would say that most kids proportionally spend more time around people they DO know well then they do NOT know well (my kids spend almost zero time around people they do not know well).

As such, that 25% means the strangers are disproportionally represented as the source of attacks.  If they spend 2% of their time around strangers, but strangers represent 25% of sexual assaults, then the strangers are more likely to assault you than a friend (even if the absolute # of assaults is higher from a friend).

Ergo, if you start increasing their exposure to strangers, they are more likely to be victimized by one at a higher rate than if you increase their exposure to people they DO know well.  If you increase their stranger exposure from 2% to 15% (by having a rotating case of strangers in the house living with you all the time), their chance of assault by a stranger likely goes up more than 13%.

 

Click to expand...

Stranger is not the same as "someone they do not know well".    There are all sorts of people that I don't know "well" that I wouldn't call strangers.  I know them, just not well.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "well".   It's more or less like I said. If you've got a weird definition of stranger, then everything you say is reasonable. My definition of stranger is basically someone you don't know at all.  Like an airBnB renter (which was the context of this discussion).

 

EDIT: The studies you quoted also don't specify where the incidents took place (or at least you didn't mention that in your summary.  I haven't read them yet, but I will when I've got some time).  The "strangers" assaulting them "in the home" specifically was part of what made your claim hard to believe.  I fully accept that many kids are assaulted by strangers (however you choose to define that). But specifically at home?  That still seems unlikely and your study, as you summarized it, doesn't really help us there.

[jsr52]

Do you manage the condo Airbnb on your own?

[Complete_newbie]

Well ofcourse there are risks. But with risks comes opportunity. Condo I already own and AirBnb is more ROI than simple rental at this time. If legal framework changes for the worse, will switch to long term rental.

[pulmdoc]

Back on topic..


I have used AirBNB several times over the past few years as a guest and have had a nearly uniformly positive experience (one studio apt had all the furniture removed after the pictures were taken, apparently). However, I am skittish about hosting on AirBNB or similar sites for profit. In addition to the same issues dealt with owning real estate for long term renters, there is a large amount of legal heterogeneity from community to community. My hometown currently outlaws rentals <30 days, with a $1000 fine for violation. The next town over requires a hotel permit and forbids rental unless it's your primary residence. The next town after that requires a bed&breakfast license ($2500/year!!) and lodging taxes remitted but after that anything is fair game. I'm confident things will eventually settle down and there will be a relatively consistent legal framework to operate under, but for now there's a lot of extra risk I don't need.

[RogueDadMD]

Rogue Dad, M.D. wrote:

Ergo, if you start increasing their exposure to strangers, they are more likely to be victimized by one at a higher rate than if you increase their exposure to people they DO know well.  If you increase their stranger exposure from 2% to 15% (by having a rotating case of strangers in the house living with you all the time), their chance of assault by a stranger likely goes up more than 13%.

Click to expand...

We tell kids "Stranger danger!"  Not "Uncle Jon danger!"

If you invite a rotating cast of strangers into your house compared to a rotating case of aunts, uncles, and close friends, I would have to your children are more likely to be harmed by the cast of strangers.

I don't an RCT to back this up, but I feel like this is just common sense.

And yes, I do see children who are abused or assaulted by people they don't know, sometimes with horrific outcomes.

[RogueDadMD]

AR wrote:

I’m not sure I’d describe people invited over for a party as strangers.  But I guess it’s possible that people have different kinds of parties than I might.  Or maybe if someone crashes the party and then goes on to assault a child, I guess it would count.  If you’ve seen a lot of those, I’ll take your word for it, but it is pretty surprising. Even after all you’ve typed, I’m still not convinced that kids abused/assaulted by “strangers in the home” is a thing that happens on a frequent basis.  Unless you have a very unorthodox definition of “stranger” and “frequent”.

Click to expand...

I don't know what YOUR definition is of frequent.  It almost certainly happens every day of the year in this country, and probably many many many times a day in this country.

http://victimsofcrime.org/media/reporting-on-child-sexual-abuse/child-sexual-abuse-statistics

"Self-report studies show that 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault or sexual abuse incident;

According to a 2003 National Institute of Justice report, 3 out of 4 adolescents who have been sexually assaulted were victimized by someone they knew well (page 5)."

That means that 25% were assaulted by someone they did NOT know well.  I would say that most kids proportionally spend more time around people they DO know well then they do NOT know well (my kids spend almost zero time around people they do not know well).

As such, that 25% means the strangers are disproportionally represented as the source of attacks.  If they spend 2% of their time around strangers, but strangers represent 25% of sexual assaults, then the strangers are more likely to assault you than a friend (even if the absolute # of assaults is higher from a friend).

Ergo, if you start increasing their exposure to strangers, they are more likely to be victimized by one at a higher rate than if you increase their exposure to people they DO know well.  If you increase their stranger exposure from 2% to 15% (by having a rotating case of strangers in the house living with you all the time), their chance of assault by a stranger likely goes up more than 13%.

 

[G]

In med school, I rented my parking spot (closer to the hospital than the staff garage).  That seemed pretty safe considering the direction this thread has turned!