Housing StrangersFollow

Airbnb is a worldwide service that hooks up people looking for a temporary roof over their head with people who have extra roof. It's allowed home-owners to rent out unused space to travelers or short-time visitors.

It's also got the hotel/motel industry up in arms. Currently the practice of renting out rooms in your home is unregulated for the most part, largely untaxed and in direct competition with your standard hotel/motel/inn.

Would you rent a room in your home out to a stranger?

RIP


Edited, May 28th 2014 6:20pm by Elinda

That's been a huge kerfuffle out here, where the hotel industry is powerful and rentals are expensive.

I considered doing something similar a few years ago, when a flight attendant friend mentioned to me that she and some of her co-workers were looking for a rent share arrangement in SF, which was a main hub for the airline she worked for. The legality of it was... ambiguous.

Yeah, the legality is ambiguous, but the significance of a single home-owner renting out a room is inconsequential to jurisdictional enforcers.

I've considered it also since we have two extra bedrooms, but the location isn't at all amendable to travelers.

It sounds like Airbnb itself is feeling some pressure to legitimize things a bit.

No, YOUR MOM~!

We don't really have a spare room. Maybe they could crash on the neighbor's porch until the cops came.

All vinyl.

Might want to re-activate your man-seeking-man profile; you're likely to get a more receptive clientele for that kind of thing.

Makes me think back to this comic I saw once.

I wondered for a while how it might be possible for someone to travel the world, staying with people and learning their culture rather than simply holing up in a hotel. Now I know.

That website is pretty nifty. I'm going to have to give it a go once we own a house.

Actually, yeah, I'm gonna need to stay over at yours too, lolgaxe.

Party of six. Leave some champagne on ice in our room and I'll tip accordingly.

Yeah. I went to see her speak once (not my idea, but I thought it would be worth doing. I was wrong). It was, to paraphrase Pratchett, like being gently flogged to death with a shoelace.

We do the free version, Couchsurfing.org

Met some incredibly cool people as we've traveled, and hosted some very cool people too. Haven't had any weirdos or creeps yet.

I've used airbnb before, it was a good experience. We had a closed off area though, so it wasn't like I was staying in a room inside someones larger house.

I've used it 3 times. Two times it was fine, one time I was raped and killed. So, YMMV

So...your bed will be free Tuesday.