From Pine View Farm

The Snaring Economy 4

When Yuanming He rented out his townhome on Airbnb two weeks ago, the Old Dominion University student who booked it promised there would be no parties and no more than three people on site.

Instead, witnesses said, around a hundred people showed up at the two-bedroom house a couple of miles from the Oceanfront during College Beach Weekend. Police were called there twice: once for a report of gunshots and again three hours later for a shooting that left 20-year-old Darren Campbell dead.

In a resort town like this, short-term rentals are common, but most of them don’t fly under the regulatory radar as Airbnb stuff does. Follow the link for a thoughtful consideration of the challenges that snaring poses to municipal governments.

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4 comments

  1. George Smith

    May 7, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    If you don’t deal with the tech industry’s schemes they will deal with you. Perhaps the city could appeal to the State Department for help now that the “owner” has gone into hiding in China. /sarcasm

     
  2. Frank

    May 7, 2016 at 11:09 pm

    I did not get the impression that the owner had “gone into hiding.”

    My take was that he was a real estate investor from China, but, as I’ve said before, if investors are doing it, it’s not “sharing.”

     
  3. George Smith

    May 8, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    Oh, I think there’s an indication he wishes to avoid the storm of liability looking to come his way. AirBnB, enabling you to be an American slumlord from a foreign country.

     
  4. Frank

    May 8, 2016 at 10:37 pm

    Hell, If it were I, I’d want to avoid the storm of liability.

    The poor guy wanted to make a buck. That I can understand.

    He bought into Silicon Valley’s “disruption” fantasy, in which “disruption” equates to new and creative ways of evading the law.

    Heck, I think I just defined “disruption.”