An Airbnb host’s worst nightmare happened to a home in North Dallas last weekend: DTX-TV reported and posted two videos of the wild parties in a North Dallas neighborhood. The property is located at 15816 Spring Creek Road in Richardson Heights Estates, which is off Coit Road near Arapaho.
The party-goers trashed the house.
Video footage was tweeted of people trying to kick doors off the hinges and trashing a flatscreen TV. There were also several police reports from the same address and date — a weapon offense, several narcotics offenses, as well “unknown suspect shot at comp with a handgun causing SBI: serious bodily injury.”
This event could be why some communities are limiting, or restricting, Airbnbs altogether (Arlington has taken that stance), and why some Dallas homeowners want an all-out ban on short-term rentals (STRs). In fact, during my recent run for Dallas City Council, STRs were a hot political forum topic.
Airbnb was chastened and quick to say the company bans party houses.
“The violence and total disrespect for this home is completely unacceptable, and we will pursue legal claims and damages against the booking guest who held this reckless event, in addition to a lifetime ban from our community,” the home-sharing company said in a statement to CBS 11 News. “Airbnb bans both parties and ‘party houses’, and we’ve suspended this listing as we investigate. We have been communicating with neighbors through our Neighborhood Support Line, and we will be working with them closely as part of this investigation.”
The woman who hosted the party has explained on social media that uninvited partygoers, who allegedly pulled up 12 cars deep, were refused entrance but then refused to leave. Neighbors are saying the house was consistently advertised as “Atlas House”, a party house which the owners bragged had multiple entrances for guests” and “plenty of parking.” (The listing has been removed.)
Airbnb Hires Security to Make Problems Go Away
Also of note: this incident comes just days after a story in Bloomberg on how Airbnb is spending millions in hushing damage control, even hiring ex-security advisors from the CIA, to make problems just like this go away.
Airbnb hired high-profile political crises experts to work on the team, including Nick Shapiro, former National Security Council adviser to Barack Obama and deputy chief of staff at the Central Intelligence Agency, who was brought on as its crisis manager.
It has cost Airbnb $50 million every year on payouts to hosts and guests to cover for when things go wrong, according to Bloomberg Businessweek which interviewed several former members of the secretive safety team. The team – known as the ‘black box’ inside the firm – is made up of around 100 agents across cities including Dublin, Montreal and Singapore, several of whom have backgrounds in the military or emergency services. In one incident, a rape victim received a $7 million payout in exchange for agreeing not to ‘imply responsibility or liability’ on Airbnb or the host after a ‘career criminal’ used a duplicate key to enter a New York City rental and attacked her at knifepoint, according to the report. Team members have the power to spend any amount tackling the worst crises at their rentals including sexual assaults, murders and deaths – providing support to guests and hosts and also working to keep the incidents out of the public eye, Bloomberg reported.
This revelation of the team’s very existence — and its power to keep the worst incidents out of the press — raises questions about the scale of shocking incidents taking place at Airbnb properties and the company’s ability to ensure safety for its guests and hosts.
Several former Airbnb safety agents described the extent of their tasks, preventing PR disasters for the firm and providing support to both guests and hosts who fell victim to horrific crimes inside the walls of the rentals.
