So if you want to have a (perhaps spontaneous) guest over or a small polite gathering, as long as you don't cause a disturbance, it's no harm no foul. This is beneficial to the social fabric and doesn't bring any detriment to the host or neighbors. Yet, thanks to the marvels of technology, we can now detect and deter these aberrances that would have otherwise gone unnoticed!
If you could accurately know how many people there are and when they are there, you could have a more reasonable rule like “no more than 3 guests during the day and they have to leave by 9pm” or something.
People seem to be pretty universally incapable of not assuming computer products to be infallible, especially when they might get some extra money in "over occupancy" fees.
Of course, if you have someone over for coffee, there probably is no issue. Of course, if you have many people over for a crazy party, there will probably be a boatload of issues.
The problem is there are plenty of dishonest people who'll try to skirt their responsibilities in the in-between situations. Maybe it's difficult to hide that you've had 50 people over. But if you're renting for, say, 4 people and you have 10 more people over? I'd guess it's not directly evident. So if those people aren't hell-bent on thrashing the place, but you know, shit happens? Perhaps the guest will try to say that the couch already had a wine stain, or the dishes were already chipped, or whatever. And if a neighbor complained about the noise? There were just four of us, we kept it reasonable, but we can't be completely mute.
So of course hosts will try to hedge against these behaviors. And, of course, people trying to be reasonable will get the short straw. Next thing you know, water will be found to be wet or something crazy like that.
And the hosts who want to use strict enforcement of rules that were designed around not being enforced unless something bad enough to notice had happened bear no blame?
Are they not just as dishonest?
What about the internet cheerleaders who validate such behavior with their "rules are rules" ignorance, as if things were that simple?
https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2026-09-02/concord-housing-auth...
OK so Android users are safe, then. Woohoo!
A few years ago me and a bunch of friends rented a big Airbnb with a no dogs policy. Some other friends were in the same town, with a dog, and came over and hung out in the yard for a while with their dog. The dog also briefly went in the house (which I think is poor form, to be clear). Somehow the Airbnb host was in the neighborhood and drove by the house to check on it, saw the dog, and then messaged Airbnb to complain.
My friend counter-complained to Airbnb that the host was surveilling us. And the end result was that Airbnb discounted the Airbnb by 50% (over $1000). The owner got nothing out of it. Very surprising to me.
Extremely poor form. Dog people seem to struggle with accepting these kinds of boundaries around their dogs for reasons I’ve never understood.
Although I don’t think the dog should have been in the yard, either. No dogs means no dogs. There can be liability/insurance reasons on top of just not wanting dog shit in your yard.
> My friend counter-complained to Airbnb that the host was surveilling us.
I can’t imagine being an Airbnb host with issues like this.
I’ve stayed in plenty of airbnbs where the owners lived nearby, and noticing a tenant breaking the rules when you drive by doesn’t sound like surveillance.
e.g. if you suddenly start seeing tons of beacons above the historical maximum, that's a good indicator.
(Not trying to be "dropbox is just rsync", just commenting on the iOS only limitation)
This product allows them to charge additional fees without being present hosts or even receiving a complaint.
https://fccid.io/2AFXO-AM01/Internal-Photos/internal-photo-6...
I ripped apart a https://restsensor.com/ "hotel air quality sensor" I got on eBay and it ended up being just that: an ESP32 hooked to a Sensiron SEN55.
I would have thought Android's constant Wi-Fi scanning that Google uses for improving their indoor location services would be an easy give away.
But with MAC randomization (both wifi and Bluetooth), I'm not sure what they are doing here that would effectively sort iPhones from other devices doing the same.
To anyone wanting to throw parties at an airbnb, switch to Android!
I imagine that would be a neater solution. if all what you need is a wifi receiver.
It’s also why anonymization of wifi started being pushed by Apple et al, which still does provide a stable client id but that’s only being broadcast as part of the DHCP handshake, which cannot be used here.
To me that says that the tech got good enough all those people got hired to make it production worthy behind closed doors.
But with MAC address randomization, I don't recall Apple doing anything different than other vendors so not sure what they are detecting that an Android wouldn't reveal as well.
Thank god Android doesn't fuck my privacy like that.
The next street over from me is an affordable housing duplex complex. I think about 20-30 duplexes total which house families with children. This is not a college town nor does it have anything within walking distance that would make it attract the busy-life. Several of these duplexes recently vacated their tenants and remodeled to charge more rent. The rent increase was too much and they sat empty for some time. The owners then put it up for sale and it was subsequently bought up by AirBnB investors.
This has brought a litany of issues. We've had several instances now of huge house parties where they rent all of the duplexes at once, and this has brought large police encounters. There's been property damage and violence against neighbors as a result of these parties. The commotion is not contained unfortunately and bleeds out into the neighboring streets, including my residence. We're talking probably a good 500ft radius from the actual AirBnB homes to the surrounding neighborhood. That's a large blast radius for those of us that never agreed to have this sort of presence so close to our homes. I feel awful for the homes in the actual complex, is they are getting the brunt of the disruption.
The last time I finally had it and collected video evidence then reported them to AirBnb citing the violence, property damage, and police reports. AirBnb was surprisingly responsive and so far it's been a couple of months without any issues - knock on wood. However my anger at the displacement of low income families in place of AirBnb homes remains. They have zero investment in the well-being of our neighborhood and only care about turning a profit on the homes. It frustrates me to no end.
STRs are a disgusting and tasteless business and I avoid staying in them at all costs
My point was that saying "it's only hosts" or, indeed, "it's only guests" is not fully honest.
Edit:
I think the underlying thing is hard to set out. Basically, it's "don't be a dick", and it applies to both hosts and guests. But how do you enforce that? So this devolves into a situation where everybody tries to pin the blame on the other, and / or make sure to cover their ass as much as possible.
Which brings me back to my general point: this is why we can't have nice things.
I've been constructing my own fantasy that there is an emergent-trust-group-of-respectful-people where "nice things" are just normal.
Perhaps implies an opposite group of defective arseholes together?
Maybe aspirational but the idea is to just be reliably good and eventually others trust you and you become part of a trust network.
I've had it happen at the scale of individuals: once you've shown you're trustworthy and unselfish then many people seem to respond to that with goodness.
Most people can smell selfishness such as "manifestation" thinking. I find it difficult to be generous without intent of obligations. I believe it only works if you're genuinely good with no strings attached.
Kindness is easier.
I'm no fan of karma or religion or magical woowoo: even though ultimately the idea perhaps has the same roots as those.
It isn't reciprocation: that is transactional investment. Reciprocation definitely works fabulously well. However it has debts and credits, and I have some sort of unreasonable antipathy towards those both. We live in a transactional society, and many people inspect every action of others for their needy goals. Or people have their own currencies and balance sheets.
I try to frame the fantasy more rationally as an emergent behaviour of society as a response to defectors.
So far my main negative proof against the whole idea is that I've had life pretty good even though I have been normal levels of selfishness. I'm still working on how that fits in.
Meanwhile I'm giving the experiment a good go. I like to test against my own reality. Finding I'm wrong is usually valuable.
It's a poorly thought out fantasy. Too many reasons why it is broken: Like seeing givers enable takers, or selfish people winning good things.
(edited to make clearer)
Maybe they shouldn’t install surveillance tech they don’t fully understand. Especially if they don’t disclose it to potential renters. Maybe they should just be present, in case the renter or neighbors have issues.
It’s like your local Police chief not understanding the full capabilities and potential abuse of the cameras they’re spending millions on, rather than investing in patrol officers they can hold accountable.
Maybe, just maybe, the STRs could be taxed and that money goes towards building more housing.