Bedbugs Are Giving Airbnb Users Headaches (cnet.com) 69
Waking up with bedbug bites can be a nightmare. It's also a costly and traumatic problem for Airbnb guests and hosts. CNET: CNET spoke to eight people who dealt with bedbugs in Airbnb rentals within the last three years. All of them said Airbnb, which was founded in 2008, doesn't seem to have a systematic procedure in place for handling outbreaks. And most said that while they eventually received some form of compensation from Airbnb, the company failed to provide adequate support. "This is my first real issue with Airbnb," says Dariele Blain, whose weekend away with friends went awry after she says the critters emerged at her Airbnb rental in Philadelphia. "But it's such an egregious one that I don't know if I'll book with them again." Like other Silicon Valley unicorns -- private companies with a high valuation -- Airbnb is known for "disruption," the idea of changing a service or product with technology to make it better. It's turned the lodging industry on its head by getting regular people to use its platform to rent out rooms or entire homes to travelers. Airbnb's service is now operating in almost every country on Earth and it has over 6 million listings for rent. That's more rooms than the top five hotel chains combined.
For each rental, Airbnb typically gets a cut of between 14% and 20%. The company, which may go public this year, is currently valued at $31 billion. Airbnb proponents say these short-term rentals help hosts make ends meet, while also bringing more visitors to cities where people can't afford high-cost hotels. But its business model has also triggered unintended consequences. The company has been blamed for rising rent and reduced rental stock in many cities, including its hometown of San Francisco. And in the case of bedbugs, Airbnb's use of millions of independent hosts means that trying to keep a lid on the pest epidemic can be hard to do, experts say.
For each rental, Airbnb typically gets a cut of between 14% and 20%. The company, which may go public this year, is currently valued at $31 billion. Airbnb proponents say these short-term rentals help hosts make ends meet, while also bringing more visitors to cities where people can't afford high-cost hotels. But its business model has also triggered unintended consequences. The company has been blamed for rising rent and reduced rental stock in many cities, including its hometown of San Francisco. And in the case of bedbugs, Airbnb's use of millions of independent hosts means that trying to keep a lid on the pest epidemic can be hard to do, experts say.
Air Bed & Bug (Score:4, Funny)
I foresee a transition away from carpeted floors, and towards airbeds
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tardigrades look like soap bubbles compared to the Cryptofeces Lepidoptera Creimerus.
Cryptofeces Lepidoptera Creimerus infestation is a serious problem. Not only are they capable of reproducing asexually like amoebas, they can also lay eggs hermaphroditically in unexpected places. They can disguise eggs as something useful to fool the unaware, sometimes pretending to be a haiku author, blogger, vlogger, or IT closet cleaner.
Very dangerous. They can seemingly reproduce out of the cosmic background radiation,
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Coat an elastic band with Tanglefoot [amazon.com] and then place it around the bedpost. Use blankets and comforters that don't touch the floor. Put an insect-proof cover over the mattress and pillows.
Seal up cracks and crevices with caulk. Replace carpet with wood or tile. In a rental this is a good idea anyway, since it is much faster and easier to clean.
If you get an infestation (usually from a guest's dirty laundry or a kid's stuffed animal) you can kill them with heat: 140F / 60C for 8 hours. Run all the blanket
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This is not about what you would and would not do, it is about what your Airbnb host will do and what is most profitable for them to do and of course what takes the least amount of effort. You will get what they can get away with and it's not like you can sue a hotel chain for real damages, when they behave just as poorly as Airbnb are likely too. With a hotel chain you get a relatively known experience, with Airbnb, you get the lottery good luck and lets be blunt sharing a bed and room with the poorest and
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Air BnB hosts live in these houses
In theory.
Re:Air Bed & Bug (Score:5, Interesting)
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Hotel carpeting is gross anyway. Bedbugs or not, you can't ever clean it 100%
I've got some bad news for you about hotel bedspreads/duvets.
Do you feel disrupted yet? (Score:5, Informative)
If not, we can throw some asbestos in there as well.
reputation and moderation (Score:1)
Re:reputation and moderation (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly; if you think it's really AirBnB's problem, you just don't understand what's going on. Why would you let a bedbug infestation in a house in Philly stop you from booking a condo in Miami or whatever? It's not like hotels are immune from bedbugs either, although I'd imagine that most decent chains have a pretty good grip on it by now.
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although I'd imagine that most decent chains have a pretty good grip on it by now.
They're all having problems with bedbugs, even the high-end ones, because somehow recently bedbugs have become more and more of a problem.
you want cheap, you get cheap (Score:2, Interesting)
what do you expect? the kind of service you get at a real hotel? Lots of these places in NYC they pack you in like an army barracks to make more money.
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airbnb has a large selection of places to book some BnBs are exceedingly expensive compared to a hotel.You may be able to find cheap on airbnb but you can also find very expensive.
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Just bare in mind the price of your AirBnB is for a 0 star service. Seldom, if ever do they have someone around to iron out the situation. Most of the time they can't handle problems. The article mentions that on several occasions guest were directed to hotels. This is the typical response by AirBnB. Direct the problem to someone else. Infected guests are directed to the hotel industry to deal with the problem. I wonder if they are forthcoming and advising those hotels that these guests may be infested?
My e
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That's what makes this country great. You can angrily avoid airbnb and I'll angrily avoid hotels. W
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the kind of service you get at a real hotel?
Pesticides aren't the first thing that comes to mind when you use those words but okay.
Re:you want cheap, you get cheap (Score:4, Insightful)
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valued at $31 billion??? (Score:2)
No, $31 billion for a defacto hotel franchise (Score:3)
So sick and tired of zoning laws not being enforced because "It's an App!"...
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Financially this makes no sense. Unless you're in a big tourist locale and there are no other hotels nearby and none of your neighbors are doing Airbnb also, then it seems you're likely to make more money from renting. I mean if the airbnb rent is more than a hotel then most people would rather stay at a hotel, and if they want to spend extra for an authentic experience then that's what a B&B is for. Are there really that many people who prefer substandard accomodations merely because there's an app
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I don't know the current numbers, but I was getting $1500/mo for a long term lease and roughly double that for airbnb after subtracting cleaning service, fees, etc. In higher demand areas the multiplier can be much higher.
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So why is it that your place was in such high demand? Next to a beach?
In large cities there's more demand than (Score:2)
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No you dolt, they also have an app. Plus a regulation-ignoring business model that offshores the traditional costs and risks of the hospitality industry on people who don't understand them.
You know, like the people who don't realize how hard and expensive it is to get rid of bedbugs, who nevertheless rent their property out to anyone via Air B&B and find themselves infested with bedbugs.
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$31B USD just for a website???
If that surprises you, wait until you hear about Google. Or Ebay. Or Yahoo. Where have you been for the last two decades?
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"For each rental, Airbnb typically gets a cut of between 14% and 20%. "
That is some serious rent-seeking behaviour!
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This is how indoor cats get fleas without ever seeing another cat, too. Been there, done that.
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I work in pest control, and unfortunately it is a matter of cost and expertise. Bedbugs were wiped out almost world wide when we used DDT, but as happens when you expose populations to a single chemical long term the ones that survived developed resistance. It just so happens that pyrethroids (the most common class of pesticide used non-agriculturally now) have the same chemical mode of action as DDT, so when air travel become commonplace, they spread everywhere and were highly resistant to most of the to
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Dealt with Bedbugs while I managed a nonprofit that work with product donations. I'm fairly certain that in this century bedbugs will be a problem to manage, not eradicate, in most apartments and hotels. There's just too many places to hide and our pesticides, though effective, can't always get to the root of the problem.
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I was able to inspect my belongings and ensure carry any critters or their eggs.
FWIW you can throw your clothes in the dryer (they can't handle the heat), and anything that you don't want to dry, put in the freezer for a while. I do that after I go on vacation, if there is any risk at all.
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Bed bugs can supposedly survive freezing temperatures, so not so sure I'd recommend people putting their things in the freezer.
-31C kills them all within 10h, including eggs
-28C kills them all within 10h, except freshly laid (48h) eggs
-20C kills them all within 48h, including eggs
-16C kills them all within 80h, including eggs
It goes both ways (Score:3)
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Anyone who buys a house for the sole purpose of an airbnb rental,(which is actually happening) can surely afford the bedbug extermination costs.
And at the same time they can afford to follow all the rules and regulations that apply to the hospitality industry. This seems to be the same model as uber - deliberately and with malice aforethought ignore all laws because you're "disruptive" to the industry.
But sir, nobody would do that! (Score:2)
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Yeah, that's a two way street. People can definitely bring them in.
We've never had a bug problem in my house in 25 years, until 3 weeks ago, my son went to visit a friend at a (kinda skeevy) friend's mom's house for the first time, which reportedly is pretty gross. A few days later, he found bed bugs -about half a dozen- in/on his bed! Fortunately, it was his old bed from childhood which we'd been planning on replacing anyway, so we killed the bugs, sprayed, disassembled the bed frame (wooden), bagged
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Short-term rentals are an absolute plague (Score:4, Interesting)
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This was solved a long time ago. We built Hotels and regulated them. Now we pretend that we invented something new and amazing when in fact we just sprayed some perfume on shit and called it flowers.
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If someone wants to rent out their extra room for a weekend, that is a noble use of private property.
I dunno. I could easily see that being annoying, especially in apartment buildings in cities. I guess I can get behind it for special cases, like the way that tons of people in Augusta rent out their house for two weeks during the Masters, but if you are in close proximity to others, it would seem to get very old, very fast. I don't think I'd like it much, and I live on a nice big lot where all housing is single-family detached - but I also know all my neighbors, and their cars, and so anyone who goes snoo
One of the advantages of type 1 diabetes (Score:2)
Bedbugs tend to avoid bedrooms where only a person with type 1 diabetes sleeps, no matter how much the rooms with at least 1 non-diabetic get infested. One no -diabetic (or any type 2) and you'll all get eaten alive.
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I'm sorry but I'm going to have to call BS on this one without citation.
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I did find that diabetes is magnet for fleas and mosquitoes, nothing specific about bed bugs though
hotel laundry (Score:2)
Typically commercial hotel laundries have massive 180F/82C+ water heaters and are capable of cleaning sheets far better than a residential washing machine. Just another example of how AirBnB saves money over the real thing.
Common problem, sadly (Score:2)
I once got a hotel that was infested. Stayed two nights before the bites became obvious. Cleaning the clothes and baggage was a must in order to prevent bringing the bedbugs home. I overreacted a bit (called a chemical cleaner, cost me a lot). It is important to know what kills bedbugs and their eggs:
- washing things in hot water. They won't survive on clothes passed through a washing machine or manually washed in scalding-hot water.
- heating to +50 C for a few hours. This does not damage any belongings, in
I see what you did there (Score:2)
I see what you did there.