[rand84545]

There are two possibilties here:

- The noise level is within the reasonable legal limit: Tourists are exercising their rights to use the condo, in the same way that the owner (main renter) could have done. Whether it's the owner making the noise or the tourists is immaterial.

- The noise levels are above the legal limits, inform them (courtesy) and then call the cops. whether it's the owner, or the tourists it's the same thing.

[pjc50]

"I have a right to do everything that's not actually illegal" is an attitude that directly results in all kinds of trivial things being banned. In this case, it's leading to cities trying to ban or restrict AirBNB.

[dsfyu404ed]

Along those same lines "I find it reasonable to call the cops on every violation of the letter of the law" results in a really shitty society.

[exergy]

Depends on your definition. Here in Switzerland, the expectations go as far as aksing you NOT to use toilets after a reasonable hour in the evening because the sound through the water pipes can disturb people. Now, it's not as draconian as it sounds, and from time to time you are welcome to use the toilet, obviously.

Similarly, in some villages, you are NOT welcome to tear down an old building and build a modern monstrosity in its place. Facade changes often need to be approved by the local authorities. The advantage is that villages look more homogeneous and thus more beautiful.

On the one hand, such a society means the Swiss will sometimes call the cops if you're noisy, or if you parked your car wrong etc. And it DOES get infuriating no doubt.

However, such things tend to load to a society where everyone has a baseline level of self-awareness and sensitivity towards those around you. It translates to all sort of good things like the 'zipper' approach to intersections, where you let someone in, and then the next car lets you in, and the virtuous cycle continues.

Ultimately, if I had to choose, I'd much prefer such a seciety, even if it errs on too much strictness. The quality of life is amazing.

[alistairSH]

People in Switzerland don't have to pee in the middle of the night?

[exergy]

They do and they do. Hence the caveat in my post.

[pjc50]

Sure. There's an escalation process in this; going round to ask people not to do something. But if that doesn't work? Or results in aggression? Or actual violence? Or, because of the character of the neigbourhood and people's fears, they worry it might? People turn to the police to mediate their disputes.

And the problem with AirBnb is that every new set of guests re-rolls the dice on how they're likely to react.

[TeMPOraL]

Except that generally doesn't happen, and illegal AirBnB sublets absolutely do deserve to be reported to police in every single instance, because they're instances of antisocial individual behavior coordinated by a multinational corporation that profits off it.

[travisoneill1]

I do have that right. Busybody losers who complain constantly about trivial things are the reason all kinds of trivial things are banned.

[dsfyu404ed]

Your wording is a little over the top but I generally agree.

You know how many fucks I give about my neighbor's power tools at odd hours or my other neighbor's loud birds or my other neighbor who's always smoking weed, or my other neighbor who's always getting loud and drunk with his buddies and all the other things people around me do that some find disagreeable?

Zero.

Those things are what a free society sounds and smells like. The people who want everyone around them to abide by an upper middle class standard of behavior where everyone keeps their lawn just the right height, ensures non-running cars are parked out of view and (practically) never makes any noise can move to an upper middle class neighborhood.

Edit:

I'm being serious. People need to care less what their neighbors do. Caring what your neighbors do and slowly codifying that over time is what gave us the affordable and walk-able utopias of SF, LA, DMV, etc.

[travisoneill1]

I have lived in probably 15 apartments and never ran into one neighbor I couldn't handle, and you somehow have 3 at once? I would say that the problem is probably you. If not, and you have just hit the bad neighbor lottery, you are free to do what I have done so many times and move.

[dsfyu404ed]

I'm perfectly fine with them. I'm just listing off the things they do that may annoy some people. Personally I like the neighborhood character.

[travisoneill1]

Sorry. I detected sarcasm.

[rand84545]

> "I have a right to do everything that's not actually illegal" is an attitude that directly results in all kinds of trivial things being banned.

You say that, like it's something surprising. A Priori, a person will do anything as long as it does not violate his own self imposed code of conduct.

That code of conduct need not be the same for everyone.

Laws, religion, moral codes are used to codify parts that are shared by a group of people.

In a civil state, the only part that you can force people to abide to, is that of the law in the general sense. (because they have a right to have a different religion, different moral doctorines etc..).

of course, people can self impose stricter rules on themselves but they can't impose rules stricter than the law on others.

> In this case, it's leading to cities trying to ban or restrict AirBNB

yeah, they can. I agree with you here. And I'm sure there is many valid reasons to do so.

My point is noise,in my opinion, is not one.

Inacceptable levels of noise should be banned regardless of the type of the rental contract.

for example, increased demand on housing making long term renting too expensive, is a valid one. Because it's a necessary result of airbnb.

My general point of view, is that one should ban / disadvantage X because of undesirable property Y, only if Y is an essential property/consequence of X.

I like this principal because it's general enough to be equivalent to "one shouldn't punish the innocent" and prohibition of racism directly follows from it.

[vidarh]

The point is that "acceptable levels of noise" depends on frequency of high noise levels, not just volume on a given instance. I accept that my neighbors use a chainsaw on occasion, and they accepted it just fine when I used a jackhammer in the garden to break up some concrete, despite very high volume in both cases, it happens so rarely that it's fine.

But far lower volume noise every evening would be far more disruptive.

You can get that with long term renters too, but typically it tends to be a bigger problem with certain types of use, such as vacation rentals, than others, and with long term renters you have more ability to try to resolve the issue before someone new moves in.

In this case increased average noise level is an observable property of short term/vacation rentals in a lot of locations. If the people renting out does not want it to be banned, then it is on them to ensure the people they rent to are considerate enough that residents are happy for it to continue.

[JacKTrocinskI]

If I call the police the owners of the condo do not suffer any repercussions, the tourists making the noise might get fined and maybe they learn a lesson maybe not, either way a new batch of tourists arrives a few days later and I have to go through the same ordeal. If the owners were the ones making the noise I could call the cops on them, they would get fined repeatedly and after sometime a judge might get fed up and put them in jail, see the difference?

[CaptainMarvel]

The tourists will leave negative reviews causing that listing to become unviable. They might also complain to AirBnB who might remove the listing (though this seems unlikely..)

[jddj]

This could actually be pretty effective. Airbnb is very quick about disappearing anything from their platform with a less than perfect rating.

I discovered this after stumbling across some darkly funny bad reviews and then diving into their API to look for more of the same.

..Not that I am neither condoning nor condemning finding a way to dock the property a star over time. Personally I'm pretty tolerant of happy neighbourly noise - I like to feel like I have life around me, and I have a fairly good memory of how loud a neighbor I was when I was younger.

[Ensorceled]

You do realize you are defending and supporting the "tragedy of the commons"

[rand84545]

- not, really. Could you expand on that.

- my point, it's easier to attack a group of people , if you can put a label on them. Noise is a problem regardless of its source.

A noisy long term neighbour is at least as annoying as a noisy tourist. And a calm tourist is less annoying. Being noisy is not an essential property of airbnb rentals.

Those who are noisy should suffer the consequences of their actions. Those who are not, should not.

The second part of my argument, is "my rights start where your rights end".

if the tourists/owner/ whatever has a right to make that noise, then you don't have the right to prevent them from doing that noise.

If they don't have the right to make that noise level, then they don't have that right regardless of who they are.

Because something disadvantages you, it doesn't mean that others don't have the right to do it.

[Obsnold]

Do you want to live somewhere where you have to regularly call the police on your neighbors?

For a permanent neighbor at least you may be able to take some action against them but with Airbnb the people will change every few days or weeks.

When I lived next to several Airbnbs the problem was non stop. Sometimes I could talk to people and they would begrudgingly quiet down but in a few days they would be replaced by someone else and the whole thing would repeat. For tourists they are only there for a few days or weeks but for the people living there it is their whole life.

In my experience as well it's a lot more common to find bad tourists then bad permanent residents. A lot of tourists will be gone in a short time so a lot wont care how much noise they make or by the time they are told or realize they are being too loud you may get a few days of quite before someone new turns up. Most permanent residents have to see each other a lot more and the repercussions for upsetting their neighbor are much more likely.

[cycrutchfield]

Wouldn’t the noise violation go to the property owner, not the guest? I fail to see why involving the police is not a deterrent.

[JacKTrocinskI]

Where I live (Poland) the owner suffers no repercussions, the police can only ticket the noisy guests.

[TeMPOraL]

This is going to be a pretty blow-below-the-belt suggestion for our (Polish) sensibilities, but since I have very little charity for antisocial behavior - especially of the "I profit, I don't care" kind, and doubly so when coordinated by a multinational corp pretending to be a hip tech company: I wonder if the owner is paying correct taxes on the money made from AirBnB leases. It would be a shame if the Revenue Service came and checked.

[PlasticTank]

Have you never heard of common courtesy? I'm not by law required to do a lot of things I do but I do them because they make the world that little bit better for everyone, same goes for things I avoid doing.

[chirau]

Where does it start, where does it end? Who defines it?

"Common courtesy" is a very vague term and changes from place to place

[PlasticTank]

Sure, you can get pedantic about the cultural nuances of courtsey but I'd say that it generally boils down to don't be an inconsiderate a-hole. I live in a country where it's not illegal to take up-skirts I'd say it would be pretty universal to say it's common courtesy not to do that.

[chirau]

An example is not a definition. Like i said, what is common courtesy and where? What is an a-hole? You mention these terms as if they have a universal definition, they don't. Chewing gum in Singapore could be an a-hole move. Is it in the USA? So what gives?

And thanks to all my know-better self-righteous downvoters. I didn't know questions were inappropriate.

[EForEndeavour]

Read up on law sometime. You'll see terms like "reasonable" everywhere, which merely offloads the critical components of the law to, well, people you'd hope are reasonable (capable of reason).

If you can't rigorously define something, you certainly still can work with it, pursue it, use it, regulate it, etc. Consider: art, love, health, happiness, pregnancy, ...

[gpvos]

Not being a jerk includes having some measure of sensitivity regarding what is considered jerk-like behaviour in the situation you find yourself in, informing yourself, and erring on the side of caution in unknown situations. Of course, mistakes will be made, but that doesn't invalidate the principle.

[Ensorceled]

This is the very essence of the tragedy of the commons; a behaviour that is not illegal but degrades the commons and continues to happen because of the selfish nature of the users. You are defending peoples right to degrade the commons in multiple comments in this thread so I'm unsure why are you asking for expansion; you've made your position quite clear.

[rimliu]

"You are not wrong, Walter, you are just an asshole!" Sure, you can go and ask your neighbors to be quiet. How will you feel when you have to do it every night?

[JackFr]

There are definitely more than two possibilities:

- The condo rules or the co-op lease forbids rentals for less than a month, in which case the owner is in violation of his lease or agreement.

- The apartment is in a jurisdiction which holds short term rentals illegal, and the owner is breaking the law.

Regardless of the level of the noise.

[DanBC]

The third option is that noise levels are illegal but enforcement is currently too hard.