[pallinder]

I once rented out my apartment privately and it turned out to be a major mistake. I had just come home from surfing the Caribbeans and was sitting on a train going home from the airport when I got a job offer that would entail me moving halfway across the world.

I took the job and was basically on a plane in a week or two. I decided to save time by renting my apartment out fully furnished. My mom met some dude she thought looked OK and we rented it out to this guy. Turns out this was one shady guy. First month comes around, no rent. I call the guy and he comes up with an excuse, not wanting to really deal with this at the time I bought the excuse and was expecting two rents the next month. Next month comes along and no rent again so I get my friend to go into the apartment and he opens the door only to find basically everything I owned stolen.

After calming down I found the guy on facebook and then reported him to the police, they couldnt do much seing as the guys excuse was that he had left the apartment and dropped the key into the mailbox so someone else must have fished it up and opened the door and stole everything.

tl;dr I rented out my apartment and got everything I own stolen and the police didnt manage to do anything.

What did I learn from this? ALWAYS get a deposit. 2-3 months rent up front. Have insurance, have friends that are able to go check up on the place from time to time. And dont leave anything valuable in the apt when renting it out.

And this is why I will never ever use a service such as Airbnb, no control.