[turquoisevar]

Probably because there’s no dedicated front desk and any random person could be the host is my guess?

I don’t know. I prefer my accommodations with a front desk, if only because I tend to check in at odd hours and it’s nice having a human available to help if there are issues.

By comparison AirBnB seems like those annoying customer service “AIs” who are always eager to let you know how much you can get accomplished on the company’s website.

[dspillett]

It could be that they are hoping that I know the owner, assuming the owner is local (often the houses specifically setup as short-term lets are not owned by someone local though, local to the city maybe but not the street), which I can understand.

But on more than one occasion I've got a strong “you can't just leave us out here with no clue!” vibe which really makes me wonder just what else they expect me to do!