Equity Magazine November 2017

ENTREPRENEUR
never used Airbnb. Not because I
wasn’t attracted by the economical
rates and the amazing amenities some
I’ve
places provide, but because of a friend,
who had a horrible experience after booking a
temp abode so that he could attend the annual
Baselworld watch fair. Hotels weren’t an option
because those rooms in the city are booked
years in advance. In truth, he didn’t have much
of a choice. “Most of our previous experiences
with Airbnb were great, except that one time in
2015,” he says. “We landed at the host’s
apartment only to find out that it was under
renovation. There were no beds – just a few
mattresses on the floor, no furniture, no white
goods in the kitchen, and the bathroom door
was an improvised sheet of metal that had to be
crudely pulled over the door frame. There
wasn’t even a WiFi connection. Obviously, the
apartment looked nothing like the pictures that
were uploaded. We immediately raised the issue
with the owner who was occupying the floor
above us. While he sheepishly agreed to refund
the amount without much protest, we got back
onto Airbnb and quickly booked another
apartment across the city, whose owner, a Swiss
security guard, was only too happy to earn an
additional income that week.”
A quick google search showed me my friend
wasn’t alone. There are dreadful stories of
people who leased their homes through the app
for a couple of days only to find the place turned
upside down because of parties hosted there by
guests. Best case scenarios had furniture broken
and stolen, whereas worst-case scenarios had
faeces on the floor, X-rated parties and in one
instance, a guest-turned-squatter refused to
leave the host’s home. In that last instance, the
host had to lawyer up and go through an
eviction process just to get the squatter out of
her 600-sq-ft condo in Palm Springs, California.
Thomas Bennett, co-founder of Stay One
Degree, a luxury home rental social network, has
a similar, albeit less harrowing travel story. “We
had booked a holiday in Bali for two weeks,” he
says. “We trawled through hundreds of homes
on one of the large websites and ultimately
booked a villa that looked fantastic in the
pictures. When we arrived, it was clear that the
photos were heavily edited. The villa was very
tired, incredibly noisy and the air-conditioning
was non-existent. We were unable to sleep in the
30-degree heat. Even worse, we were unable to
change the villa despite complaints and it ruined
our holiday. We vowed never to book again
without a personal connection with the owner.”
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EQUITY