Whither AirBNB?

So there exists a service called “AirBNB” that has become quite the darling of the investment community. Their product is your house. Not in a sales sense: they connect travelers with people who are willing to rent out their homes while they themselves are away.

You read that right. If you’re like me, you just went “WTF? Let strangers stay in my house when I’m not there? Are you fucking kidding me?” Apparently, though, you and I are just creepy paranoids, because AirBNB has done pretty well.

However, it turns out maybe we’re not so paranoid after all, as San Francisco apartment provider EJ found out:

Someone named Dj Pattrson (was it a guy? A girl? I still don’t know – but I have noticed much too late that the person misspelled their own last name) came into my home earlier this month (apparently with several others, according to witnesses) and set out on what I believe to be the carefully-planned theft and destruction of my home and my identity. With an entire week living in my apartment, Dj and friends had more than enough time to search through literally everything inside, to rifle through every document, every photo, every drawer, every storage container and every piece of clothing I own, essentially turning my world inside out, and leaving a disgusting mess behind.

They smashed a hole through a locked closet door, and found the passport, cash, credit card and grandmother’s jewelry I had hidden inside. They took my camera, my iPod, an old laptop, and my external backup drive filled with photos, journals… my entire life. They found my birth certificate and social security card, which I believe they photocopied – using the printer/copier I kindly left out for my guests’ use. They rifled through all my drawers, wore my shoes and clothes, and left my clothing crumpled up in a pile of wet, mildewing towels on the closet floor. They found my coupons for Bed Bath & Beyond and used the discount, along with my Mastercard, to shop online. Despite the heat wave, they used my fireplace and multiple Duraflame logs to reduce mounds of stuff (my stuff??) to ash – including, I believe, the missing set of guest sheets I left carefully folded for their comfort. Yet they were stupid and careless enough to leave the flue closed; dirty gray ash now covered every surface inside.

I think it’s safe to assume that this story will get all kinds of Googlejuice, which is good, because to be perfectly frank I can think of few more foolish things than letting people you don’t know stay in your house. Do people like EJ just have nothing of value? Do they not realize that people like this “DJ Pattrson” exist? To each their own, I guess, but it seemed like a disaster waiting to happen when I first heard about the idea; that my expectations have been met just cements my impression. Halfass damage control attempts by the CEO are lame and impotent when the whole idea of the service is to put strangers in your house.