A man in Miami sleeps in a stranger's home thinking it's his Airbnb

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Originally published at: A man in Miami sleeps in a stranger's home thinking it's his Airbnb | Boing Boing

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I’m surprised AirBnb doesn’t have some kind of RFID tag or other kind of beacon for hosts stick on their house. I don’t know how much of an issue this is, but some kind of at least visual indication seems in order for a home operating as a business. Airbnb is weird.

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Glad everything worked out well. It’s “stand yer ground” Florida where things could go terribly wrong.

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At first I thought this was going to turn into a Air BnB scam article. Apparently people are just registering random addresses, taking bookings and then claiming it was a simple misunderstanding. Repeatedly.

I feel like I read about that here, but can’t find the article atm. I really like Air BnB when I’m traveling but, yeah… it’s weird. Fortunately we’ve only had great experiences.

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This is happening at alarming rate up in the High Desert. All you need is zero morals / assholeness and a desire for easy money.

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I think Jason posted something about a neighbor using his address (with then further instructions on how to find the actual airbnb) to avoid getting caught illegally airbnb-ing in a property that didn’t allow it. It does seem like having a physically registered Airbnb token of some kind would also help protect against those scams.

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Such a token could also be used to transfer useful info to the authorized guest, e.g. Wifi credentials or an entry code.

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BUT DID HE EAT THE PORRIDGE!?

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No mint on the pillow either.

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Sure, that’d make sense, right? But there are three totally insurmountable problems with it.

  1. It would take effort.
  2. It would cost money.
  3. It might be construed in a future wrongful death lawsuit (when the next homeowner decides to Stand His Ground) to mean that Airbnb felt it had any responsibility whatsoever to anyone at all in any circumstances whatsoever.
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If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?

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Fun question- let’s say you did this. What would you do to make it up to the homeowner? What’s the Book of Etiquette for treating someone’s home like an Airbnb?

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AirBNB’s opinion on this seems to be their opinion on everything when people ask tough questions.

Look they’re just an app that people use on their phones.

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I think he should convince the original Airbnb-er to give the inconvenienced homeowner the net pay they would have received for the night’s accommodation, if he hasn’t already.

And maybe a gift card on top of that.

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I hope the extremely reasonable-sounding home owner was compensated for involuntarily renting out a bed for a night and having the good grace not to immediately assume the worst. I was half-expecting to read that they made breakfast for their “guest” before sending him on his way.

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This has been nagging at me: even if the man had gotten the address right and had correctly located the Airbnb, surely he’d still have been sleeping in a stranger’s home? Isn’t that what Airbnb is?

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As I recall this exact situation came up in the John Candy comedy Summer Rental.

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The brief report re: this story on our local news gave more info than the article. He’s going to give his unwitting hosts a gift of some kind.

ETA: Among the belatedly realized clues that it wasn’t an air b’n’b, he mentioned that the place was rather untidy.

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In most cases, yes, but I’ve rented an AirB&B that was actually a vacant, furnished apartment with nobody living there. Perhaps the traveler thought it was one of those- an empty summer home, or something similar.

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Years ago in my early 20s, at a party I met one of my old secondary school (highschool) classmates. I was designated driver so it seemed reasonable to offer him a lift back home to our side of the city.

However, between the offer of the lift and time to go home, my old classmate got royally drunk. It seemed wrong to abandon him so I (and another friend) threw him in the back of the van and set out for home.

When we got to his house about 4 am, our hero was still unconscious so we carried him Weekend at Bernie’s style, up to his front door, propped him up against it, rang the doorbell, and being mature adults - ran away.

The door opened, our hero stumbled into the house and attempted to make his way upstairs to bed.

When he came to his senses, he found himself sitting at a kitchen table in a kitchen very similar to his own, surrounded by a bleary-eyed and disgruntled family, one of whom mused - “Isn’t that the Corcoran boy?”

Apparently we had got the right house, but on the next street over.

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