A Manhattan comedian put his apartment up for rent on SF-based AirBNB, only later to find his renter advertising out his apartment for an orgy, Gawker reported Friday. While hilarious, the incident highlights key points in the New York attorney general’s litigation againts AirBNB. And the San Francisco City Attorney may soon look into them as well.
The problem? Cities have no data on how AirBNB rentals are being used. Usually the concern is over landlords renting through AirBNB at the expense of evicted long-term tenants. In this case, the tenant asked comedian Ari Teman if it was alright to have family over for a wedding. It turns out he meant to use the apartment for much wilder aims.
Teman walked through the lobby of his building, just before leaving for a trip, only to overhear his new tenant say “they’re shutting us down,” according to Gawker. Suspicious, Teman Googled his tenant’s phone number and found a Tweet advertising a “BBW panty raid” party.
For the unitiated, BBW stands for Big Beautiful Women. Talk about the wrong time to leave. One wonders if Teman was just bummed he missed out on all the fun. He needn’t have worried, as the next advertisement listed was for a “XXX Freak Fest” — in Teman’s own apartment.
The damage to his apartment may also have gotten him miffed. His furniture was damaged and overturned, and bags of condoms and loads of liquor were strewn about his apartment.
The tenant, who Gawker identified as “David,” said an agreement between he and Teman specified he could have up to 50 guests, which Teman denies.
To its credit, AirBNB put up Teman in a hotel while his apartment is cleaned, changed his locks, and ponied up $23,817, all within 24 hours, Gawker reported.
The best part? Afterwards, the now infamous company Taiwanese Animators already has a 3D animated cartoon up about the incident. Though we will say, the video is a bit problematic by primarily featuring black actors in the overweight roles. What’s with that!?
But really, this is another example of the troubles around lax regulation of AirBNB which hopefully will be ironed out soon. The NYPD cleared the apartment, which costs New York City a chunk of change. That’s money that isn’t paid for by AirBNB, because hosts have so far skirted paying hotel taxes. The same is true in San Francisco.
As we’ve reported previously, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issued a subpoena to Airbnb last October, demanding information on New York City’s 15,000 hosts and 25,000 listings.
So far, San Francisco hasn’t pursued AirBNB with the same zeal. Maybe all we need to do is throw a few AirBNB hosted sex parties.