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A man allegedly tricked his neighbor by renting her place on Airbnb, then refused to leave
(Flickr / annie)
Not the unit in question.
You hear of the occasional Airbnb guest refusing to leave a rental.
But what happens when that guest is a neighbor you've been feuding with for years?
The San Francisco Chronicle's Carolyn Said uncovered what the paper labeled "the most bizarre, outrageous Airbnb feud story you'll ever read."
And it is.
A San Francisco woman, Michelle Huang, was the landlord of a two-bedroom apartment in a "tenancy-in-common" building.
Such properties aren't like condos where everyone owns a unit privately. Instead, the people living in a unit split ownership of the entire building, with the size of their stakes based on the size of the unit they live in. All of their names go on the building title.
Another neighbor and co-owner of the building, Sandeep Hingorani, lives in the top-floor studio — and for the past 10 months he has also rented Huang's unit, despite her not wanting him to live there.
The problems started when an Airbnb user, "Jim Tako," asked to rent Huang's apartment.
The labyrinth of Airbnb regulations in San Francisco makes it harder to rent out your entire home for less than 30 days, so Huang — as many landlords have done — switched her Airbnb rentals so they'd last longer than one month.
"Tako" rented the unit for 60 days in April and May 2015.
Then a lawyer showed up and told Huang that the guest was asserting his tenant's right to convert the stay into a month-by-month rental — another byproduct of the city's tenant laws.
That guest turned out to be Hingorani, the neighbor from the top floor, who had been fighting with Huang for years. He described Huang and her boyfriend as "bullies" to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The city's rent board ruled in favor of Hingorani to stay, although it didn't comment on how Hingorani, his mother, and a friend came to stay in the unit in the first place, since it was supposed to be rented to a person with a totally different name.
Now the three, who have lived in the unit for the past 10 months, have given notice that they're leaving — but they're saying that Huang basically forced them out by shutting off the electricity and making repairs without warning. The court battle is still ongoing between the parties.
As one uninvolved neighbor who owns a piece of the building told the Chronicle, "It's a pox on both their houses."
Airbnb, for its part, reminds hosts to always verify who they are renting to: "Unfortunate situations like this are rare and we are always working to improve. We provide tools so that our hosts can review and research their guests before they accept a reservation. You can read a person’s profile, look for their reviews. In addition, both hosts and guests have access to 24/7 service from our Trust and Safety Team," a spokespersono said.
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