How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

Re:How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb by fastball on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @11:34AM (#20460570)

Right, so the owner is potentially breaking the social contract by maybe allowing someone without respect for others to stay in their home (though ratings systems are generally used exactly to allow this type of vetting in advance).

But the guest is not automatically breaking the social contract by staying in an AirBnB, which is what was implied by the OC.

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Re:How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb by TeMPOraL on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @11:45AM (#20460704)

The OC said, "the system breaks the social contract".

> the owner is potentially breaking the social contract by maybe allowing someone without respect for others to stay in their home

And a person walking around the gas station with an open flame is only potentially a fire hazard, because they may very well get lucky and not set any fuel fumes on fire.

Reality doesn't work like that. You drop the "potentially" once the risk becomes predictably high. The owner is breaking the social contract by putting their neighbors at very high risk of dealing with guests who don't respect other people.

> though ratings systems are generally used exactly to allow this type of vetting in advance

Ranking systems are trivially gamed. One would think everyone knows this by now.

> But the guest is not automatically breaking the social contract by staying in an AirBnB

No, they're not. But if they behave as if they were in a hotel while in a residential-area AirBnB, they most likely are. Maybe they should know better than to behave like that. But AirBnB should know better than enabling this problem in the first place.

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Re:How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb by noxToken on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @01:41PM (#20462056)

I guess I feel this way, because I feel a small bit of responsibility towards my neighbors. Renting out a place is not inherently a violation of a social contract.

> Reality doesn't work like that. You drop the "potentially" once the risk becomes predictably high. The owner is breaking the social contract by putting their neighbors at very high risk of dealing with guests who don't respect other people.

A flood of legitimate complaints about poor guest behavior would likely make me stop - i.e. the pattern is now predictably high enough to make a logical conclusion. I hope that my neighbors would be courteous enough to do the same.

> But AirBnB should know better than enabling this problem in the first place.

I think someone else touched on this, but I have a feeling that the location attracts different types of guests. Beaches are a great example. The surrounding area is a good indicator if the beach is a party beach or more oriented for family vacations. The former typically has brighter lights, more bars, clubs, and places open later. Family-friendly beaches usually shut down activity around 10 or 11 save for the corner store that's open later. I bet the Airbnb guest behavior reflect this as well.

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Re:How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb by AJ007 on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @01:33PM (#20461976)

I don’t know what a social contract means, but in some cases you are breaking condo/apartment contracts and in other municipalities the owner is breaking the law.

As far as I’ve ever heard, as a guest, the worst that is going to happen is you are going to be thrown out. Municipalities in general don’t want to scare away tourists or visitors, so I would be surprised to see any fines or penalties in that directions.

Some municipalities have very large and escalating fines for listing on AirBnb. Miami Beach is $20,000 for first offense and I believe doubles on the second. Search “Airbnb Miami Beach” on google, and it is going to take you a while to figure that one out. I doubt most visitors have any idea.

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