Short-term Airbnb rentals are on the rise again in Stuyvesant Town despite ongoing talks between Airbnb and Stuy Town. CWCapital Asset Management, the ST/PCV Tenants Association and Council Member Dan Garodnick, all of whom want to put an end to such listings, have taken several meetings with Airbnb to prevent further listings. Despite their efforts, in the past week 11 new listings have showed up on Airbnb, including one ad by a tenant previously caught listing several apartments. Adding insult to injury is the new Stuyvesant Town landing page added by Airbnb.
There was a sharp drop in listings over the summer after an article published in The New York Times highlighted Stuy Town tenants investigating Airbnb short-term rentals and reporting hosts’ names and addresses to both the ST/PCV Tenants Association and the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement. Tenants have taken to Airbnb once again to list spare rooms and entire apartments on the short-term rental website despite the fact that placing such a listing is a violation of a signed lease and they could face eviction. In New York State it is illegal to sublet or rent a property for less than 30 days. The tenants listing their apartments on Airbnb range from young professionals to parents with small children in the home to baby boomers.
Recently, Andrew MacArthur, Managing Director of CWCapital Asset Management, John Marsh, President of the ST/PCV Tenants Association and Council Member Dan Garodnick have taken several meetings with Airbnb to put an end to such listings.
“Airbnb has managed to do something rather unique which is align normal adversaries – a tenants association and a landlord – toward a common goal,” says John Marsh, President of the ST/PCV Tenants Association. “The TA, along with CWCapital Asset Management and Dan Garodnick continue to work with Airbnb towards a solution.”
Several solutions to the problem have been discussed with Airbnb but it appears the company is dragging their feet, possibly because a resolution at Stuy Town could set a precedent which would destroy Airbnb’s business model. One rumored solution would have large properties like Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village provide Airbnb with a blacklist of the property’s addresses preventing tenants from listing their apartments. Of course tenants could circumvent this protective measure by using an entirely fake address as one Stuy Town tenant recently did. A new listing by “Sierra” says her ‘Private Room’ for rent is located on Cherry Street in San Francisco, [screenshot] contradicting its Alphabet City neighborhood listing and the review,“ I had a really great time staying in Stuyvesant Town.”
In a statement to the Observer last year, a representative from Airbnb shrugs off responsibly for illegal short-term listings, putting the responsibility solely on the hosts. This caviler approach of companies creating a technology and attempting to wash their hands of responsibility from what their customers do with it hasn’t boded well for some tech giants.
In 2008, a French court ordered Ebay to pay LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA $64 million in damages over counterfeit bags sold through the auction web site. In a more extreme example, Craigslist shut down their adult services section in 2010 after a group of state attorney generals said they were not doing enough to prevent prostitution and child trafficking.
A report this year by the ST/PCV Tenants Association shows an increase in bed bug infestations on the property they believe are directly tied with the rise of Airbnb listings. In addition to bed bugs, tenants are concerned with the security issues that come with granting strangers full access to their buildings. One tenant who asked to remain anonymous said, “I used to know my neighbors. Now there are people with suitcases coming and going all of the time. UPS packages have disappeared from our doors. This has to stop.”
8 of the 11 apartments recently listed are market-rate tenants. The names and addresses of tenants caught listing their apartments on Airbnb are provided to both CWCapital Asset Management, whose subsidiary, Compass Rock Real Estate, manages Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village as well as the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement.
[...] Short-term AirBNB listings on the rise in Stuy Town (Escape Stuy Town) [...]
I don’t believe airbnb will participate in trying to stop anything. It’s their business. I don’t believe CompassRock is interested in anything except their bottom line. Quality of life for tenants isn’t a consideration and that shows.
In NYC, short term vacation rentals are illegal. The conduct is illegal, but there’s nothing in the law that makes posting ads for them illegal. So there’s really not much that the TA or CW Capital can do about the online ads until that changes.
However, landlords and management companies can go a long way towards ending vacation rental activity in their buildings if they really want to. The law is on their side. All they have to do is call 311 and a task force will take it from there. The problem for most landlords is sussing out illegal hoteliers. Some hire private investigators or install video cameras to find them. Once discovered, landlords can then issue cease-and-desist letters to their tenants illegally renting out their apartments short-term. If that doesn’t work, evictions can follow.
Our management company doesn’t have to go to those extremes. Tenants on the TA Facebook page are doing all that investigative work for them.
But then CWCapital does nothing. Why? Most of our illegal hoteliers are probably paying rent in the $5000/month range for a two bedroom. Like the one in our building that operated for an entire year until the kids’ lease ended. Despite repeated complaints from at least two neighboring apartments about it. The young hoteliers left their lobby mailbox open for an entire year. Calls were made to management about that after neighbors were begged by the postman to make them because the open mailbox was a federal offense. Management said that they could do nothing about the open mailbox. (BTW, their mail, including rent bills was regularly just dumped unopened in the trash bin in the recycling room). I’m pretty sure if they were paying $1600 month in an unrenovated old-school apartment it would have been an entirely different story.
I dont see wht the problem is here. My apartmint costs me a fortune. Then amenities, which cost me a second fortune, the gym, kids room, study and washers and dryers were swept out to sea. Then theres the third fortune i pay which is for my ntt storage unti which i use as a wine cellar. Dont get me started on the forth fortune AKA the ice rink. $19 to skate? IM BROKE! so what if I want to rent my apartment out on AirBNB? SO WHAT? WHO CARES? Uh I need a dronk,.
Me neither, Murky. I’m being sued by some whiny old tenant who claims I bashed into her with my stroller and gave her a broken rib. Well, boo hoo crybaby! All you had to do was move your lazy ass out of my way! So I rent out my apartment to help pay my legal bills, and my upcoming Labiaplasty.
So many of the tenants hate kids, strollers and moms. They’re not loving like we are, Murky. I think they deserve to be run over!
Some people are to old to remembir what it like to be a mommy. These strollelrs are huge. I am going to demand the TA and dn Garidnick be more inclusive and add a stroller only lane in the oval. You shuld write anohter letter to T&V! Im tired of people calling mee a dronk driver when i acidentlity crash into them. ITS AN ACCIDENT. SO WHAT!
My spoiled brats keep asking to go to the Rockefeller Center ice rink, but I call them stupid and explain there’s no need to go all the way uptown when we have a fabulous postage stamp size rink in our own backyard They start crying and shit, claiming it’s a frozen puddle compared to the rink at Rockefeller Center. but I stop their complaining by making them watch me get Botox injections on my vagina. That shuts them up real fast!
Pass me some of that box wine, Murky.
This is a total disgrace. Why has the Mayor’s office not taken action? Why don’t the local elected officials get the administration to act?