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Comment by rand84545 | Hacker News Reader

- not, really. Could you expand on that.

- my point, it's easier to attack a group of people , if you can put a label on them. Noise is a problem regardless of its source.

A noisy long term neighbour is at least as annoying as a noisy tourist. And a calm tourist is less annoying. Being noisy is not an essential property of airbnb rentals.

Those who are noisy should suffer the consequences of their actions. Those who are not, should not.

The second part of my argument, is "my rights start where your rights end".

if the tourists/owner/ whatever has a right to make that noise, then you don't have the right to prevent them from doing that noise.

If they don't have the right to make that noise level, then they don't have that right regardless of who they are.

Because something disadvantages you, it doesn't mean that others don't have the right to do it.

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Do you want to live somewhere where you have to regularly call the police on your neighbors?

For a permanent neighbor at least you may be able to take some action against them but with Airbnb the people will change every few days or weeks.

When I lived next to several Airbnbs the problem was non stop. Sometimes I could talk to people and they would begrudgingly quiet down but in a few days they would be replaced by someone else and the whole thing would repeat. For tourists they are only there for a few days or weeks but for the people living there it is their whole life.

In my experience as well it's a lot more common to find bad tourists then bad permanent residents. A lot of tourists will be gone in a short time so a lot wont care how much noise they make or by the time they are told or realize they are being too loud you may get a few days of quite before someone new turns up. Most permanent residents have to see each other a lot more and the repercussions for upsetting their neighbor are much more likely.

Wouldn’t the noise violation go to the property owner, not the guest? I fail to see why involving the police is not a deterrent.

Where I live (Poland) the owner suffers no repercussions, the police can only ticket the noisy guests.

This is going to be a pretty blow-below-the-belt suggestion for our (Polish) sensibilities, but since I have very little charity for antisocial behavior - especially of the "I profit, I don't care" kind, and doubly so when coordinated by a multinational corp pretending to be a hip tech company: I wonder if the owner is paying correct taxes on the money made from AirBnB leases. It would be a shame if the Revenue Service came and checked.

Considering that airbnb payments come through wire transfer (or SEPA), you'd have to be pretty dumb to evade taxes.

Yes and no. Are regular AirBnB hosts actually forming businesses, or are they reporting this as private income and hope the tax man doesn't have time to notice?

Have you never heard of common courtesy? I'm not by law required to do a lot of things I do but I do them because they make the world that little bit better for everyone, same goes for things I avoid doing.

Where does it start, where does it end? Who defines it?

"Common courtesy" is a very vague term and changes from place to place

Sure, you can get pedantic about the cultural nuances of courtsey but I'd say that it generally boils down to don't be an inconsiderate a-hole. I live in a country where it's not illegal to take up-skirts I'd say it would be pretty universal to say it's common courtesy not to do that.

An example is not a definition. Like i said, what is common courtesy and where? What is an a-hole? You mention these terms as if they have a universal definition, they don't. Chewing gum in Singapore could be an a-hole move. Is it in the USA? So what gives?

And thanks to all my know-better self-righteous downvoters. I didn't know questions were inappropriate.

Commenting about being downvoted is inappropriate.

I take it it's not common courtesy??

Yes, what is common courtesy varies by location. That's a given. And it's another example of why short term rentals can be problematic; the people staying there don't have time to learn the local customs.

Human interaction isn't math. The law isn't even math. Neither ever will be.

Not being a jerk includes having some measure of sensitivity regarding what is considered jerk-like behaviour in the situation you find yourself in, informing yourself, and erring on the side of caution in unknown situations. Of course, mistakes will be made, but that doesn't invalidate the principle.

Read up on law sometime. You'll see terms like "reasonable" everywhere, which merely offloads the critical components of the law to, well, people you'd hope are reasonable (capable of reason).

If you can't rigorously define something, you certainly still can work with it, pursue it, use it, regulate it, etc. Consider: art, love, health, happiness, pregnancy, ...

This is the very essence of the tragedy of the commons; a behaviour that is not illegal but degrades the commons and continues to happen because of the selfish nature of the users. You are defending peoples right to degrade the commons in multiple comments in this thread so I'm unsure why are you asking for expansion; you've made your position quite clear.

"You are not wrong, Walter, you are just an asshole!" Sure, you can go and ask your neighbors to be quiet. How will you feel when you have to do it every night?

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