In what world is renting an apartment, albeit against regulation and terms of the lease, an offense ANYWHERE NEAR insider trading, identity theft, or insurance fraud?
Am I missing something?
- Bedbugs. They're at pandemic levels in NYC, and the more volume of people moving in/out of a place the more likely you are to get them. Hotels are required to mitigate the bedbug threat with a level of thoroughness that simply is impossible unless the building owner is aware that there's a hotel operating under their roof. I would be mighty pissed if I found a AirBnb in my building, as that dramatically raises everyone's risk of infestation.
- Noise. Particularly in neighborhoods like mine that are restaurant and bar districts, where a large part of the attraction of the location is the ability to stumble home directly from an innumerable number of bars. Temporary residents have no incentive to keep things reasonable. Whenever this point is brought up you get a few anecdotal stories about "the British family that was sooooo quiet", but no mention of the rest of the time where we'd have to put up with the noise.
- Security. I live in a small pre-war building with 20 units. I've met literally every one of my neighbors. This building isn't Fort Knox - once you're inside the main door it doesn't take Harry Houdini to break into any one apartment. Real hotels have security cameras, personnel on-site, and much more elaborate locks on doors... we do not.
These are real risks and real harm happening to neighbors of guys like this. His actions have a negative impact. While calling him a sociopath might be a tad extreme, it certainly isn't completely without merit.
None of these problems are unsolvable - but they are unsolvable unless the hoteling party is operating in the open. If we're going to allow people rent out their apartments in a pseudo-hotel manner, then the neighbors, the building owner, and the city needs to know about it in order to mitigate all of the above.
* He is hurting the neighbors to the properties he re-rents. They arranged to live in residential neighborhoods adjacent to other semi-permanent residents, not an illegal hotel. Hotels are not found in charming residential neighborhoods for a reason: nobody wants to live next to them.
* He is evading taxes that are used to improve new yorkers' quality of life at little/no expense to local residents.
* Insurance fraud is a probable consequence of his business. Since it's hard to get commercial insurance for your illegal venture, if he has ANY insurance, it would be a renter's policy and maybe a personal umbrella policy. Any claims he made would be fraudulent.
Well, except for the losses from non-visitors who avoid cities with outrageously high "let's rip off our guests" taxes.
Those people may not be directly visible, but I assure you they are real.
(To be a little less snarky, the microeconomics of the situation indicate it's probably not that damaging. Your hotel stay is probably less than half of your costs of visiting, so a 15% markup on that component alone doesn't raise the overall price of a trip very much.)
And if you think that insider trading is a serious crime, why shouldn't tax evasion (he doesn't pay NYC hotel tax), which deprives needy people of city services or causes law-abiding people to pay higher taxes, be a real crime?