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Prying Eyes Are Watching Airbnb Customers as Tenants Fight Back

• https://www.bloomberg.com

In a gentrifying neighborhood of San Francisco, a couple exit their cab and head toward an apartment, rolling suitcases behind them. Unbeknownst to them, a private investigator by the name of Michael Joffe sits in his parked car just across the street, discreetly snapping pictures.

This is not a divorce case waiting to happen or an international spy caper. Nothing that salacious or mysterious. It is instead an episode that provides a window into how bitter the feud between struggling tenants and home-sharing websites like Airbnb Inc. has become. Joffe works for a tenant lawyer who in turns represents a family that was evicted from their apartment -- the one that the couple was entering that day.

The goal of the stakeout was to uncover, and document, smoking-gun proof that the landlord is violating city ordinances limiting the use of private homes for short-term rentals. It's very lucrative work nowadays in San Francisco, the city that's come to represent America's shortage of affordable housing.

"Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you want to look at it, it's a decent living in San Francisco right now being an investigator doing these kind of jobs, because here are so many of them," Joffe, 48, said.

Comforting Steps

Airbnb disputes that home-sharing has significantly reduced housing for the poor and moderate-income, pointing the finger instead at rising demand and restrictions on building new units. But in recent weeks it has taken steps to comfort alarmed officials, a sign perhaps that these sorts of aggressive steps by tenants are helping sway the debate. Starting in November, for example, Airbnb instituted a "one host, one home" policy in San Francisco and New York as a way to knock out investors who may be collecting apartments to market on the web for short stays.

"We strongly oppose illegal hotels and bad actors who remove housing from the market," said company spokesman Nick Papas. "We've removed thousands of listings from our platform that aren't right for our community. We are committed to working with cities to address their specific needs."

Still, with municipal governments lacking the staffing to enforce housing ordinances, there's no shortage of work for private eyes like Joffe. When he's not taking pictures of people coming and going, he sometimes poses as a prospective tenant to see if landlords allow short-term rentals.

One case he looked into involved Brian Grzybowski, who claimed in court papers that he and his wife were forced to leave their $2,950-a-month Potrero Hill apartment in 2015 after the landlord falsely claimed they needed the apartment as a permanent residence for a family member.

Small Soaps

The unit soon popped up on Airbnb, Craigslist, FlipKey, Zeus Living and Tripping.com, according to the complaint in California Superior Court. Now the Grzybowskis are paying $5,500 a month to live a block away. It's against San Francisco law to evict someone for the purpose of leasing their apartment for a short term.


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