Airbnb provides the opportunity for guests to rate hosts, and vice versa. Now, neighbors of Airbnb listings can chime in.
Coined "Airbnb and your neighborhood," neighbors next to Airbnb houses can express their concerns or complaints directly to the company, according to the Airbnb blog.
Neighbors are free to rant about noise, parties, trash or other disturbances. Any submissions will be anonymous, according to Airbnb.
"We’ll treat each case seriously and ensure that we give hosts and their neighbors the opportunity to resolve concerns themselves, whenever possible," Airbnb said on its blog.
Once a complaint is submitted, Airbnb will verify the email address and create a case number, according to the blog. The company promises to follow up within five days and says it will suspend or kick out Airbnb hosts who repeatedly ignore the rules.
That was something that could have been helpful to Donald Garner, of Los Altos, whose neighbor's Airbnb rental became a repeated "party pad" for hundreds of teenagers.
"It wasn't the first time," Gardner said about the parties. "It was the third weekend in a row."
Local
Los Altos police Chief Tuck Younis said on that third occasion, about 300 teenagers had rented the house, and when officers arrived, the partiers scattered throughout the neighborhood, causing damage.
That Airbnb rental was taken off the website the day after an NBC Bay Area story aired about it last summer.
It remains empty, and neighbors aren't sure what it will be used for.
