Thread by @cocteautriplets

Is there a word for that feeling you get when someone buys a flat in your stair "for their son", leaves it empty for 6 months then it pops up as an AirBnB? airbnb.co.uk/rooms/31456825

The owners we know to be absent and abroad so no accountability there

5 adults? Wtf.

3 of the 9 flats in our block are in their 70s or 80s. The "newest" of them moved here in 1982. The others have been here since the 1960s. They just want to live out their days in peace. They don't need this and they wouldn't know where to begin with trying to resist it

We all clean the stairs, change the bulbs (well, I go up the ladder), ensure the drains get fixed and they take care of the garden. Someone is now cashing in on this quiet, contented little community they've made and contributing nothing towards it

I know how stressed and upset it made one of them when a previous resident used the back green as a dog toilet. I don't want to think of what it'll do when the first party spills out back at 2am into drinking and smoking

Last week someone got in the stair and was smoking and rummaging at the bikes, then refused to leave. I helped them politely but persuasively encourage the guy out. She was nearly in tears.
"But this is our home" she said.
This isn't going to be anything but bad for them

Sure it's 1 flat. But when every stair in our street "just has 1", that's a 10% drop in residents, a pitential 10% drop in council tax coming in

£40 per night (in January) (Plus £99 fees per stay). So £1,200 a month and the agency / cleaners already paid. That's 50% over what rent it would likely get. Jack it up in the summer. Laughing all the way to the bank

And what do you know, no planning permission (yet) applied for

But already registered themselves at a landlord I see (h/t to @DaveSThompson )

And, no, that obfuscated name isn't "Sam" the host whose "home" this purports to be

And the landlords address is in Queensland, Australia...

Aaand... the Landlord's registered contact address is...
A holiday apartment.

The landlord's agents describe themselves as "festival letting specialists"

And the "host" company is based in...
Fitzrovia. London.
Remind me again how the "sharing" economy is good for the local economy? As far as I can see the money is going to London and Australia and any problems stay in Edinburgh.

Right, got this all figured out.
Clear?
Crystal.

By the by, this information is all publicly available if you look for it.

And here's what the title deeds have to say

Anyway, I think I need a cup of tea.
Thanks for all your kind words/commiserations/mutual anger and frustration/advice/offers of help. All appreciated.
On a day when Scottish twitter ate itself, it's nice to see that actually it's mainly just good people.

43 Airbnbs in our neighbourhood (e.g. our block and the adjacent ones), 26 on Booking dot com. That's 69 homes taken out of use. At least 2 are new builds that completed last year. Building new "homes" just to turn them over to STL...

These are just the full house ones, this isn't just a room here or there to bring in a bit of extra money.

And ours is a neighbourhood that hasn't yet felt the full brunt of Airbnbification, we're just on the edge feeling its tentacles reaching out and slowly grip and start to squeeze

🚨UPDATE 🚨
The upstairs neighbour has been down with the contact name and address for the "owner". This is someone totally different from the landlord registration and has an address in Italy, not Australia

The plot thickens