Do you want to sleep in a stranger’s bed?  Would you be willing to have a stranger sleep in yours?  Airbnb is there to set up a date.

CLICK HERE  for a great one-minute commercial for Airbnb.

 

Description from the airbnb website:

“From futons on the floor to castles on the hilltop, each Airbnb listings is unique. Search results feature entire homes, private rooms, and shared rooms at every price point. Hosts describe their space in detail, including available amenities and arrival and departure times, and guests leave reviews about their experience.”

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You can’t help it.  You always kind of hold your breath when you unlock the door of the Airbnb place you’ve rented.  This being New York, we weren’t surprised when we unlocked the outer door and saw this entryway. (We’ve seen worse. This one at least didn’t have a single bare lightbulb swinging from the ceiling. )

My daughter lived in NYC for a decade, so we were not alarmed by the “lobby.”  We had learned that this is the greeting most renters get if they only spend three grand a month for their apartments.  In fact, I once went to an open house at a $4.45 million condo, and the unit number was designated by metal numbers, the kind with adhesive backs, the kind you buy at Ace Hardware.

We wove our way up the winding staircase to get to the second floor where our Airbnb apartment was.

When we stepped through the front door, we were in the galley kitchen.  The refrigerator abutted the wall where the front door was.  But this Barbie kitchen was renovated: nice, if cheap, cabinets; nice, if cheap, countertops; old, yet working, gas range.  The broom and mop standing in the corner inspired optimism.

With one more step we were in the living room.  There was a guitar on a stand in front of the 4-feet wide patch of exposed brick.  (I don’t know why, but exposed brick is a much coveted thing in NYC.)  There was a good size couch, a 50-inch television, two bookcases, and a strong Internet connection.  And lights!  Lots and lots of recessed lights.  Two big windows!  Natural and artificial light are precious commodities in these old apartments.  This was going to be great!  We were not the least put off by the rolled up hammock that was perched on the back of the couch.

Five more steps took us to the bathroom, big by New York standards.  Nicely renovated, with ceramic tile, a vanity with actual drawers and cabinets, a glass-enclosed shower.  Clean-ish.  A quick inventory of the hair products in the shower caddy suggested that the host had a girlfriend.  The medicine cabinet suggested they practiced safe sex.

Two more steps, and we came to kind of a dining room.  A big-ass table with four unmatched chairs.  The host’s opened mail and a scrap of paper with his mechanic’s phone number were propped up among a dozen candle nubs. A full-length mirror leaned against the wall.  And another window and three overhead lights!

Then came the two bedrooms.  The one I was staying in had a big ole dresser, probably the owner’s deceased grandma’s, a huge white upholstered chair, and an orange couch, which pulled out into a bed.  Well, it would have pulled out, if there had been room. A quick pivot of the dresser (revealing a race medal and a pair of knickers on the floor), and a shove of the chair allowed me to open the bed.  This room had two windows, overhead lights, and a big mirror.  There was a stack of pillows and sheets and a 3 X 4 foot blanket.

The other bedroom shared a wall with mine.  The king size bed left a two foot margin around the perimeter.  The bed had a cushy pillowtop, and the linens looked clean-ish.

For $275 a night, this Airbnb apartment was a steal.  On the first floor of the building was a cute restaurant.  A bakery, deli, and bodega were across the street.  The subway was just a few blocks away. My daughters and I had plenty of room, a refrigerator for leftovers, three mirrors, and even a deck!

Having an outdoor area with a New York apartment is a luxury.  This terrace was prominently featured in the advertisement.  Stacey, Allison, and I had planned to sip wine and read the New York Times on that terrace.

This is what we found.

 

 

On the plus side, the deck afforded us a view of the police station and cruisers below, always an encouraging sign.

 

 

 

So why would you want to sleep in a stranger’s bed?

Perhaps this is not your cup of tea.  Perhaps you’d prefer a Holiday Inn that promises “no surprises.”  The Airbnb experience is the opposite of that:  It’s a residential piñata with surprises galore.  But for three days, we lived like real New Yorkers, hanging onto subway poles,tipping deli delivery guys, eating bagels with a schmear.

My experience in a Norwegian Airbnb couldn’t have been more different.  Surprise!  The hostess guided us up to the third-floor walkup.  When she opened the door, classical music was playing and scented candles were glowing.  Following her lead, Rick and I sloughed off our shoes and followed her in.  She had placed a bowl of field strawberries (not the huge kind we buy year-round in America) on her kitchen table.

 

Her collection of antique tea pots, tea cups, and lace were tastefully displayed.  The two bedrooms were spacious and well-appointed  We had a typical Norwegian bathroom; imagine taking a shower in a coin purse, and you get the idea.  She urged us, in her heavily accented English, to make ourselves at home. We used her tiny refrigerator to cool our Coke Light because her freezer had no ice or ice tray.  We picked up Danish at a local bakery and ate it on her balcony while watching tow-headed children play below.

 

 

When you stay in an Airbnb home, you endure some of the challenges of a homeowner.  When my daughters stayed in a beautiful apartment in Portland, Oregon, the host warned them that the door to the patio tended to stick.  They took a bottle of wine and glasses on the deck, then discovered they could not open the door to get back in.  They were stuck on the patio on the seventh floor.  They collapsed in wine-induced giggles at first, until it started raining!  They used their cell phones to contact a locksmith who gained entry into the apartment and opened the patio door.  Inconvenient, yes, but it’s the story I imagine they’ll tell their children.

My younger daughter, Allison, has Airbnb-ed all over the world:  in Paris where you had to “pivot your boobs around the shower door to get in;” in an artist cottage in Dublin that had a glass ceiling; in Copenhagen that had a typical Danish bathroom with no shower curtain (they kept getting the toilet paper wet); in a San Francisco Victorian where the owners greeted her with French press coffee every morning; in NYC’s Chinatown where she met a mouse family she named “The Cheesertons.” “It’s all a matter of trust,” she says, “and it’s a beautiful thing.  I never felt my trust was violated, even when I was in gross places in New York where $2500 a month gets you a shithole.  This is how New Yorkers live.  I wasn’t mad.  They invited me into their home.”

 

Nobody comes home from a vacation and tells their friends all about their stay at the Best Western, but Airbnb renters

can’t stop talking about their experiences, good and bad.  A friend who is a frequent Airbnb client loved the group of three eco-friendly homes in Asheville, NC.  One owner kept bees, another chickens, and the house where they stayed had tilapia tanks that circulated the water drained from the veggies the owner grew in her greenhouse.

A friend’s daughter stayed at an Airbnb home in Tacoma Park, Maryland, where the vegan owner prohibited guests from putting meat or dairy in the refrigerator.

I can’t remember a thing about the San Francisco hotel I stayed in four years ago, but Suzanne Horton will never forget the impeccable SF Airbnb home they rented for their fifteenth wedding anniversary.  “We were like kids, carefree, eating desert for dinner at Ghirardelli Square. The Telegraph Hill parrots would come around mid-morning to be fed by a neighbor.  We watched huge shipping freighters enter the bay from our bed, the fog horns and trolley car bells filled our ears.”

The Hortons will never forget their Airbnb experience in Washington, D.C., either.  The host wanted to be very involved in their stay, “popping in with suggestions and advice, randomly pulling out cookware and suggesting meals we could prepare, turning on the tv.”  Suzanne described the host as “an over-excited puppy.”  Her husband, Craig, just thought he was a coke head!

 So why would you let a stranger sleep in your bed?

The Airbnb idea was born in 2007 when two guys couldn’t afford the rent on their San Francisco loft.  The Airbnb CEO, Brian Chesky, was one of the guys.  “Airbnb was never meant to be the big idea,” he explain, “It was meant to be the thing that paid the rent so we could think of the big idea.”  The business gained momentum after the 2008 economic collapse.  Strapped homeowners, dragging the mortgage ball and chain, exploited the earning potential of their homes.

I think it takes a lot more courage to be on the hosting side of the Airbnb equation.  One guest refused to leave a California Airbnb after paying a month’s rent, hoping to take advantage of a law that favors squatters.  One fellow discovered that his renters had an orgy in his New York apartment.

You can understand why landlords aren’t Airbnb fans, as the guests are completely unvetted.  It’s been said it’s like “the stupidest guy in your building hands over the keys to a complete stranger.”  The hotel industry is no fan, either; it resents the competition.  And the government wants to make sure it gets its piece of the pie.

But the hosts, for the most part, are fans.  After all, they get to read online reviews of potential renters before committing, and they (andtheir guests) write reviews at the end of each contract.

My daughter Allison has had entirely positive experiences hosting Airbnb guests. For two years she and her Norwegian boyfriend (now fiancé) had a long-distance courtship.  When she went overseas to visit him, she couldn’t afford to leave her $3,000/month Brooklyn apartment empty, so she rented it out eight times, and every time her apartment was in perfect condition when she came back.  As part of the deal, the renters agreed to take care of her aging cat.

One of her renters even took the sheets to the laundromat at the end of the stay so Allison came home to fresh linens. I told some friends about this generosity, and a couple  weren’t impressed.  Cathy Cook’s husband, Tom, noticed a leaky spray nozzle in the kitchen sink and a clogged drain in the bathtub, so he went to the hardware store to buy washers and Draino and made the repairs using the tools on his Swiss Army knife!

 Are you up to the Airbnb challenge?

Airbnb CEO says, “We’re living in a world where people can become businesses in 60 seconds.”  Do you have what it takes to enter into a business relationship with people you don’t know, people who need a bed or have one to spare?

 Before you rent an Airbnb property, ask yourself these questions:

•  Do you want to expend energy acquainting yourself with a stranger’s home and neighborhood?
• Do you value adventure over comfort? Diversity over conformity?  Foreign over familiar?
• Are you comfortable in homes that may not be as tidy and clean as your own?
• Do you want to save a buck?  Have more space than in a hotel room?
• Do you believe people are basically good?

Before you host an Airbnb guest, ask yourself these questions:

• Are you laid back about your possessions, or do you fret if you get a spot on the carpet, a scratch on the floor, or a leak in the refrigerator?
• Do you enjoy being a host and making guests comfortable?  Are you proud of your space and your neighborhood?
• Is your home company ready?  It doesn’t need to have expensive furnishings, just a good bed, plenty of clean linens, and a working refrigerator.  The bathroom and kitchen really must be spotless and antiseptic.
• Do you want to make some serious income (which the IRS taxes, by the way)?
• Do you believe people are basically good?

I could never be an Airbnb host.  I love hosting friends, spoiling them and showing them my city, but I just can’t get over the ick factor of strangers sleeping in my bed and taking a bath in my tub.  And, honestly, I’m terrified of someone bringing in bed bugs.  (Have I told you about the bedbugs we brought home from China?  Not an experience I’m eager to repeat.)

But I will continue to be an enthusiastic Airbnb renter.  I love feeling like I’m an insider, not a tourist.  I love the feeling of being a citizen of the world, a friend to strangers, a woman up for a surprise.  And, oh, how I love people.  Most people are very, very good.

Copyright © 2015 Sandy Lingo, All Rights Reserved.

Have you participated in Airbnb?  My readers and I would love to hear all about your experiences.  I hope you’ll share your stories in the comments section of my blog.

Click here to read about the experiences of a couple who lived an entire year in different airbnb apartments in NYC.

Postscript:  Just went to the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis with another couple.  All four of us are retired teachers, and we stayed in the most awesome, appropriate airbnb:  a renovated Horace Mann Public School built in 1873.