North Dallas Airbnb Gets Totally Trashed After a Party Ends Early, Gunshots Fired
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An Airbnb host’s worst nightmare happened to a home in North Dallas last weekend: DTX-TV reported and posted two videos of the wild parties in a North Dallas neighborhood. The property is located at 15816 Spring Creek Road in Richardson Heights Estates, which is off Coit Road near Arapaho.
The party-goers trashed the house.
Video footage was tweeted of people trying to kick doors off the hinges and trashing a flatscreen TV. There were also several police reports from the same address and date — a weapon offense, several narcotics offenses, as well “unknown suspect shot at comp with a handgun causing SBI: serious bodily injury.”
This event could be why some communities are limiting, or restricting, Airbnbs altogether (Arlington has taken that stance), and why some Dallas homeowners want an all-out ban on short-term rentals (STRs). In fact, during my recent run for Dallas City Council, STRs were a hot political forum topic.
Airbnb was chastened and quick to say the company bans party houses.
“The violence and total disrespect for this home is completely unacceptable, and we will pursue legal claims and damages against the booking guest who held this reckless event, in addition to a lifetime ban from our community,” the home-sharing company said in a statement to CBS 11 News. “Airbnb bans both parties and ‘party houses’, and we’ve suspended this listing as we investigate. We have been communicating with neighbors through our Neighborhood Support Line, and we will be working with them closely as part of this investigation.”
The woman who hosted the party has explained on social media that uninvited partygoers, who allegedly pulled up 12 cars deep, were refused entrance but then refused to leave. Neighbors are saying the house was consistently advertised as “Atlas House”, a party house which the owners bragged had multiple entrances for guests” and “plenty of parking.” (The listing has been removed.)
Airbnb Hires Security to Make Problems Go Away
Also of note: this incident comes just days after a story in Bloomberg on how Airbnb is spending millions in hushing damage control, even hiring ex-security advisors from the CIA, to make problems just like this go away.
Airbnb hired high-profile political crises experts to work on the team, including Nick Shapiro, former National Security Council adviser to Barack Obama and deputy chief of staff at the Central Intelligence Agency, who was brought on as its crisis manager.
It has cost Airbnb $50 million every year on payouts to hosts and guests to cover for when things go wrong, according to Bloomberg Businessweek which interviewed several former members of the secretive safety team. The team – known as the ‘black box’ inside the firm – is made up of around 100 agents across cities including Dublin, Montreal and Singapore, several of whom have backgrounds in the military or emergency services. In one incident, a rape victim received a $7 million payout in exchange for agreeing not to ‘imply responsibility or liability’ on Airbnb or the host after a ‘career criminal’ used a duplicate key to enter a New York City rental and attacked her at knifepoint, according to the report. Team members have the power to spend any amount tackling the worst crises at their rentals including sexual assaults, murders and deaths – providing support to guests and hosts and also working to keep the incidents out of the public eye, Bloomberg reported.
This revelation of the team’s very existence — and its power to keep the worst incidents out of the press — raises questions about the scale of shocking incidents taking place at Airbnb properties and the company’s ability to ensure safety for its guests and hosts.
Several former Airbnb safety agents described the extent of their tasks, preventing PR disasters for the firm and providing support to both guests and hosts who fell victim to horrific crimes inside the walls of the rentals.
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Thank you for finally telling the other side of the story and highlighting some of the many reasons why neighbors are so concerned about the proliferation of these unstaffed short term rentals with unvetted guests in our residential neighborhoods.
Georgia I have always been concerned and sympathetic. To watch this video is sickening. Thank you for writing.
A small point of clarification – Arlington did not ban short term rentals outright. They’re permitted in commercial, mixed use & multi-family zones as well as single family residential neighborhoods within a 1 mile radius of our Entertainment District. They’re only prohibited in single family residential zones beyond that 1 mile radius “STR zone” around the Entertainment District. It’s actually worked out very well as it provides certainly for both residential homeowners & STR investors. Clustering the STRs in one area also makes them easier for the city to manage & police and has reduced the number of nuisance complaints.
https://www.arlingtontx.gov/city_hall/departments/planning_development_services/information_center/short-_term_rentals
I echo Georgia’s thanks, Candy, for covering some of the many reasons neighbors are concerned about the growing number of STRs in Dallas. Actually, this is the FOURTH confirmed shooting at a short term rental in Dallas in less than 2 years. There have been others in Plano and elsewhere and a child died at a shooting at an STR in Mesquite. Here are links to reports of the other 3 in Dallas:
https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2021/04/12/wild-shootout-dallas-residents-upset-shooting-short-term-rental/
https://t.co/gFppgpYHEV?amp=1
https://www.wfaa.com/amp/article/news/crime/police-respond-to-shooting-at-airbnb-party-in-dallas/287-2edfe80a-349f-4a5c-b1af-85314f3eb0ed#click=https://t.co/JKqxXMF1lI
I do want to correct one error in your article, Candy. It’s something often misstated by STR operators and owners — the majority of whom do NOT live in Dallas. We do NOT seek to ban STRS throughout Dallas. State tax law defines short term rentals as hotels, which are commercial properties. We seek to ban these commercial, and unregulated lodging uses from residential neighborhoods that are zoned for single family homes.
At its core, this is a LAND USE issue, pure and simple. If we allow this commercial lodging usage — basically unregulated hotels — to operate in our neighborhoods, what’s next?
Many other cities in Dallas and throughout the nation have already passed similar bans on STRs in single family-zoned residential areas after experiencing the same horrors we face in Dallas. The question is WHY have Dallas city leaders and STAFF dragged their feet and who in the city’s leadership supports the financial interests of mostly out-of-town investors over the interests of taxpayers, long-term renters and homeowners who actually live and vote her?
If illegal land use or destroying the fabric of our neighborhoods aren’t strong enough arguments for a crackdown on STRs, then consider their impact on the housing market? The 5,000 STRs in Dallas are TAKING AWAY much needed housing stock that would otherwise be used for long-term renters and buyers who actually want to LIVE in Dallas, not just party here for a weekend. STRs are worsening our housing crunch. Not to mention the huge cost to taxpayers to try to police these things. We’ve got tons of data to support these facts if anyone cares to read them. http://www.txneighborhoodcoalition.com
We SUPPORT allowing STRs to operate in commercially zoned areas and other zoning categories where lodging uses are legal and appropriate.
Do you want to live next door to a hotel?
Thank you, Olive, for the correction. As some of you may know, I ran for Dallas City Council this spring and lost dead last. The woman I ran against, one of 4 candidates, has her home listed on Swimly, which is a site where people can short term lease their pools. That would be Jaynie Schultz. (I think she charges like $45 an hour.) I will be quite interested in watching her moves now that she is on Council.
This is so sad and inconvenient to use because we booked this Airbnb for June 25-28th and got an email at 2am Wednesday that it’s canceled. Now I see why. Whatever charges brought to them our travel fees flight tickets etc should also be reimbursed to us as well!!