Have you ever been looking for a place to stay for an upcoming trip and seen some Airbnb options that look, well, odd? Or did you ever wonder what kinds of strange rentals exist right here in the Bay Area? Well, don’t bother wading through the trash, because I’ve done it for you!
Unlike my research for our series about weird job openings, Airbnb doesn’t allow keyword searches, which means I can’t look for phrases like “young girl include picture” (and yes, there’s a lot of that in Craigslist job postings).
But if you dig around, you’ll find all kinds of bizarre spaces on Airbnb, from budget-friendly options that usually involve sleeping on a couch to options from greedy bastards attempting to capitalize on major events happening in the area.
Airbnb has legal precautions, including local regulations, about what hosts can and can’t do. Still, there doesn’t seem to be much quality control, as evidenced by this appropriately all-caps line from their terms of service: “AIRBNB CANNOT AND DOES NOT CONTROL THE CONTENT CONTAINED IN ANY LISTINGS AND THE CONDITION, LEGALITY OR SUITABILITY OF ANY ACCOMMODATIONS.”
Ah, clean hands. Now let’s see what’s out there!
Remember Super Bowl 50? People from all over the Bay Area created listings for the event with no regard for proximity or reason. Many listings were priced according to demand. Some were creative and/or downright exorbitant. Most of them are still up on the site, even eight months after the Big Game!
There’s no telling which of these was actually booked, but nothing would surprise me. On the high end, there were some overpriced pads like this $10,000 Super Bowl South Beach Loft. That’s just $3,333 per bed per night! Or how about this house in Newark, which also cost $10,000 but included a driver to and from the game?
Other listings were more creative. One host wanted to barter a room in exchange for a ticket to the game. Considering that those tickets went for upwards of $3,000, I hope no one took them up on that offer. Then there’s my personal favorite: this guy who rented a room at a Courtyard Marriott for $1,000. I’m assuming this violates both Airbnb’s and Marriott’s terms of services, but if it worked, he made a killing.
Does that seem like a rip-off? Then you haven’t seen this $1,000 “SuperBowl Bedroom” in beautiful Richmond, California, a cool 51 miles from the stadium. Or how about this one in a SOMA high-rise, perfect “for Super Bowel [sic] week” and beyond. Maybe that wasn’t a typo, and it actually refers to a special week when you eat nothing but super burritos.
Speaking of bowels …
Ah, here comes Dreamforce, the annual Salesforce conference whose name sounds vaguely nonconsensual; it’s so popular that they docked a motherfucking cruise ship to accommodate some of its 135,000 attendees in 2015. This year, there’s no Dreamboat (yes, that’s what they called it), and Dreamforce is officially encouraging people to use Airbnb to find accommodations.
Some locals are eager to get in on the action, producing listings like this room near BART for just $1,000 a night. Better yet, you can rent this room with one bed, which supposedly accommodates 4 for $500. That’s $500 in savings! Each person owes only $125 for one-fourth of the bed.
Want more for your money? In South Beach it’s just 10 Benjamins for a “12 min walk from Dreamforce.” Or you could stay at this “Dreamforce Penthouse in the sky.” I think a better title would be “The BEST place in SF to kill yourself!!!”
I suppose if I wanted to see that title, I could just create my own listing. It can’t be that hard, because as it turns out, there are hella fake and/or test listings created by weirdos and Airbnb’s software engineers.
If you look for something under $20, you’ll notice that most of the listings are a bit off, and that’s because most of them are not real. Sometimes you know it’s fake because it says so in the title. Or take this $10,000 nightly “Comfy Fancy Apartment” with the description “Don’t book this.”
Then there are clearly stated test listings, like this poetically titled test listed at $10,000 or this slightly cheaper one with cute dog pictures. If that seems a bit steep, perhaps you’d be interested in this somewhat tone-deaf listing for an “old tent in SF street” with the description “A very very old tent in SF street” for $1. I’m sure the people living in actual tents on 13th or Cesar Chavez would find that hilarious!
Last but not least (at least for today), there are listings that seem real but maybe shouldn’t exist.
This Hayward listing for a living room with two futons ranges in price from $59 to $4,900 per night. I think I’d take the $59 option, though maybe that other futon is worth the $4,841 premium. But don’t think you’re getting the royal treatment, even for $4,900, as the description cautions, “Commuter-friendly. Sleep-Shower-Go. Arrive after 8pm- Leave before 9am only.” This listing has several positive reviews, so maybe I’m missing something.
If you’d like a more self-aware host, this basement art room in Oakland may be right for you. For $700 a night, you get “an overpriced, small, private room with a reasonably comfortable pullout couch, a microwave and a private bathroom.”
I thought I’d seen the best, and then I found Adventure House. Sounds fun, right? Here’s the description: “His house was perfect whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, nor a pleasant mixture of them all. Evil things did not come into that valley.”
Bruh, what? Are you speaking about yourself in the third person? I appreciate the absence of evil, but what is this “valley”? There is just one review, which doesn’t appear to have a star rating: “Thanks for having me, Adventure House! I’ll miss the low activation energy to social interaction (:”
The moral of the story is that Airbnb is kind of like the menu at the Cheesecake Factory: with such a variety of options, there’s something for just about everyone. But unlike the ubiquitous mediocre chain restaurant with an inexplicably long wait, some of the many options from Airbnb are actually good.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go make an Airbnb listing for the balcony of the Union Square Cheesecake Factory.
