Barcelona and Berlin using PIs, snoops to find illegal rentals
Our technology is designed to do the detective work more efficiently, but we still rely on skilled humans for the last bit for many properties. We’re working with councils across Australia to help them use these tools to control holiday letting, including licensing tools and a service to anonymously report illegal rentals in your neighbourhood.
A new one we’ve heard about is using abandoned bikes in Melbourne as a home for lockbox for nearby short-term rentals. Going around the CBD you’ll see them, with bent wheels. Not a sales target but locked up so no one cleans them up. Perfect for a lockbox.
At BnbGuard we’ve done experiments to locate the real addresses of lockboxes around the city and we can do it about half of the time. If we can, so can criminals, and the lockboxes aren’t impervious to thieves. It’s the kind of security risk that apartment residents are right to worry about, and why stratas should be allowed to ban short-term rentals to protect their residents.
