Why I’m going off homes from home

By Kate Simon

I’ve always been a bit of a curmudgeon about my travels. One of my earliest pieces of writing was ‘Why I Hate Shipload Bay’, a six-year-old’s grump about the Devon cove’s steep path and rocky shore. Five decades later, little has changed; today I feel compelled to write about ‘Why I’m Rapidly Going Off AirBnB’.

The concept is great – a homely, flexible and often roomy base with the chance to meet the locals. I remember when it burst onto the hospitality scene in the early 2000s after a couple of San Franciscans welcomed paying guests into their home. Today, AirBnB claims it has 5 million-plus ‘hosts’ worldwide and that more than 1.5 billion of us have stayed in the properties it advertises.

Such an explosion in supply and demand has inevitably changed the nature of the experience. These days, just as you can rock up at someone’s home, so can you find yourself in a property clearly bought for the purpose of renting out through AirBnB. The last one I booked, I had to pick up the key from the lost property office at Leeds Station, from a box supplied by a company specialising in holding keys for AirBnB landlords.

Buying property for this purpose is against the rules in a growing number of places. In New York, hosts letting their property for less than 30 days must jump through several hoops, including offering accommodation only in the home where they live, to limiting you to a maximum of two guests. Hosts must be on the premises during the stay and their guests must have the run of the whole home.

In Greater London, since 2017 hosts can only rent out a property in this way for a maximum of 90 nights per year. In fact, this restriction was meant to facilitate AirBnB’s growth, then inhibited by planning law; today it’s seen as a necessary control. The fall in favour is about reduced housing stock, and noise and pollution by guests at short-term holiday lets was one of the government’s considerations for proposed anti-social behaviour legislation.

But negative experiences aren’t just confined to the local community. I had the misfortune of staying in an AirBnB on the same night as the next-door neighbour’s teenagers had a party into the small hours. Why shouldn’t they, they live there. But that and other experiences have got me a little jaded about using AirBnB and the other similar booking platforms that have since popped up on the market over a fit-for-purpose hospitality business.

There was the collapsing sofa bed, the 50 dead flies stuck on a greasy lampshade, and the host who demanded to know why I didn’t give her a straight 5 out of 5 score (she got 4.9). She’s not the first. The competition is so fierce, the pressure’s on for ‘superhost’ status, nothing less will do.

Then there is the increasing possibility of a frosty reception from neighbours fed up with a transient population regularly passing through their street – a friendly chap broke off his conversation with me and my partner at the local bus stop when he released we were staying in an AirBnB down his road. So much for mingling with the locals.

And I’ve become aware of the need to read between the lines of the property descriptions, which sometimes, inadvertently, reveal that hawk-like neighbours will be watching your every move. Like the Cornwall property where every comment on the rental seemed to point to the neighbours immediately appearing to direct everything from parking to where to put the bins. At one place I stayed in, just as I was about to leave at the end of my stay, there was a knock at the door. It was the next-door neighbour – who had nothing to do with the property – checking that I’d be sure to turn off the light over the back door.

The prices feel a bit low-cost airline, too. Once you add in fees and cleaning costs, a decent budget hotel or serviced apartment compares well and often comes with a 24-hour reception for any problems. My next booking? Premier Inn.

Phil’s beer notes

If, like Kate, you’re fed-up with home rentals, how about staying at a pub? Often the beer at a pub with rooms is not a priority, but there are some excellent exceptions.

At Driftwood Spars, in a picturesque spot on the north coast of Cornwall near St Agnes, landlady Louise Treseder not only cares passionately about her ales, she has a brewery on site, too.

When I used to visit Glasgow regularly some 30 years ago I usually stayed at Babbity Bowster in the Merchant City, mainly for the beer, but it was handy for the Tennent’s Brewery, too. I was pleased to find it going strong on a recent trip and the rooms have been spruced to boutique standards as well.

The Tan Hill Inn, Britain’s highest pub, in the Yorkshire Dales, is an altogether different experience and has a range of accommodation from deluxe family suites to bunk rooms for those who really want to get away from it all.

At the other extreme, altitude-wise, the Anchor at Walberswick, Suffolk, is run by legendary cellarman Mark Dorber, so the draught beer, mostly Adnams, is good and there’s a terrific range of bottled brews, too.

Finally, a word for Tweedies in the village of Grasmere in the Lake District. It’s really a hotel but has one of the best beer bars I’ve seen in a hotel, with a good range of cask and craft, and staff who know their stuff. For more ideas, have a browse around the Stay in a Pub website.

Photo: "Key to the open door" by Tawheed Manzoor is licensed under CC BY 2.0.