AirBnb and other short term rental nuisance

Irvinehomeseeker

Active member
The unit next door to my home continues to be used as short term rental despite repeated complaints to the city. Has anyone had luck with successfully getting these violating landlords or their sub-leases to stop this business? Guest sometimes smoke in the yard and we can
Smell into our house. HOA says complain to city but city does nothing.
 
Irvinehomeseeker said:
The unit next door to my home continues to be used as short term rental despite repeated complaints to the city. Has anyone had luck with successfully getting these violating landlords or their sub-leases to stop this business? Guest sometimes smoke in the yard and we can
Smell into our house. HOA says complain to city but city does nothing.

Which neighborhood are you in?
 
Seems to alternate between the two. Now because of travel restrictions may birth tourism is down.
The listing on AirBnb indicates the person has multiple such properties in Irvine - entire houses available for as low as 200$ per night.
 
I believe you can reach out to Anthony Kuo, our city councilman as he very active in the city and ask for directions and policies to shutdown or fine the owner of these short term rental. Irvine city codes do not allow such establishment within the city.
 
Thank you for the above info about the council man. I will have to research how to contact the council man's office. Hopefully some website.
 
Irvinehomeseeker said:
Thank you for the above info about the council man. I will have to research how to contact the council man's office. Hopefully some website.

He is one of the council member who is active on social media. You should be able to get in touch with him on facebook messenger if its just a quick question!
 
Help drive down the AirBNB rating for that property by making the experience 'no so pleasant' for the guest. 
 
DBtoOC said:
Help drive down the AirBNB rating for that property by making the experience 'no so pleasant' for the guest.

As a former vacation rental owner for 7+ years, I'd advise against this. Especially if you live right next door.

You really don't want to provoke out of town travelers on a short term stay who already demonstrated a lack of regard.

They can easily cause property damage just before they leave (spray paint your garage, urinated on your front door, throw a rock to break a window,etc) and get away with it.

Plus the OP indicated this owner has multiple properties in Irvine. Chances are they advertise on multiple platforms like VRBO, HomeAway, Expedia, Flipkeys in addition to AirBnb. So getting them a bad review on a single listing on a single platform is rather useless.

To the OP, I'd advise getting your HOA involved. The most likely reason the city has done nothing is your complaint wasn't made with enough evidence attached. The city is not even going to issue a citation if there's not enough proof to verify which Unit is in violation.

Getting your HOA to issue the owner a violation would go a long way. Plus the HOA can keep the heat on the owner more so than the city can.

The city has to first issue a citation & allow them time to shut down. Then if they don't, they would send cease and desist letter which allows them more time. After that they get fined, but it allows them more time and they can appeal. And all they have to do to get the city to back-off, is to change their minimum stay to 30 nights.
 
I have complained multiple times to the city with Airbnb listing as the latest proof. They did some research and told me that it was the person that the landlord had leased to who was running the rental and that it would stop. But, it still continues. They would then change the min. stay to 30 days to get around the city regulations.

I have complained to the HOA. All they did was sent violation letter to the owner, but nothing came out of it. HOA manager told me to complain to the city as they have more enforcement power. As it stands now, code enforcements are most likely suspended in irvine due to the pandemic.

For the last few days, the next door unit has so much noise with moving truck/loading & unloading. I suspect they are moving furniture between the multiple units. I had warn them to stop the noise around 10 pm on Sunday or I call the cops. But one of the Asian guys running the place didn't like it so much and was arguing that he could do this late as its a sunday. Anyway, they went around 10.30 pm. One time they were loading/unloading stuff from the garage around 11 pm in the night...next time I think I will just call the cops.

In general, these AirBnb units are big nuisance that can negatively impact the quality of life.
 
Irvinehomeseeker said:
I have complained multiple times to the city with Airbnb listing as the latest proof. They did some research and told me that it was the person that the landlord had leased to who was running the rental and that it would stop. But, it still continues. They would then change the min. stay to 30 days to get around the city regulations.

I have complained to the HOA. All they did was sent violation letter to the owner, but nothing came out of it. HOA manager told me to complain to the city as they have more enforcement power. As it stands now, code enforcements are most likely suspended in irvine due to the pandemic.

For the last few days, the next door unit has so much noise with moving truck/loading & unloading. I suspect they are moving furniture between the multiple units. I had warn them to stop the noise around 10 pm on Sunday or I call the cops. But one of the Asian guys running the place didn't like it so much and was arguing that he could do this late as its a sunday. Anyway, they went around 10.30 pm. One time they were loading/unloading stuff from the garage around 11 pm in the night...next time I think I will just call the cops.

In general, these AirBnb units are big nuisance that can negatively impact the quality of life.

Wow that's terrible.

It sounds like the people running the STR already know how to skirt the rules and avoid code enforcement. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do at this point.

The only thing I can think of is going to your HOA meetings and implore the HOA board to issue fines not just violation letters. Also implore them to change the rule on # of days for transient occupancy.

This may be a big undertaking depending on your HOA & if you know people sitting on the board.

But the HOA at one of my rentals in Aliso Viejo did this to fight rampant STR problems and was pretty successful. They changed the # of days from 30 to 90. The bigger impact is it brought attention to this problem to more residents. It got more people to report STR and STR related problems and in turn forced the Board to do more.

It's definitely a nuisance. Best of luck!

 
I got the below from the city just now....so hopefully this will be addressed to satisfaction this time.

I wanted to keep you updated with the listed above short term rental property. I have issued a Notice of Violation for the operation and advertising of the Short term rental. I also have issued an administrative citation to the property as well. The case is still open and will remain open until the property is in compliance with the City of Irvine?s municipal code.

A second administrative citation will be issued in the up coming days if the property remains in violation.

If you have any other questions please feel free to reach out to myself.

Regards,


 
There is a supposed "task force" to punish and shut down short term rentals. I have emailed them before and nothing happens. I sent in 10 Airbnb listings and identified the exact address in my neighborhood and they are still active listings.
 
I agree. The person on the listing that I shared with Code Enforcement has atleast 15 other properties in Irvine - entire house available for nightly rental. The host's name has chinese chars and listing text has chinese language. If city want to, they can take action but they are not doing so. Is it because the TIC (which i think has good influence over the city of irvine) markets properties to residents in china and wealthy overseas chinese buy these TIC homes to have them run as AirBnb ?
 
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