Hi all.
I read with interest all your comments on Air BNB.
Very interesting.
I am an Air BNB host as well as a traveller.
What I am going to comment on does not apply to Air BNB alone, but applies to most other accommodation providers.
As a host, (and I have been an accommodation host for near on 20 years) I accommodate guests in self contained apartments worth half a million AU$ without counting the cost of the furniture etc.
And we have had guests sometimes (thankfully not very often) who have mistreated the apartments and furniture badly.
Try a hole burnt into a kitchen bench.
Try saucepans so badly burnt that we have to throw them out.
Try lovely white bathtowels stained with hairdye or henna. Or used to wash a car.
Try a hole punched into a bathroom door.
Try keys taken when a guest had to leave before we could check him out. We have to get the locks changed.
Try 20 bins of rubbish after a two week stay.
Try shower taps ripped from the wall.
And this is just the last 15 months.
So it is not without good reason that we ask for a security deposit.
And security deposits are ALWAYS paid back within 1 or 2 days, after the cleaners have been through the apartment.
Hotels do nor charge deposits, because staff are always around.
I am ALWAYS happy to offer a security deposit when I book.
Try looking at the other side of the coin sometimes.