There’s a lot of press about vacation rental property owners who had to follow new laws that limit their earning opportunities. But few articles address the damage this industry inflicts on neighborhoods, condo buildings and ordinary people who just want a peaceful place to live. That’s why I created this blog website: as a place for people to get information, share information and document problems with vacation rentals.

A transient hotel is not the same as a home. If you haven’t been there, you won’t appreciate the difference.

Vacation rental property owners feel entitled to earn money at the expense of their neighbors. They ask their neighbors to give up to privacy, comfort. safety…and that indefinable feeling of, “This is my neighborhood.”  They even ask them to give up property values because it can be harder to sell a home that’s near a vacation rental.

What results is what economists call a negative externality. “In economics, an externality or spillover of an economic transaction is an impact on a party that is not directly involved in the transaction.” (Source: Wikipedia)

Other examples of negative externalities include air pollution,   water pollution, and illness from secondary smoke.  Typically governments step in to protect victims of negative externalities because their interests conflict directly with those responsible for the conditions.

We don’t allow companies to dump toxic waste into public rivers and seas anymore. They can’t plead hardship. They can’t justify this action by saying they need to make money or they create jobs. So why should we allow  property owners to turn hordes of strangers loose in a neighborhood, with no background checks and no supervision? They’re creating a toxic, unhealthy and unsafe environment…and crying “foul” when somebody points out the problem.

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