After a shooting at an Airbnb rental left five dead on Halloween, the company says it's banning "party houses" from the platform.
CEO Brian Chesky wrote on Twitter Saturday the company's steps following the shooting in Orinda, California, which include expanded screening of "high-risk reservations" and the creation of a "party house" response team.
The woman who rented the listing allegedly falsified the reason for the rental, but a party was advertised on social media, according to the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office.
Now, Airbnb is trying to prevent parties and incidents like this from happening at its listings.
"The company has six million listings. For them to wake up just today and realize 'ok maybe we should be a little stricter about it because we're getting some bad PR' might be too little, too late," Dror Poleg, author of "Rethinking Real Estate" told Cheddar in an interview Monday.
As Airbnb faces more regulation and plans to go public, the company "will have a big challenge balancing between their need to continue to grow and the need to become more sustainable in their operating," he said.
But Poleg is not optimistic the company can accomplish that.
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
