The AirBNB squatter nightmare is over…as far as we know. The owner of the property filed an unlawful detainer notice, which is part of the legal eviction process. While the squatters didn’t respond to that notice before their Monday deadline, instead they quietly left the condo, leaving surprisingly little damage.
The owner of the condo says that she plans to sell, since her vacation home has been tainted by the whole experience. She has walked through the place after the brothers left, but stayed in a hotel while she sorted condo-related business out. She had a number of eyes on the condo, including everyone from neighbors to an actual surveillance team put in place by AirBNB to watch the brothers.
The squatter saga began when an AirBNB “guest” rented a condo in Palm Springs, California for 44 days, but stopped paying for the residence after only 30 days. That’s the point when a guest gains renter’s rights in California, and he took advantage of this rule to avoid eviction. Reporters on the scene in Palm Springs were able to figure out the identity of the renter, a game developer who had raised $39,739 on Kickstarter for a project, Confederate Express, and then hadn’t produced anything before starting another Kickstarter project under his company’s name instead of his own. Kickstarter later suspended that still-unfunded project.
The homeowner thinks that the media attention that her situation received was ultimately helpful in booting the squatters. “As crazy and stressful as the media attention was, I’m happy the story went viral,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Airbnb squatters leave Palm Springs condo [San Francisco Chronicle]
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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