Airbnb bans ‘party houses’ following Halloween shooting

Five dead, and four injured. 

A Halloween house party in Orinda, California, took an unexpected and dark turn late Thursday night when gunfire erupted and partygoers fled for their lives. The house had been rented on Airbnb, and on Saturday the company’s CEO belatedly said enough is enough. 

“Starting today, we are banning ‘party houses’ and we are redoubling our efforts to combat unauthorized parties and get rid of abusive host and guest conduct, including conduct that leads to the terrible events we saw in Orinda,” wrote Brian Chesky on Twitter. 

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the party had been advertised on social media as a “mansion party,” despite the fact that the Airbnb listing for the property explicitly banned large parties. 

Noise complaints from neighbors reportedly made their way to the home’s owner, Michael Wang, before the shooting. 

“We called the police,” he told the paper. “They were on the way to go there to stop them, but before we got there, the neighbor already sent us a message saying there was a shooting.”

Chesky’s decision to ban so-called party houses comes with a new set of enforcement tools — including a “dedicated ‘party house’ rapid response team” — the company hopes will prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future. 

People renting houses on Airbnb and throwing massive parties is not a new phenomenon — nor are associated shootings. In 2017, a party at an Airbnb in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco ended in gunfire. In June of 2019, a house party at an Airbnb in Elk Grove, near Sacramento, also ended in a shooting. 

In other words, Airbnb has known for years that people rent houses via its platform in order to throw massive parties — often in direct violation of the site’s policies. 

“We must do better, and we will,” wrote Chesky. “This is unacceptable.”

Time will tell if the latest effort by Airbnb will stop history from repeating itself, again.