One Airbnb guest said to me, “You bought the house, not the neighborhood.” But communities are essential to the happiness of the people in them.

The death of a neighbor ended an era on our peaceful street. For sale signs are not allowed in La Jolla, but news spread fast of the sale: $2,175,000 for the 3 bed, 2 bath California ranch-style stucco home, west of La Jolla Boulevard. It was re-painted white, and a realtor told that us a quiet, mature man would be our new neighbor. But no one moved in. Then the garage got converted into a “sleeps eight” dormitory bedroom outfitted with four queen beds. That raised eyebrows. Months passed. Finally, in May of 2021, on garbage pick-up day, I saw a young man on the property. He identified himself as a host. Host? Airbnb, he said. Gave me his cell number.

Memorial Day weekend, a party bus arrived on the street. Fourteen giggling young women emerged and strolled into the empty house. Ubers and delivery vehicles came and went. That summer night, the women’s high-pitched shrieks and the booming voices of the young men visiting them blocked the sounds of the Sea World fireworks. I called the host to complain. He arrived in a foul mood. Told us we should mind our business and went inside. A little later, the Airbnb “guests” flowed out — their voices louder than ever, their bodies brightly illuminated by the headlights of a dozen Ubers — and walked past us without a word of apology or any sign of embarrassment. “Sorry for my existence,” one young man said to me.

Here comes the party, there goes the neighborhood.

We never saw the host again. He stopped answering our calls. We did not have his email. The neighbors and I sent messages to him via the Airbnb site, to no avail. We complained to Airbnb. Their response: “Airbnb cannot be held accountable for the behaviors of its hosts and guests. We’re just a platform.” Our patience wore thin. It felt as if we were living next to a frat house, a bar, a low-end hotel, and a theme park, all rolled into one. We no longer waited until midnight to call the non-emergency police number to lodge complaints.

San Diego has welcomed visitors ever since The Hotel del Coronado with its 679 guest rooms opened in 1887. But the city did not have regulations for short-term vacation rentals (STRs) until 2023, thanks to the efforts of Airbnb. In 2017, as part of their planned initial public offering on the stock exchange, Airbnb hired San Diego’s former city attorney, Mr. Jan Goldsmith, to be a lobbyist and advisor in their fight against the city’s zoning laws, which prohibited lodging businesses in residential neighborhoods.

The city had signed a Voluntary Collection Agreement (VCA) tax agreement with Airbnb in 2015. But after Airbnb refused to supply the identity and contact information of property owners or managers, the City Council prepared an ordinance for short-term vacation rentals, to make enforcement possible of non-compliant STRs. To prevent that ordinance from taking effect — it could have limited Airbnb’s needed growth prior to the IPO — Airbnb hired PCI Consultants, the largest company in the U.S. for signature-gathering, at a cost of $300,000. (At the time, PCI was under investigation for signature fraud in multiple states.) PCI flew in 130 of their heavy-hitter signature workers and stationed them in front of big box stores. Trader Joe’s filed a law suit against Airbnb and PCI to stop the harassment of its customers. Local television stations filmed PCI workers telling people the petition was for affordable housing. But nothing stopped PCI. They collected the necessary signatures. The referendum passed. Airbnb’s crusade in San Diego had succeeded.

With legal objections out of the way, Airbnb bombarded San Diego with pleas for locals to list their homes on the platform — with pop-up tents at farmer’s markets and music events, and with television advertising. The promise: “You won’t get sued. There are no zoning regulations for STRs.” At first, everything seemed wonderful. The additional taxes. The additional tourist dollars. The idea of low-cost lodging in a home, vetted by a major corporation, made Airbnb the poster child for the lodging industry. The ability to rent either a room or an entire house helped Airbnb become both a noun and a verb. The company’s ads portrayed a gentle company intent on bringing people together and ending loneliness. Who would suspect that it had sued cities — Santa Monica, San Francisco, New York, Miami, Boston — when their city managers objected to unsupervised mini-hotels in residential neighborhoods?

Airbnb’s ban on parties didn’t stop guests at the “sleeps 14” house from drinking and being loud. Neighbors still had to go over at 3 am to ask for quiet. Besides calling the police, we installed security cameras, posted “neighborhoods are for neighbors” signs in our yards. The sharing economy had become our nemesis. We needed nice neighbors. We craved sleep.

In May of 2023, the city’s STR ordinance took effect. The ordinance mandates that owners or hosts have both STR and business licenses, with the STR license displayed such that it is visible without entering the property. Hosts must respond within one hour to neighbors reporting problems. And there are to be no one-night rentals or rentals of Acccessory Dwelling Units as STRs.

The ordinance allowed for 7430 licenses, with a concentration in Mission Beach. But 8599 licenses were given, thanks to a loophole in the ordinances’s classification system for types of STRs. The ordinance is full of such problems. Applicants do not have to show proof of identity; the only genuine information they need to provide is the property address and the real estate tax ID number. As a result, one Ocean Beach real estate investor owns 100 STRs. Licenses are not denied even if the owner has a history of problems reported to the police. There are five code enforcement officers for 8599 properties. And even if you should have a case for closing down a bad operation, the wait for the required building inspector is currently 92 days — and nights.