Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, But Does Airbnb?
Note to Self
WNYC Studios
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2014
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chris is a musician who makes $100 a night by renting out a room in his apartment on Manhattan's West Side through Airbnb, the short-term home rental service. In other part of town, Ken is a landlord whose former tenant in a Nolita building he owns broke various laws by altering and renting out an apartment through Airbnb. The two men have no connection with one another and haven't met, but they're on opposite sides of the debate over the rental website; a debate that has the attention of New York's Attorney General. His office subpoenaed Airbnb last year as part of an investigation into whether some of the people renting out their apartments are evading taxes and violating housing codes. Airbnb is fighting back and pointing out how it's helping New Yorkers and benefiting the city's economy. This week New Tech City examines Airbnb's legal limbo and how it's affecting landlords and hosts alike. Plus, office buildings have digital locks, but the technology is just starting to go residential. One man who installed the high-tech locks at his home in Connecticut and the results: Good (unless your battery explodes).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's the Noosh and this is Nootexity and that painful yet familiar screech is the |
| 0:14.4 | sound of a key getting cut. |
| 0:17.1 | The other day I had to pick out a new front door handle and it made me wonder why wasn't |
| 0:22.3 | I even considering getting a digital lock. |
| 0:25.7 | I do almost everything else with my phone, why not open my front door? |
| 0:29.9 | One of the weird bits of commonality I found between the digital space and the physical |
| 0:33.6 | locking space is that there is no such thing as absolute security in either realm. |
| 0:38.1 | That's Glenn Dereen of Consumer Reports. |
| 0:40.7 | We'll hear about his attempt to make a switch from the most ancient technology out there, |
| 0:45.4 | the key, to new digital locks. |
| 0:48.9 | But before we do that though, I want to turn to Nootexity's Ilya Maritz who's sitting |
| 0:52.8 | with me here in the studio. |
| 0:54.0 | Hi, Ilya. |
| 0:55.0 | Hi, I'm Noosh. |
| 0:56.0 | So Ilya the other day, I visited a friend who has a beautiful backyard and he just put |
| 1:01.2 | up these really nice but high wooden fences and he said the ultimate homeowner cliché |
| 1:07.2 | to me. |
| 1:08.2 | He said, yes, good fences make good neighbors. |
| 1:11.3 | Robert Frostman, he's never stopped being true. |
| 1:14.9 | Manouche, you asked me to come here today to look into the question of whether Airbnb |
| 1:20.3 | makes good neighbors. |
| 1:22.5 | This is probably the hottest fences and neighbors issue in New York City at the moment and it's |
... |
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