Airbnb to ban house rentals for parties after 5 people die during Halloween celebration

Airbnb plans to ban and crack down on any unauthorised parties in rentals booked through their service.

From now on, party houses are "banned" on the website and anyone seen to be booking a property to host a party will undergo extra vetting to make sure they're not hosting anyone else in the house during their stay. This comes after Thursday night's shooting in Berkely, California, that saw five people killed during a massive party at one of Airbnb's rentals. The owner of the property was reportedly suspicious of a one night rental on Halloween and made it clear to the renter that parties were not allowed. However, that didn't stop them from having over 100 people at the lease where the party ended up getting out of hand and five people ranging from 19 to 29 lost their lives. This follows on from a multi-million-pound property in Kensington getting trashed along with many others that were recently booked on the site and used to host parties.

Speaking about the crack down, Airbnb CEO, Brian Chesky said changes need to happen now.

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. Here is what we are doing:

— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) November 2, 2019

Second, we are creating a dedicated “party house” rapid response team.

— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) November 2, 2019

We must do better, and we will. This is unacceptable.

— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) November 2, 2019

Many took to Twitter to respond to Brian with issues they've had when revellers stormed their homes and so, here's hoping that extra vetting and detection stops renters misusing the app and creating serious problems.