I've been outbid for a few apartments in St Kilda. I just want a shitty studio to call my own AND live in, I'm not reaching for the moon here. But the return for airBnB is better than renting them so investors have more money to outbid me. Now the bottom price for the area is beyond my means. Maybe I should just start squatting in AirBNBs until they send the jacks round to boot me out.
Something's up with all those airbnb locks | Purplepingers
Submitted 3 weeks ago by zero_gravitas@aussie.zone to australia@aussie.zone
https://youtube.com/watch?v=QKk-qx9lrjs
Comments
dumblederp@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
In Western Australia you need council approval now or airbnb won’t list you.
Councils can manage approvals to mitigate this type of problem.
Wooki@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Its great in theory only while councils have money to do enforcement and surveillance.
Valmond@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s easy to pick those locks too …
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Ha. Loved the sneaky plug for his Senate campaign in the background of the video.
CTDummy@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Man that is some bad subtitling. TL;DW? Is it just a worse version of lock picking lawyer? I guess it isn’t a great idea to secure your property with a $40 Bunnings lock if so. Still surprising that one of those common locks can be defeated by a metal shim. I lost the key to a small lockbox I bought from Bunnings and “picked” the lock with the thin end of a zip tie. Criminals must love Bunnings based security.
zero_gravitas@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Purplepingers is an anti-landlord activist currently running for the Australian Senate for the Victorian Socialists party: pingers4parliament.com
He’s previously done a lot of ‘naming and shaming’ of landlords (www.shitrentals.org) and compiled lists of unused properties that people could squat in.
Reading between the lines, this video is encouraging people to fuck with properties rented out through Airbnb, or at least trying to mess with the heads of the ‘hosts’.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Reading between the lines, this video is encouraging people to fuck with properties rented out through Airbnb, or at least trying to mess with the heads of the ‘hosts’.
I liked the comment under the video
suggestingwarning against the much easier method of sticking a bit of super glue in the mechanism.CTDummy@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Nice, I’ll have to check out that site. As much as I wouldn’t want people fucking with airbnbs. Especially not in way the videos comments mention, no sir.
trouble@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Shitrentals breaks on mobile typed out a whole reply and it fuckin doesn’t let you scroll to post it
eureka@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
0/10, didn’t recommend an equally-weak lock at the end and call it “unbreakable, apparently, from what I’ve heard”
psud@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
The secure solution is electronic access control on the door. A key box is very hard to secure
Auzy@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
They stopped using them on construction sites specifically for that reason. You can just cut them off (or knock them off the wall), and open them at your leisure. Everyone hides the keys instead now.
Also, its just a stupid solution for AirBNB too, since anyone can easily clone the keys. You’re better off installing a lock that accepts pin numbers and you can change whenever a guest leaves
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Everyone uses them because usability is dramatically more important than security.
The key is only in the box for a few hours between guests, and during that time the cleaner will be there.
Even if someone picked the lock or cloned a key… all they can steal is some shitty ikea furniture and maybe make an instant coffee.
Auzy@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
The point is you can have both security and usability
If the guest loses the key too, it’s not an issue
I suspect people mainly use the lockboxes only because other people do
eureka@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Well, they could also sabotage the AirBnB if they wanted to devalue the property, or they could steal from a tenant who isn’t home.
eureka@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
When it comes down to it, there’s usually a brute-force way through most standard locks, say, bolt cutters, pin raking (or bumping), unscrewing the door hinges if they’re on the wrong side. But in populated areas, a loud break-in isn’t ideal, especially for squatters who plan on sleeping overnight. So for all intents and purposes, I’d assume the point of the lock is just to make it not worth a basic squatter or thief’s time and tempt them to search elsewhere for an easy win.
I’m curious - if you went to a new construction site, do you reckon you could find their key/s within an hour or two without already knowing where they were?