Do vacation rentals hurt the neighborhood?

 We lived in SWFL for many years it was a pretty stable area until 2008 when the real estate stumble occurred.  Many of the homes in our neighborhood  were foreclosed and several became vacation rentals. I've seen many unsavory characters in these homes, loud parties late at night and into the morning drunks who couldn't find their house, naked people lounging around the pool, you have no way of knowing what kind of pedophiles and child molesters are in da hood . The three Bedrom house across our back fence has had as many as twenty people staying there all very young, late teens and early 20s  loud music  Every pizza delivery person im the area knew the gate codes to enter our gated subdivision I was happy to have the opportunity to sell and move away, but many of our old friends and neighbors are still suffering with the insanity. The majority of the vacation renters were and are nice family people that anyone would like,,,,, but the few bad apples who party all night or may be child molesters that potentially rent these homes make it a scarey proposition for the folks who live in the area or next door.

We rented a mountain Cabin in Pigeon Forge Tn recently for a week.. We found a dozen or more condoms, some used and a sandwich bag half full of marijuana. I called the sheriff who came and took pictures.and confiscated the bag. The rental agency was upset that I called the sheriff instead of them, they said housekeepers would have cleaned up the place and taken care of the drugs, but the fact is the housekeepers had been there and overlooked the stuff.

 Needless to say I wont rent from them again and I'm not sure they'd rent to me.

 I asked for my $1200 dollars back and offered to find other accomidations they refused to refund my money so we stayed there. Although my wife insisted that the housekeepers return and cleaned the place again we still went to WalMart in town and bought a supply of Lysol spray and managed to survive the germs.

 Short term rentals are potentially a monumental disaster. Most of us buy our  homes based on what the neighborhood is like. If your neighbors change every week or two you can't possibly know who or what you need to guard against if you have children it's even scarier,,,,, simply because all you know about the people is that they had enough money to pay the rent the people next door could potentially be serial killers or child molesters. I'd rather be sure who lives next door than find out too late that my child had been abused by some short term renter.

There are already noise ordinances on the books.  Therefore there is already a legal remedy for "party" houses.  You would think that the homeowner would not want that type of rental anyway, because of the expense of clean up.

So, tax the proceeds and maybe fine owner for loud noise on property.  Then the owner will write that into the lease and charge a deposit if he's smart, so it won't end up costing him anything, but at least the town can make some money for having the cops constantly going over to break up parties.

I live at the Jersey Shore where some communities allow short term rental and others do not. I will NEVER live year-round in a town that allows short term rentals. The majority of the towns that do allow it have nothing but problems from the Bennies who think nothing of trashing the place. They are loud, disrespectful and drunk. Typically they are not families with kids but 20 something college kids blowing off steam. Think MTV if you want an idea of what I'm talking about. When the week long rental is $5,000-$10,000 do you really think the homeowner gives a crap if he gets a $500 fine for violating a noise ordinance? There are some places that have good reason for not wanting to allow short-term rentals. Now if you went a bit further south in NJ the beaches there don't have the same party scene so, yeah, the rentals are more family oriented, because the vacationers are more families and less partiers. So maybe I wouldn't mind that so much. (Though it's still annoying getting around those towns during the season when the town triples in population. Seriously, having to contend with beach traffic to get to work is a pain in the tush, but that's the price we pay I guess)

when i lived in town, against my better judgement, there were some neigborhoods i wish the city had banned long-term rentals.

all night beer parties with guys p/ss/ng thru the fence at my dog, day time parties where they took leaks facing my wife and young children. the owners got tired of the complaints and sold the house to...guess who? some of the same people who had visited the previous tenants!

same wee-weers from before!

call the cops? they were already there visiting a couple of off-duty buddies!