A man living in Old Montreal says he’s losing sleep over the Airbnb party rug next door – and there’s not much he can do.
But going public with her problem brought about two changes.
Last August, David Blum’s next door neighbor started renting out his condo, and he says the party hasn’t stopped since.
“If I’m lucky, a balmy night is 4.30am or 5am in the morning,” he says.
Blum recently discovered that the company that owns the condo next door was renting it out on Airbnb for $ 1,000 per night.
“The list had four beds in one bedroom, two beds in another, a pool table and a foosball table and it is heralded as ‘the ultimate bachelor pad in Montreal’,” he said.
Blum and his neighbors have tried everything: they’ve talked to the guests, and the owner, who Blum says won’t do anything.
They had to resort to regular calls to the police on several occasions.
“More than 120 times the police have gone to seek a noise complaint,” he said.
“We sit here and we hear ‘woohoo! “Crazy noises, sometimes they bring in speakers,” he says. “We watched 20 girls walk out of the place one night in disbelief.”
The city says there isn’t much that it can do and that the matter is up to the province.
“Some powers that we just don’t have,” says Craig Sauvé, member of the executive committee. “We do not have the legal authority to prohibit Airbnb from using sites in Montreal. We do not have that authority.”
The province is doing something: Starting this fall, people who rent their property less than a month a year will need a registration number and will have to pay a 3.5% hotel tax each time that they will rent their accommodation.
Meanwhile, opposition to mayor says the city can help people like Blum.
“When there is a lot of noise, people entering and leaving, or garbage, these are elements that a city can actually enforce,” said opposition leader Lionel Perez. “They have the power to restrict access, to impose fines, to be able to send inspectors. They have the powers, and they should do it.”
On Wednesday, after Blum spoke with CTV News, Airbnb reached out to CTV News to tell them it had removed the list from the party carpet. Montreal Police also told Blum that they would meet with him in person to discuss his complaints.
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