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Opinion: Pearl Spinharney--Better Air bnb regulations

Recently the house directly behind me was purchased as an income property and is being used as a year round air bnb.
Typewriter opinion
Photo by Alexa Mazzarello on Unsplash

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Recently the house directly behind me was purchased as an income property and is being used as a year round air bnb. This means that every week, or every other week we have new neighbors and dogs visiting. The house overlooks our yard and the deck and hot tub look into our and the neighbors property. We both have young children, and on multiple counts they have come inside because they hear the tenants talking about them and describe them playing. We have also experienced smells of marijuana, late night noises from the deck that overlooks and echos into our home, amongst other things. This has been really upsetting for my neighbor and my family as we have lived in our home for years and now have little privacy for the constant out of town guests. How can this be tolerated in our city? What rights do we have as homeowners to protect us? Terribly disappointed in the city for not having better regulations to keep this from happening. Our close knit neighborhood community now has a hotel in it that is unwelcome and upsetting. There should be votes in neighborhoods and if year round short term rentals are tolerated, they need to have restrictions and be monitored and regulated. The owners of this home live out of city and therefore cannot rent out a house year round as an air bnb. When I spoke to officials, they said they have a hard time “proving” anything that the homeowners say as far as how often they stay at the property. Again, this is very disappointing and I cannot believe this is tolerated by the city. These short term rental rules need to be re-examined and changed.

Pearl Spinharney
Longmont, Co.
80501

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