Post by PennyThis is not an entry to the follow-up to the oldest thread.
I recently managed to mess up my Agent-on-a-stick so it no longer preserves
unread or Kept messages. Having failed to sort this out by playing with
settings I thought I'd create a new one from an old copy, plainly made
around the time I upgraded this PC to Win10. I'm hoping this one is not
similarly corrupt (I think I have another if it is).
Anyway, I met this and it reminded me...
scrawled in the dust...
Post by FennyPost by BtmsThe B&B trade is drying up
Is this freeing up housing stock for the locals?
I recently read an 'open letter to Airbnb' (google will find it with those
terms) it's written from an American viewpoint but is possibly even more
pertinent on our little island.
The original idea of people renting rooms in their home on a temporary
basis - as many B&Bs used to do before they were persuaded to turn into
mini hotels - with a single booking website, seemed like a good one.
Now, there are holiday companies out-bidding locals and buying up homes in
order to let them on Airbnb, thereby pushing up house prices for people who
need to live in the area full time.
The suggestion is, Airbnb should put a limit on the number of nights per
year a host can let their room(s).
I read this shortly after D#2, who does want us to have a meet up for our
usual NotXmas (not held last year), but for health and Covid reasons feels
a hotel is out of the question, announced she had booked a house on Airbnb.
It's a new-build on a housing estate in Telford (to save me from a long
drive).
I was already wary of this booking. The 'host' says it sleeps 9 but I
notice from the photos there are just 6 chairs around the dining table
which doesn't look big enough for more. I may take a camping table and
folding stools.
The benefit of staying in an hotel, to my mind, is that nobody has to cook,
and it is usually possible to find places to eat which suit everyone.*
Covid has changed this as none of us really fancy eating out inside - by
the end of next month it would be unpleasant to eat outside.
*D#2's family has the most extreme dietary requirements and she will have
to be the cook, if only to police the possibilities of cross-contamination.
in the kitchen.
I don't necessarily think that it is up to AirB'n'B to impose
arbitrary limits but I do think it is their job to enforce the limits
imposed by local laws. Many places around the world - Berlin and
Vancouver come immediately to mind - have very strict rules but
property owners either ignore them or cheat.
I won't use AirB'n'B anywhere because whilst they have the resources
to know about local laws and block unlawful lets, they don't. And it's
not my job to have to pore over legislation in multiple destinations
and languages to find out whether the product or service I am being
offered is lawful where I'm being offered it. Yes, I know we all buy
the odd thing of dubious provenance but not many of them have the
potential to be the direct cause of the homeless people I have to step
over when walking in the street in those places.
As for Agent-on-a-Stick: when I had my Agent upset a little while ago
I eventually found that replacing AGENT.INI did the trick. If you
hadn't launched it since the problem arose it would have been possible
to replace it by renaming the agentini.bak that lurks in the same
folder. IIRC, completely deleting the agent.ini files and their
variants (or renaming them in case you decide you might want them back
again) will force Agent to create a new, default AGENT.INI. If you
would like me to email you my currently working agent.ini file in
order to try a transplant, just let me know.
Nick