It was a classic story of New York City politics. Peter Ward, head of the influential New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council, who had long been fighting Airbnb in the city, was revealed to own four homes with a reported combined worth of $2.37m.

"It's hard to imagine something more outrageously hypocritical," spat an anonymous Democratic Party activist.

But where did the story come from? The answer, according to Bloomberg, was from Airbnb itself, which had set opposition researchers to look into Ward's life and then leaked the details to the New York Daily News.

"They are bullies," Ward said later, "and I have the scars to prove it."

The incident reveals just how vicious and contentious Airbnb's sprawling battles with city governments across the world have become.

Ulrik Binzer, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur who now helps local governments draft and enforce short-term rental regulations, calls it a "guerilla war – a block by block, city by city fight".

Now that fight could be Airbnb's biggest liability.

Guerilla war on a thousand fronts

The wildly successful property start-up, which provides cheap holiday accommodation across the world by letting anyone rent out their spare room or their vacant house, has just announced it plans to go public in 2020.