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They are sometimes called “ghost hotels,” these Airbnb-style rentals in neighbourhoods all over the city — “ghost” because there’s no front desk, no staff, often just a digital handshake with a nameless, absent owner.

And, as Tracy Penniston discovered, no one to turn to when trouble breaks out, or things go boo in the night.

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“I hate being antagonistic about it, but it’s a big accident waiting to happen. It really is,” she said on a sun-dappled morning, of the sudden “hotel” over her waist-high fence.

“I think it’s scary.”

Penniston lives on Daniel Avenue, in a quiet neighbourhood between Tunney’s Pasture and Island Park Drive, with her husband, Nick, and two young children.

About two years ago, the house directly behind her in the backyard (with a door on Keyworth Avenue) was extensively renovated. Neighbours were curious when the new owners never moved in.

Instead, the house showed up on “short-term” rental websites such as Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway. A small hotel, in effect, had set up in a residential neighbourhood, with the house going for $220 a night, and entry gained via a keypad.