The door to the apartment down the hall was wide open.

Glimpses inside other apartments in one’s own building are compelling: all our units are just about the same design, with some size differences, yet they’re radically different environments inside. Some are spare and minimal; others are filled with all manner of things, the embodiment of the late comedian George Carlin’s bit about houses really only being a place to keep our stuff. Cities, then, are near-endless repositories of stuff, and our stuff largely defines our domestic lives.

Usually glimpses into apartments are fleeting: passing a neighbour heading out or in, so the wide open door was an invitation to take a long gaze, but it was also a bit worrisome. Something was not right.

“Hello?” No answer, so we peeked in a little further, and it became apparent that this unit is what we’ve suspected it to be for some time: another Airbnb that no longer has anybody living in it full time. A note on the table by the door from the guest thanked the host for an enjoyable time in Toronto. So enjoyable they seemed to forget to shut the door on their way out.

On behalf of the host, my “neighbour,” we shut the door so his stuff wouldn’t get stolen. His stuff looked like an in-store Ikea room mock-up, complete with Warholesque Marilyn Monroe print on the wall and patterned rug. Looking quite unlived in, there were no knickknacks, clutter or any of the usual signs of our messy human lives.

Getting a good look at the interior meant it was also easy to find on the Airbnb website. It’s interesting to see how the rental building you live in is marketed to others. The ad said it was just five minutes to the Yonge and Bloor subway. This is something I can buy into as it’s actually an 11-minute walk at a good clip, though for the last seven years I’ve believed the subway was only one minute away, meaning I’m late for everything. I can now blame Airbnb for this.

Two lines in the listing stuck out to me though: “Entire space is yours to use. Feel free to use drawers and closets to store belongings.” There was no stuff inside. This is a break in the pretense that somebody lives there full time and an acknowledgement it’s a business, not a home anymore. The host also says he operates two units.

In January I wrote about the Airbnb that had sprung up across the hall from me. No longer populated by a regular tenant, it turned over regularly with new people staying there. It’s still operating in the same manner, and since then it’s become clear more Airbnbs have been established in this building. There’s an increase in unfamiliar people wheeling suitcases through the lobby with airplane tags, and people with cleaning supplies moving between floors.

At the time I wrestled with whether or not to report it: what if it was somebody on the edge of paying rent who was occasionally renting out their place to make some extra cash? These infrequent kinds of short-term rentals are fine, but many buildings have become “ghost hotels,” where an abundance of units are rented out on a short-term basis and no longer available to long-term tenants. There’s obviously more money to be made renting a place as if it’s a hotel rather than a home. One such ghost hotel on Davenport Rd. had numerous shots fired in it last weekend. Having a constant turnover of unfamiliar people in a residential building others call home can undermine the feeling of stability.

Though there are more Airbnbs in my building, it’s not yet a ghost hotel, and the short-stay folks have mostly been fairly pleasant, sometimes even nicer than those of us who live here. A few months ago a couple was in the elevator when I got in with my bike, and the man asked what I did for a living. Asking a stranger a question is a sure sign you’re not from Toronto. Visiting from North Carolina, I chatted with them for a bit in the lobby; he worked in real estate and she for a local NPR station. They liked Toronto, came and went for a few days, and we nodded hello each time.

Uncritical proponents of Airbnb think the whole thing is great: it provides a service people want, and there’s nothing wrong with letting people do what they want with their houses and apartments. It’s not that simple though: just this past week new figures were released that indicate vacancy rates for rental apartments across the GTA have fallen to a 16-year low, and this is after a decade-and-a-half of a building boom. It’s a further sign of the region’s intensifying housing crisis. Indeed, to stay in an Airbnb that has removed purpose-built rentals from the market is, as the Sex Pistols sang in their song “Holiday in the Sun,” a cheap holiday in other people’s misery.

Some of the misery may end soon, though, as on Dec. 6 Toronto City Council will debate whether or not to regulate short-term rentals by restricting how many days of the year a unit can be rented out, have hosts pay a yearly registration fee and prevent secondary suites like basement apartments from being rented out short-term.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

The time has come for this: Airbnb can be a good thing, integrated into our city gently. But living among ghost neighbours isn’t how to build a healthy city. Home is where our stuff is, but also where our neighbours’ stuff should be too.

Shawn Micallef writes every Saturday about where and how we live in the GTA. Wander the streets with him on Twitter @shawnmicallef