Hacker Cinema
Pacific Heights
1990 · Film · 102 min
Directed by John Schlesinger
A couple works hard to renovate their dream house and become landlords to pay for it. Unfortunately one of their tenants has plans of his own.
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11 comments on Hacker News
Pretty much.
Landlords get in a lot of trouble, for renting illegal apartments.
I have friends that rented apartments, and had Pacific Heights-type[0] problem tenants.
The COVID era was a horror. Many tenants just stopped paying rent entirely.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Heights_(film)
It's not some kind of a novel hack, it's a boring old squating. There are even multiple films made about this (e.g. Pacific Heights cited multiple times in this topic) not to mention countless articles and news pieces. It's as much of a hack as carding.
> Ten[an]t appears to be a general crazy person.
Some folks may remember Pacific Heights[0], where a very different side of Michael Keaton was revealed.
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100318/
Go watch the movie "Pacific Heights"
Pacific Heights is a great film about a nightmare tenant scenario.
The movie Pacific Heights came out in 1990, proving that rental issues in S.F. are nothing new.
ooooh.... so creepy
You might be interested in the not very good movie "Pacific Heights" about a psychopathic tenant, if you want to see a fictional telling of how bad it can get for a landlord.
They even made a movie about it: Pacific Heights.
"Pacific Heights", 1990 starring Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine & Michael Keaton. SF based movie showing Michael Keaton abusing renters rights and even having the home owner arrested after turning off his electricity. Fantastic film, these guys (definitely scumbags) unfortunately might be in the legal right. Very unfortunate.
There's even a (1990) film, _Pacific Heights_, about the nightmare of being a landlord.
This has nothing to do with AirBnB
Yes, so far as we know, the persons who robbed and trashed EJ's home were not employees of AirBnB.
In just about every other respect, however, this has everything to do with AirBnB. Four big points that have struck me:
* From a business perpective, such incidents were inevitable and yet the company seems to have had no crisis management plan in place. That is simply astounding.
* From a consumer perspective, it's worth warning potential users of the service that the company's prior attitude was "Don't worry, no one will steal your grand piano". As EJ points out, if AirBnB's "service" offers no more protection and fewer warnings than a free Craigslist alternative, you may want to reconsider using them.
* Given that some small percentage of renters are intent on breaking through your locked doors and storage cabinets looking for valuables, you might just want to reconsider renting your home out to people you don't personally know and trust. At the very least, a viewing of "Pacific Heights" is in order. (A landlord acquaintence suggested the film be required viewing for anyone who is considering becoming a landlord.) This might not seem AirBnB-relevant at first, but when you consider AirBnB's facile "grand piano" Web page, it seems quite relevant.
* Imagine if EJ had gotten suspicious and decided to check up on the renters herself or asked a friend to do it for her. Scenarios escalating to rape and/or murder are not farfetched. Even if you can ignore the pain and suffering of the victims, imagine what a PR disaster that would have been for AirBnB. (Which brings us back to the first point.)