Edificio Hojarasca Reviews is a public service by The Atwater Group (TAG): an independent investigative journalism group based in Bristol focusing on issues impacting local communities in heavily touristed cities.
Currently, a primary interest at TAG journalists’ investigations are the criminal activity attributed to short term rental platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com
TAG is hosting a number of websites related to properties, such as Edificio Hojarasca, which is under investigation by our journalists. Currently, we work in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Spain and Portugal.
On these sites, you will find a tourist safety rating, specific problems associated with the featured property under investigation, and a way to submit information for those who either had a problem at the listed property or for anyone in the neighborhood of the property who has been negatively impacted by the Airbnb rentals.
These stories help educate the traveling public about the properties under investigation as well as make informed decisions before committing to renting in a property with known crime issues and safety risks.
Why are Airbnbs, like Edificio Hojarasca, in Medellin Colombia and similar properties in Mexico, and Brasil so unsafe?
Unknown to travelers, short term rentals are frequent havens for criminal activity that goes unaddressed by local law enforcement authorities and routinely puts tourists in the way of harm due to the lack of information on this topic. It’s “bad for business” to discuss the risk fo staying in an Airbnb which is why this information is routinely ignored and suppressed by tourism promoters.
Colombia’s legal system, speficially, is such that residents in properties with Airbnbs have no legal recourse to take action against problematic guests and the property owners involved. A host can literally host guests who use their units for sex parties, drug parties, and human trafficking and report such to the police and the police rarely come to the property to fill out a report. This means, that a ‘basic crime’ that involves a tourist, is almost never reported unless it involves death and only then if it makes the international press!
Common criminal activity occurring in Medellin Airbnb rentals include: drug and sex tourism, thefts, homicides, human trafficking, sex trafficking, and sexual trafficking and exploitation of minors. Additionally, properties are more common outside of the official tourist zone of Poblado (which is safer). This means areas with little to no police presence where risk is automatidally elevated.
As a result tourists open themselves to criminals who specifically target Airbnb rentals and the tourists who stay in these rentals. This is common in countries such as Colombia, Mexico, and Brasil. This can be a minor crime such as as theft of property at the rental, a backpack or purse snatching literally at the entrance to the property or it can be of a more serious nature including muggings and druggings where the criminal drugs the tourist and then returns with them in their drugged state to the airbnb to steal anything of value. In these later instances, tourists often wind up in the emergency room and almost monthly tourists die from this activity.
Crimes are far easier to commit in Airbnb rentals since in most cases there is no one watching activity at the the property. In situations where there are “porters,” they are not trained police officers. Furthermore, security camera systems in the properties routinely have numerous blind spots, are rarely comprehensive, and are almost never monitored in real time.
Needles to say, when one is looking at these properties at Airbnb.com and Booking.com the picture is always rosy and doesn’t mention any of these risks.
Beyond the direct criminal activity that puts the tourist at risk of physical harm, these properties destroy local culture and communities. For every night a tourist stays in an airbnb, it is a night a local family must commute an additional 60-120 minutes of time to get to a job versus when they would be living in the area that is now dominated by airbnb rentals.
The list of economic damages brought by these rentals includes: artificially induced gentrification of local neighborhoods outside of designated tourist zones, reduction in.housing stock and displacement of local residents and families, the disruption of the daily life of permanent residents who live in properties with these rentals, destruction of family strucure of the local barrio, economic exploitation via foreigners who buy properties solely to exploit the rent versus to live, and lastly reduction in hotel tax base to support the damage tourist traffic creates on city infrastructure
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