Airbnb To Roll Out Anti-Party System For Halloween

• October 28th

by UrbanTurf Staff

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Airbnb is doubling down on its “anti-party” system just ahead of Halloween.

The company has rolled out a proprietary machine-learning system that flags high-risk bookings of entire-home listings across the U.S. and Canada over the Halloween weekend. Using indicators like booking timing (especially last minute), distance between guest origin and listing, property type, and stay length, the goal is to intercept attempts at party-type distractions before they happen.

From a neighborhood perspective, this is an interesting layer of control over short-term rental behavior. Airbnb reports that last year the system deterred approximately 38,000 people in the U.S. and about 6,300 in Canada from booking entire-home stays during Halloween. Given that the platform also states fewer than 0.035 percent of stays worldwide resulted in a party allegation in 2024, and that the rate has dropped 50 percent since their 2020 disruptive-party ban, the tech appears to be working as a deterrent.

DC has had a few run-ins with Airbnb party houses over the years. In 2016, a house in Georgetown booked via Airbnb experienced an “out of control party” that escalated rapidly, swelling from ~20 people to about 150 guests before police intervened. A large townhouse in Dupont Circle faced a lawsuit by the District over its repeated use as a party-/event-rental. According to the suit, police were called more than 100 times about parties at the home over roughly a year in 2014. 

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/airbnb_to_roll_out_anti-party_system_for_halloween/24008.