“Is this an illegal rental, and if so, is there a regulatory agency we can report this to?”

Photo by PoPville flickr user angela n.

“Dear PoPville,

I live in a three-unit condo building, which our landlord owns and manages. I suspected our upstairs neighbors were renting out a room in their unit on AirBnB, and sure enough, I checked the site and found their listing easily (our building exterior and interior finishes are very distinct). They’re advertising their place as a place to party, and we hear them hosting get togethers frequently (lots of heavy footsteps upstairs, loud music, etc). The noise is annoying, the strangers coming and going frequently is potential safety issue, and I’m a bit paranoid about a potential bedbug problem from all the short term renters. Plus, our whole building splits the water bill evenly, so we’re on the hook for this extra water consumption. Safe to say our landlord doesn’t know about this. So my question is – is this an illegal rental, and if so, is there a regulatory agency we can report this to? These neighbors haven’t been reasonable in the past when we’ve tried to work out problems with them (like asking them to turn down music at 2am..) so I’d rather not engage with them directly.”