By John Branston

Crime trumps everything when it hits close to home but there’s something else that is making homeowners in Midtown and other neighborhoods decide to move – short-term rentals by absentee owners assisted by Airbnb and corporate ownership by limited liability companies (LLC).

Here’s a sampling from two blocks on a single relatively high-end street:

  •  A July 4th big-bang fireworks party for some 16 visitors oblivious to the complaints of neighbors about noise and trash and, well, stupidity. The owner rents out 18 Memphis properties. This one is touted on airbnb as perfect for “16+ guests” for $530 a night! Hey, that’s only $70 a couple if split eight ways. Airbnb dodged complaints by saying, we are so sorry, but the place was rented by another outfit that holiday weekend. One of the pyrotechnicians told complainers to “call the police.” By the time an officer arrived the party was long over.
  • A duplex rented to a couple so slack that they forfeited their $1000 deposit after they trashed the place and left town.
  • A 4000-foot two-story duplex that morphed from owner-occupied on one floor and four teachers in Memphis Teacher Residency to an LLC-owned mystery house whose owners, whoever they are, refuse to cut their yard and shrubs or remove their rotten falling-down backyard fence blocking the alley. With eight bedrooms, the place can accommodate quite a party.

            My family and I have lived on the street since 1984. In many ways it is way better. At least assessments are much higher. There is a good nearby public school, Crosstown Concourse, Overton Park and Rhodes College. But where there were no “For Sale” signs out a year ago, there are now four of them and prices are falling because of higher interest rates and more car and business smash-and-grabs plus a murder or three. A nice place to visit but would you want to live there?

            The City Council is apparently trying to do something about this, but there are loopholes and grandfather clauses and the like to gut efforts. And in my experience crappy neighbors are the way they are because of the way they are and unlikely to ignore pleas, ordinances, or sanctions.

            Forty years ago this Midtown neighborhood was divided by a swath of vacant land that was going to be used to run Interstate 40 through. Thanks to a lot of hard work by a lot of people, the expressway was stopped and new houses were built in the years from 1990-2005. A new threat calls for new approaches from government and residents – short of moving away, I hope.

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            John Branston is a former newspaper columnist who, with Tom Foster, started the Midtown Is Memphis campaign in 1991.