- A woman leased her Los Angeles home to a musician in 2022 for $1.675 million.
- According to the Los Angeles Times, he illegally rented it out through Airbnb while living on another continent.
- According to the Times, the illegal Airbnb listings generated $215,950 — about $13,500 per month.
According to Britain’s Daily Mail, a 31-year-old woman rented out her Los Angeles home for $1.675 million to a musician who then turned it into an illegal cash cow through Airbnb while living in the UK. The case was seen by the Los Angeles Times.
Nikita Sriram bought the property in March 2022, which includes a three-bedroom main house and a separate one-bedroom back house with an attic, The Times reported.
At the time, Sriram was renting a house in Los Feliz and didn’t want to break the lease, so he decided to rent his house to Nicholas Jarzabek, 36, according to the Times.
“It seemed like the perfect tenant until it turned into a nightmare,” Sriram told the outlet.
In his first year as a tenant, Jarzabek paid his $8,500 rent on time or early and submitted no requests for repairs, according to the Times.
However, the newspaper said that in December 2023, Sriram discovered that his home was listed on Airbnb, in violation of the rental agreement.
The Times reported that police were called after the ADT alarm repeatedly went off, with ADT telling Sriram that Airbnb guests had set off the alarm.
When confronted, Jarzabek refused to sublet the property, but Sriram found the listing for him on Airbnb, the Times reported.
The Airbnb account was originally hosted by a man named Rich Jacobs. It is unclear whether this is Grzabek’s pseudonym or one of his employees.
According to the Times, the main house is listed for $688 per night and the back house for $496, with the two properties having more than 100 reviews on Airbnb.
The subpoena showed that in the 16 months between 2022 and 2023, Airbnb listings generated $215,954, or about $13,500 per month, according to the Times.
In February, The Times said Sriram foreclosed on the home to contact the account holder, writing: “Stop relisting this property. You are not allowed to sublet this property!
But according to the newspaper, he received the reply: “Dear Nikita, welcome and thank you very much, you will have a nice time here.”
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According to the lawsuit reviewed by the newspaper, the real estate listings omitted exterior shots and provided a false address nearly a mile away from the actual location.
Although Sriram considered changing the locks, he did not want to violate the terms of the lease, which might result in him having to pay damages. Instead, he filed for eviction in Los Angeles Superior Court and filed a cease and desist petition with Jarzabek’s attorneys, the newspaper said.
During the trial, the property continued to be rented out under a new account, a rental company named Montier, which had other listings throughout Los Angeles.
Montier did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
Sriram told The Times that he eventually resorted to coming to the hotel to warn the guests about the situation.
“I felt terrible. I didn’t want to ruin their vacation,” she said, but added, “It was our only option because Airbnb didn’t offer us any help.”
Airbnb confirmed to The Times that the listing was no longer active and that the account linked to Jacobs had been deleted. The company did not immediately respond to BI’s request for comment.
As part of the lawsuit, Sriram demanded that Airbnb receive information about Jarzabek and noted that the phone number listed for Jacobs was a British number, according to the Times.
Posts on Instagram show Jarzabek performing in London bars under the name Nick Diver, the newspaper said.
The Instagram account associated with the diver did not immediately respond to BI’s request for comment.
“If the city doesn’t understand how to crack down on Airbnb, it should err on the side of caution and ban the platform until it can form an administrative task force,” Sriram told the newspaper.
According to the Times, Zarzabek stopped paying rent after Shriram filed an eviction notice. He told the newspaper he lost an estimated $100,000 this year in property damage, legal fees and lost rent.
Sriram’s illegal detention case was recently approved, allowing him to proceed with the eviction, the Times reported.
He also obtained a possession order allowing the police chief to take control of the property and return it to him, the newspaper said. But there is a waiting list of several months for this service.
