> Liability insurance protects you from this kind of thing.
No, liability insurance moves money from the insurance company to the next of kin of the person who died from having a chunk of tree crack their head open like it was an egg. It does not protect you from this sort of thing.
Uh, it does protect the owner of the property from this sort of thing (this is the perspective the article is written from, at the end encouraging those listing properties on AirBnB and the like to carry their own commercial liability policy).
Is anybody actually arguing that a property being covered by liability insurance makes the property safer? I suppose that is the case in more commercial/industrial settings where the insurance company has a list of requirements on the policy.
Change the scenario. Is it reasonable for the renter to assume that the floorboards in the building are sound? This really only differs in degree from that.
These and many other considerations like it are the reason why I stay in hotels and with people that I trust rather than in AirBNB places. I also tend to make sure there are at least two ways out of whatever place I sleep in but this is a thing that is related to one of my grandmothers dying in a fire and probably irrational.
I make sure that wherever I sleep there are at least two exits, I make sure those are un-obstructed, I hate stoves that have their burners installed in such a way that they might vent CO2 into the surroundings. I don't check for fire/CO2 monitors because I would assume that even if they are present they're not working. (Which, unfortunately seems to be the case more often than not.)
If you want to know how much the property owners care about fire safety, don't bother checking the smoke detectors, just look at what kind of lights they have next to the beds. I.e. if they are halogen or incandescent then you can tell that they probably don't give a shit about whether or not their renters die in a fire.
Wait, what good would multiple exits do in the case of CO leak (note it is CO not CO2)? A carbon monoxide leak wouldn't wake you up before killing you.
Having two exits at your disposal works wonders in case of a fire and an open window helps to make sure there is sufficient fresh air in case that heater doesn't work properly. Thanks for the CO / CO2 correction, too much time spent reading up on car pollution recently.
US fire code actually requires that there be 2 exits to any bedroom (in practice the 2nd exit is a suitable window). Of course people ignore this, but leasing out of a sleeping room that doesn't have 2 exits is likely illegal.
It's also code to have bedroom electric outlets protected by an AFCI.
I guess my point is that even though my reaction to your posts about fire is that it seems paranoid, those accommodations are supposed to be the default where I live.
