Urban resistance
OccupyBnB
You don't need to break the law. Using the one that already exists is enough — if you use it properly.
In preparation
The goal
Stop the touristification that pushes residents out of their own neighbourhoods, and return flats to the residential market.
This isn't an opinion, it has been measured. In the areas of Barcelona with the highest concentration of tourist accommodation —the top decile of Airbnb activity— prices rose like this:
The approach: lawful, always
The platform works as a manual of neighbourhood resistance. It teaches people how to use the municipal rules already in force to spot illegal tourist flats, report them through official channels and get them shut down.
To be clear, because the name is deliberately provocative: OccupyBnB is not a squatting guide. We do not incite or instruct anyone to break the law. Everything explained here will stay within it.
Nor do we give legal advice: we prepare the material and flag what should be confirmed with a professional.
And a warning in the other direction: a reporting tool can also be misused. Baseless complaints and harassment of individuals are not neighbourhood resistance. They will have no place here.
What's missing before the manual is published
- A pilot city: the rules differ from one municipality to the next. A generic manual is useless.
- Every step verified against the relevant city council's official source, with a link.
- Limits reviewed by a lawyer before anyone follows a single instruction.
Whatever the local rules cannot fix goes up to HackTheLaw as a proposed change in the law. That is the connection between the two branches.