We have lived in our house on the mountain since 2016, and the amount of short-term rentals around us has skyrocketed. At this point, we only have one set of permanent neighbors. Every other house on our street is a short-term rental with a constant stream of new guests that aren’t always securing their trash properly.

Like most people, I don’t want to be picking up someone else’s diapers or beer cans that have been dragged into my yard by a bear in the morning. I believe short-term rentals should be paying lodging taxes, and when bears get into their trash cans, the owners should be getting fined what a business gets fined. They are businesses, houses converted into hotels, more or less. How many trash warnings is enough warnings for a place raking in $300-plus a night?

I also believe there should be a limit to how many Airbnbs are allowed per neighborhood. If the neighborhood is zoned residential, the whole neighborhood shouldn’t have commercial usage.

Jen Summers

Steamboat Springs