Dublin City Council ‘shreds’ over 200 lockboxes as part of war on short-term lets

More than 200 lockboxes, used to distribute keys for holiday apartments, have been removed from poles across Dublin city and “shredded” in the first year of an enforcement initiative.Dublin City Council has since April of last year been removing the key storage boxes from poles due to the health and safety risks they pose, particularly the danger of trips and falls.Lockboxes have become very popular for holiday apartment letting across Europe, the council said, as they allow landlords not to have to meet guests in person. Instead, the host provides guests with a code to open the box and retrieve the keys, a process termed “self check-in”.Although the boxes are sometimes mounted on walls beside the entrance to an apartment or house, it was becoming increasingly common in Dublin city centre that the key boxes were being placed in “the public domain attached to bike stands and street signage poles”, the council said.READ MOREUp to the beginning of June, the council said it had removed 222 lockboxes, all of which were taken for “shredding”. The removal project had cost less than €5,000 to date, it said. [ Dublin city councillors agree to ban Airbnb-style lockboxes from next monthOpens in new window ]There had been a “slight decrease in lockbox presentations” since the enforcement campaign began, the council added, “but a challenge has also been the reappearance of lockboxes after they have been removed”.“Removals have been highest in the southeast area and the central area, but lockboxes in all areas will continue to be removed.”Independent councillor Mannix Flynn said he fully supported the removal of the boxes, but that the council should be doing more to pursue those who are illegally renting out apartments to holidaymakers or for other short-term activities.“While we have seen a small decrease in the number of lockboxes, a lot of people are just hiding them down side streets or somewhere else where they’re less likely to be noticed.”[ Council’s all-out offensive on Airbnb style-lockboxes won’t solve the mess that is DublinOpens in new window ]The council should investigate the contents of the boxes before destruction to see whether there might be any identifying information present, he said.“They clip them off and then they take them to be destroyed, so they’re not investigating anything in the lockboxes.”The council should also consider mounting a “sting” operation, potentially in collaboration with the Revenue Commissioners, where they rent an apartment that uses a lockbox for access keys, he said.“Many of these places are being let without any planning permission, that’s the issue for the council, but I think the Revenue would be very interested as well in the kind of profits that are being made here,” Flynn said.[ Ireland to introduce some of Europe’s ‘strictest’ rules on short-term lets, says MinisterOpens in new window ]“I honestly do believe that Dublin City Council have an obligation, and all councils have an obligation, not just to remove the lockboxes like you remove abandoned bikes, because it’s a commercial activity, a shadow industry; we need to figure out exactly what’s going on here.”