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居民们说，他们的家就像是一家酒店，有20％的公寓短期租房。
测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：
let out[let aut]出租
dramatic[drəˈmætɪk] adj.戏剧化的
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More than 100 apartments in a London block are under investigation for being let out illegally, in a dramatic illustration of the potential of Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms to disrupt city life.
Westminster City Council says it has reason to believe that 106 of the 530 flats in Park West, a mansion block near Hyde Park in central London, are being used as short-term rentals rather than residential accommodation. Residents say they feel like they are living in a hotel, rather than an apartment building.
“These people treat the place like a hotel because they have no interest, it's not their home,” said one person who has lived in the block for more than 30 years. “They are not being protective or careful about their baggage or whatever, the way they move in and out, the noise, the behaviour.
“They don’t care what damage they do,” he added. “If they want to have a party, they’ll have a party.”
Airbnb has transformed the tourism industry by making it easy for anyone to rent out their home to visitors. But its rapid growth has triggered concerns in many cities that short-term rentals are raising housing costs and disrupting daily life for residents living alongside a stream of anonymous visitors.
New York City passed a law earlier this year requiring Airbnb to hand over information about hosts, a measure the company has challenged in the courts on privacy grounds. Barcelona has a licensing scheme for short-term rentals and hotels and last year banned the issuing of new permits. Berlin and San Francisco have also sought to curb the growth in short-term rental apartments.
In London, hosts are restricted to renting out their homes for a maximum of 90 nights a year, but the rule is difficult to enforce. Airbnb has said it will enforce the regulation, but Westminster City Council has called on the UK government to require Airbnb and other platforms to share letting information with local authorities.
“There are nearly as many total rooms available to rent night-by-night in Edgware Road’s Park West building as there are in the Ritz,” said Ian Adams, the Conservative Westminster councillor in charge of public protection and licensing.
“When a hotel opens in Westminster there are a clear set of rules and requirements,” he added. “But when a short-term let is opened, the council is not informed. If it poses an issue in the local area, we must begin a long and complicated process just to identify it.”
Tom Copley, a Labour member of the London Assembly and deputy chair of the assembly’s housing committee, agreed, saying: “The regulation isn’t fit for purpose, and we really need data sharing with local authorities”.
Mark Jenner, company secretary of Highdorn, which manages Park West and other buildings, said: “We fight these battles in many of our blocks. We fight it as hard as we can, but it’s a losing battle.”
He added that with landlords making up to three times as much money with short-term tenancies compared to long-term rentals, it “just comes down to economics”.
UK housing minister Heather Wheeler said the government want to support short-term lets because they were good for the economy.
“We do not want to stifle this by introducing further legislation,” she said. But she added that people “must rent out accommodation responsibly” and it was up to local authorities to enforce the rules.
An Airbnb spokesperson said the company was “the only accommodation platform that works with London to help hosts follow the rules and share their homes responsibly” and that the typical London host earned £2,600 from using the platform each year.
A search on Airbnb for Park West’s postcode returns about 40 listings, although it is not possible to determine if the listings are in the block or adjacent buildings. Multiple listings also appear on sites such as Booking.com and HomeAway.
Westminster said it was currently investigating 1,383 short-term lets in the borough, including 106 at Park West.
The council said it had received reports involving sex workers operating out of Park West flats and medical tourists using the apartments to recuperate after operations.
A further 28 cases in the apartment block have been closed through lack of evidence or compliance in the past year
Airbnb has grown rapidly since it was founded in 2008, and there are currently about 35,000 listings of entire homes in London, according to AirDNA, a data analytics company that compiles information from Airbnb’s public website.
Since Airbnb agreed to enforce the 90-night limit on short-term lets it has continued growing in the capital, but at a slower rate, according to AirDNA. The number of listings in London in September this year was up 14 per cent on a year earlier. In September 2016, the number was up 79 per cent year-on-year.
请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：
A.North London
B.South London
C.East London
D.Central London
答案 (1)
A.Short-term rentals have replaced hotels.
B.Short-term rentals are as expensive as hotels.
C.They are treated as VIP.
D.Short-term rentals disrupted their lives.
答案 (2)
A.It is good for the environment.
B.It is a good way to get to know people from other parts of the world.
C.It is much more profitable for landlords.
D.It benefits the local economy.
答案 (3)
A.It continues to grow but at a slower pace.
B.It continues to grow at the same pace.
C.It continues to grow at a faster pace
D.It declines dramatically.
答案 (4)
(1) 答案：D解释：Westminster City Council says it has reason to believe that 106 of the 530 flats in Park West, a mansion block near Hyde Park in central London, are being used as short-term rentals rather than residential accommodation.
(2) 答案：D解释：But its rapid growth has triggered concerns in many cities that short-term rentals are raising housing costs and disrupting daily life for residents living alongside a stream of anonymous visitors.
(3) 答案：C解释：He added that with landlords making up to three times as much money with short-term tenancies compared to long-term rentals, it “just comes down to economics”.
(4) 答案：A解释：Since Airbnb agreed to enforce the 90-night limit on short-term lets it has continued growing in the capital, but at a slower rate, according to AirDNA.