Long-term issues persist for neighbors living near Dallas short-term rentals

Neighbors say they’re frustrated after a weekend party at a Dallas short-term rental.

A neighbor shared a video with NBC 5 showing dozens of people standing outside the home and various loud noises.

“You hear drag racing, you hear screaming, you hear fighting,” Gloria said. “We’ve had the pleasure of continually not living in peace.”

Gloria just wanted to share her first name but said what she saw Saturday night finally started to end when Dallas police arrived after midnight.

The video she provided to NBC 5 shows over 100 people leaving the home in the 4000 block of Ivanhoe Lane.

“It looked like a clown car,” Gloria said. “Like, where did all these people come from?”

Dallas City Councilmember Chad West said he still gets calls about problems with short-term rentals in his district, which covers parts of Oak Cliff and Bishop Arts.

“I will tell you that I’m extremely sympathetic, having heard that this happened last night,” West told NBC 5.

West said he doesn’t support the city’s latest attempt to address short-term rentals by limiting STRs to a limited specified zoning district. That ordinance, passed in June 2023, was later challenged in court by short-term rental operators, who argued it did not allow existing operators to be grandfathered in.

A court entered a temporary injunction in December 2023, which prevented the city from enforcing the ordinance while any possible appeals were pending.

“Code enforcement operators and Dallas police are getting spread more and more thin, and they’re having to play whack-a-mole with these bad operators,” West said.

Additionally, while the ordinance is being challenged, a key provision requiring operators to register through Code Compliance is also unenforceable.

“The city has no database of the operators,” West added.

The home was listed Monday on a website where users can reserve entire homes as a short-term rental.

Even without a specific ordinance on short-term rentals, Dallas does have ordinances on minimum property standards, disturbing noises, and private nuisances. These ordinances allow code enforcement or police to break up a party at home but not prevent its rental.

Gloria said Saturday's party wasn’t the first but had the most problems. She added that she’s grateful that the Dallas police broke up the party, but her concern is growing for future weekends.

“I’m looking forward to the time where this is not allowed because this is not OK,” Gloria said. “In no way, shape, or form did anything that happened last night (Saturday) was OK.”