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Party houses permeate neighborhoods

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For the past five months, Henry Baiz has been living next-door to a short-term rental, and he isn’t happy about it.

Baiz complains that he hears raised voices and loud music almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And not just from the house next door, but from other short-term rentals, too.

“There are a lot of parties and they smoke weed,” said Baiz, a homeowner in the Enchanted Lake subdivision in northeast Miami-Dade since 2017. What’s worse is that because as many as 20 guests are booked into the house next door at 2340 NE 192nd St., the septic tank needs to be drained often. And when the septic tank is getting serviced, Baiz said, “everything smells like septic tank poo.”

Carlos Ruah, an Enchanted Lake homeowner for the past five years, also lives next to 2340 NE 192nd St. He said he used to enjoy living in Enchanted Lake. Now he hates it.

“It’s the yelling and screaming. The girls that are almost naked with everything out, just wearing fishnets … That is repeatedly happening,” Ruah described. “Since February, this guy hasn’t had the house free for one night. … We have probably had five or six nights where people behave. The rest of the time, it is a nightmare.”

On, Wednesday, June 16, residents within a pocket of unincorporated neighborhoods west of Aventura and north of North Miami Beach pleaded for help from Miami-Dade County officials during a Sky Lake-Highland Lakes Homeowners Association meeting held at Temple Sinai of North Dade.

The irate residents described house parties that attract more than 100 people, guests being ferried in “party buses,” cars blocking driveways and port-a-potties placed on front lawns. There were accusations that windows were broken on houses, cars parked and garbage flung onto other people’s lawns, and other lewd and lawless behavior by short-term rental guests. Some homeowners even declined to give their names to Biscayne Times and at the meeting, for fear of retaliation from short-term rental operators or their guests.

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Sally Heyman, whose district includes the Sky Lake-Highland Lakes region, vowed she will obtain funding for an extra police officer to watch around 20 so-called party houses. Heyman also stated that her office would forward complaints to Miami-Dade’s Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources (RER), which acts as code enforcement in unincorporated Miami-Dade, for those who want to remain anonymous.

“I am committed to underwriting an off-duty officer to target the houses that this community has given us,” Heyman said. “They are law-abiding citizens and their neighborhood is being compromised.”

The COVID-19 Factor

Rick Schermer, president of the Sky Lake-Highland Lakes Homeowners Association, said as many as 22 homes have been used as party houses in or near Highland Lakes. Of those 22 homes, he said there are five houses located in Enchanted Lake, Oak Forrest and Highland Lakes that are constantly being used for parties.

Schermer added that the partial shutdown during the height of the pandemic, coupled with real estate investors looking to make thousands of dollars in extra income, has created a horrendous – and potentially dangerous – short-term rental infestation. And even though the police and RER do arrive, citations by code compliance rarely stick, the potential fines are smaller than the revenue stream and unruly short-term rentals continue to operate.

“They are being rented by a third party or a promoter or whatever you want to call them, and they will be used for the sole purpose of throwing a party, usually with paid admission, and rarely just a family gathering,” Schermer said.

Lt. Evens Gabriel Jr. of the Miami-Dade Police Department said most short-term rental complaints in the county’s unincorporated municipal service area are being made within the MDPD’s Intracoastal District, a sector that includes several unincorporated neighborhoods east of NW 17th Avenue and north of 79th Street. The majority of the complaints in the Intracoastal District are within the Sky Lake-Highland Lakes area, he added.

“What is happening, more often than not, is that they are being rented as venues for parties,” Gabriel said.

It’s a claim that is contested by the owners of three short-term rental houses that were contacted by Biscayne Times.

Endless Parties, Defiant Hosts

Kristina Novikova, co-owner of 2320 NE 202nd St., said she requires her clients to pay a $2,500 deposit, which they lose if there’s any party past 11 p.m. and any “hard parties” during the day.

“We are trying to be very respectful,” said Novikova, a realtor who has paid $3,500 in fines for violating a county ordinance limiting the number of cars parked at a short-term rental driveway to two vehicles, according to county records. Novikova, whose house has been cited seven times by RER officers since February, said the complaints stem mainly from the neighborhood’s dislike of short-term rentals.

“People will always be complaining,” she said. “That is human nature.”

Dvir Derhy, the registered agent for Eastern Shores House LLC, which is managed by his wife Limor, owns the Enchanted Lake house at 2340 NE 192nd St. and a home in Oak Forest at 19900 NE 21st Ave. Between the two houses, Eastern Shores House LLC has been cited by RER staff 12 times for having too many cars on the driveway and twice for failing to maintain the right-of-way.

Aside from running a short-term rental business, Derhy and his wife also co-own Osiris Cryogenics, an Opa-locka-based company that freezes the recently deceased with the anticipation that they can be revived by technology in the future. Derhy has had a few run-ins with the law.

In 2015, he was sentenced to a month in prison and seven months of probation for offering $13,000 in bribes to City of Miami building inspectors, according to the Miami Herald. In October 2019, he was sentenced to 10 years of probation for animal cruelty for his mismanagement of a south Miami-Dade farm in which 250 animals were rescued. That same month, Derhy was sentenced to five years of probation for criminal mischief, grand theft in the third degree, railroad track interference and trespassing, according to Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts online records.

Derhy asserted that the two short-term rentals he runs are completely legal and that he only books out-of-town guests in an effort to prevent the homes from being used as party venues.

“We are very professional. I can get double or triple per day if I get a party there. Every week I get offers from [promoters] who wish to have a party there,” he declared.

Derhy, who tried to turn the tables by insinuating a racial issue, said his guests often complain to him that his neighbors call the police “because of their color.”

Deon Mack, a short-term rental consultant who operates an Airbnb in Miami’s Buena Vista neighborhood, said he's sure the homes are being rented out by out-of-town visitors the vast majority of time.

“They want a place to chill,” Mack said. “Some are visiting. Some are looking for a new job. … There are many different reasons to book.”

A Potential Ticking Time Bomb

But several residents complained to Biscayne Times, and to county officials at the meeting, that the short-term rental owners could care less who is renting their homes. They say short-term rentals are overseen by shadowy property managers. During one infamous party, held at 2423 NE 202nd St. last year in June, more than 200 people showed up; video of the event was shown during the HOA meeting. There was also video of people spilling out into the street drunk when the police arrived to close the party down, and a man trying to plug in the security code of the wrong house.

“We can almost prove there’s prostitution going on at one house,” said one man at the HOA, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation. “There is fighting, drinking, public intoxication, urinating in public. These are all real issues that are happening in a very nice residential community. What is our best avenue to irradicate this?”

Sid Koslovsky, president of the Oak Hammock Homeowners Association and a local Realtor, said there’s an Airbnb that operates behind his home.

“When they have that bass pounding it goes right through my house,” he said.

One time, after calling the police, Koslovsky said that whatever wasn’t eaten at the party “ended up in my backyard.”

Schermer said he and many of his neighbors are worried that a fatal shooting could occur at one of these parties, much like the tragic shooting incident that occurred in Golden Glades (also part of the MDPD’s Intracoastal District) on April 24.

Police say that the home at North Miami Avenue and 158th Street was going to be used for a birthday party for 3-year-old Elijah LaFrance. Following an argument, and while LaFrance’s family was cleaning the yard, “multiple people showed up carrying a variety of semiautomatic weapons, including rifles,” according to an NBC-6 report. Sixty shots were fired at the house, killing LaFrance and wounding a 21-year-old woman.

“This is our No. 1 concern: the safety and security of our residents,” Schermer said.

Homeowners are worried that the number of short-term party rentals could grow even larger in northeast Miami-Dade.

Baiz said there are other homes in Enchanted Lake, including a home across the street from his, where garages are being converted into extra rooms. Baiz suspects the house, which was recently purchased by a limited liability company, will be used as a short-term rental.

“They added another pool,” he said.

Driven by Dollar Signs

Avi Werde, a real estate advisor affiliated with Compass who moved from New York to Enchanted Lake a year ago, said he receives a “constant flow of inquiries, asking if owners would be open to short term rentals.” He claimed he turns such inquires down “because I know what that would mean.”

Nevertheless, short-term rental brokers are telling homeowners that they can make far more than the $6,000 a month they’d earn as a long-term rental, Werde said.

Diane Frazer-Hayhurst, president of the Eastern Shores Property Association, said homeowners who leased their homes as short-term rentals in her affluent waterfront neighborhood in North Miami Beach claimed they made between $5,000 and $9,000 a week.

For years, Frazer-Hayhurst said several party houses operated in Eastern Shores, including one home owned by the Derhys. 

But neighbors kept bugging North Miami Beach officials until the city finally clamped down on the party houses. And while there’s now a charter “party” boat trend occurring in the neighborhoods, Frazer-Hayhurst said there are far less disruptive short-term rentals operating in Eastern Shores today.

“It really helped, the constant complaining and calls by the residents,” Frazer-Hayhurst advised. “We made it miserable for these people.”

Heyman offered similar advice during the HOA meeting.

“You need to keep reporting, take it through the process,” she said. Gabriel also emphasized that MDPD will take anonymous complaints.

Novikova, though, insisted that her short-term rental is fully licensed by the county and she currently has no intention of shutting it down.

“We are not going anywhere,” she said. “This model of business works for people, so what can you do?”

Mack said short-term rentals wouldn’t be such a problem in that sector if they were better managed, and if certain rules, like no loud parties, were properly enforced.

“It is really the music that is causing the problems,” he opined.

But Anita Wilcox, an Enchanted Lake homeowner, said hotels just don’t belong in residential communities. People on vacation, Wilcox reasoned, just behave differently.

“In a way, when you think about it, they’re on vacation, right? Why would they care about the neighbors? They rented a house. They paid for this. They are entitled. And I am OK with that,” Wilcox said. “But go to a commercial zone, go to a hotel-zoned property. This is residential. We have zoning for a reason.”

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