Renting out a home or spare room to travellers by the night has become one of the most talked-about changes in Canadian neighbourhoods, and in many popular towns a steady stream of visitors now wheels suitcases past houses that were, until recently, ordinary family homes. While the debate continues over whether this shift offers households a welcome new source of income or strips scarce housing from the people who live and work in a community, a great many municipal councils are left wondering how they might sensibly regulate the short-term rentals spreading across their streets.

Camille Rousseau, a licensing officer in the city of Kelowna, recently found that several whole houses on a single block were being rented to a different set of tourists almost every night, and that late-night noise from one of them had kept the neighbours awake for weeks. Uncertain how to proceed, Rousseau raised the issue at a council staff meeting, discovered that officers in other resort towns faced the identical dilemma, and now the council is conferring about whether to set clear rules for renting homes to visitors by the night.