You’ve bought a flat in a reasonably large block and you’re paying off the mortgage. You come home one night and you see some people wheeling their suitcases into the flat next door. More Airbnb guests, you think.

That would be OK – except that similar guests in that flat last week kept you up till 4am with their partying and loud music. And even though you use Airbnb or Stayz yourself, and you know many of their guests behave impeccably, last week’s guests were not a one-off. You can protest when they get too loud, but sometimes nothing works.

You have complained to the owners, who have been apologetic and promised to lay down rules, but in the end they too are dealing with unknown quantities with every new tenant and realistically in the circumstances can do little. Every few days now, when a new group arrives, you have the same tense time wondering: what will they be like? Will it be bad? How bad? And: how do you feel about your decision to buy your property now?

That, in essence, is the problem with short-term holiday lettings, the scope for which has increased immeasurably through internet operators such as Airbnb and Stayz. Websites like those have been operating long enough for a committee of State Parliament to have considered the issues they raise and reported back in 2016. The government has ummed and ahhed about its recommendations and told the Department of Planning to have another look.

What appears to have changed since that report is the view of Sydney City Council. Previously it thought owners should be free to decide whether or not they offered their property for short-term rental. Now, having surveyed the opinions of flat-dwellers – and there are many within the council’s boundaries – it is not so sure. It suggests bodies corporate in strata-title buildings should have a say.