Nine-year-old Airbnb has changed the way many of us travel – in a good way.
But the recent story of the tenant who has been forced to hand over more than $12,450 in profits after illegally subletting his Wellington apartment on the popular accommodation site serves as a reminder that hosts and guests alike need to be careful.
Here are eight other times things went horribly wrong for hosts or guests – we’re hoping they’re worst-case scenarios.
Star and Mark King in their trashed Calgary home.
Drug-induced orgy
Canadian couple Mark and Star King cut their holiday short after receiving calls from neighbours concerned about what was going on in their Sage Hill, northwest Calgary home. The couple returned to find destroyed furniture, smashed glasses, used condoms and underwear on the floor and mayonnaise and sauce smeared across the walls. Police said bodily fluids including urine, semen and vomit were found throughout the home. The damage to the two-storey house, which police attributed to a “drug-induced orgy”, was estimated at between C$50,000 and C$75,000 (NZ$54,570 and NZ$81,857). Fortunately for the couple, they were covered by Airbnb’s insurance policy for damage up to US$1 million (NZ$1.4 million). Neighbours said the guests had hosted a party for about 100 which was shut down by police after three noise complaints and reports of a fight.
Guest turned squatter
San Francisco Bay Area woman Cory Tschogl rented out her Palm Springs condo to a man on an “extended business trip” only to have to hire a lawyer to evict him. The guest, who went by the name “Maksym”, complained of “cloudy” tap water and the gated entry on day one and asked for a full refund, Business Insiderreported. Tschgol said she only managed to get hold of Airbnb two days later and the site said in an email that it had asked the guest to leave. But, according to Tschgol, he would not. She decided to let him stay for the duration of his 44-day stay but when the time came for him to leave, he still hadn’t paid for the trip in its entirety and Airbnb couldn’t collect the money. When she she sent him a text message saying she’d cut off the utilities if he didn’t get out, he threatened to sue her, saying his brother had got an ulcer because of the tap water and her actions had caused them both “a lot of stress and suffering”. Tschogl hired a lawyer and discovered that officiating the guest could take three to six months and would require US$3000-US$5000 in legal fees.
Bad vibrations
Sharon Marzouk came home to what looked like a scene from a porn film gone horribly wrong in 2016 after renting a bedroom in her Menlo Park, California home to an Airbnb guest. Marzouk walked through the door to find water trickling through the ceiling from the upstairs bathroom, SF Gate reported. The guest claimed she’d forgotten to turn off the tap in the bath, resulting in what Marzouk estimated as more than US$10,000 in damage. In the bedroom she discovered a vibrator, a large box of condoms, a few pairs of high heels, a bag full of used tissues and a hand-written list of “pics” labelled as “bent over green Abercrombie” and “blue and white skirt vibrator”.
Ramis Jonuzi wasn’t allowed to leave when he wanted to.
Australian horror story
Ramis Jonuzi packed up, loaded his ute and was ready to cut short his stay in a Melbourne Airbnb because of the bad “energy”, but only made it as far as the front yard. Jonuzi, a 36-year-old bricklayer, died there in October 2017 – allegedly at the hands of three men he met through the accommodation website less than a week earlier. Craig Levy, Ryan Smart, and Jason Colton were all charged with his murder. Friends said Jonuzi, who had paid less than $30 a night for the room, had turned to Airbnb to find cheap and stable accommodation while he worked through some personal issues.
Michaela Scarrott, 23, and nine friends were left out of pocket when a scammer listed a luxury Whangarei on Airbnb that they didn’t own.
Scammed out of nearly $5000
Auckland woman Michaela Scarrott booked a “beautiful” Whangarei home – described as a luxury apartment – for her and eight friends to stay in last summer through Airbnb. But when two of her friends knocked on the door, the owners told them they had never listed the home on Airbnb, and had only recently moved in. Sales executive Scarrott, 23, had reserved the listing six weeks out from their stay for a total $4800. When her payments wouldn’t go through the Airbnb system, she eventually agreed to pay to an account in Sydney. Scarrott said she had no reason to believe the person she was talking to and site they were using was not legitimate. It looked like Airbnb: the typography and phrasing were the same, hyperlinks to Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest connected to official Airbnb accounts and the site appeared to be a secure connection, with the padlock icon displaying in the URL. Confirmation emails she was sent looked almost identical to ones she had received in the past. It wasn’t until her two friends tried to check in that she realised she’d been duped. “I thought I had taken all the necessary precautions, but obviously it wasn’t enough,” she said. “It was just done so well.”
Pop-up brothel
Two Stockholm women handed over the keys to their apartment only to return from a four-week holiday to find it had been used as a brothel, The Kernel reported. The owners were alerted to the fact by police, who had raided the place and caught two of the guests in bed with clients. According to the owners, the guests had looked “very high class, with business suits… it was strange that they would rent an apartment when they could clearly afford a hotel”. Pubic hair and a plastic bag of used condoms had been left behind. Perhaps no surprise then that one of the owners said “We feel uneasy being in our own apartment after this”.
Wayne Natt was charged with video voyeurism.
Sex, lies and videotapes
Derek Starnes and his wife thought they were getting away from all when they checked into their Airbnb room in the Florida town of Longboat Key. But they soon discovered their host Wayne Natt, who had received good reviews on the site, was intending to secretly film them. Starnes spied an unusual hole in the smoke detector and when he took it down to have a look he found a camera pointed directly at the bed. He went straight to police who arrested Natt, who had been letting his home on Airbnb for two years, on a charge of video voyeurism.
The Brooklyn, New York igloo was supposedly “dripping with ingenuity and alt-lifestyle aura”.
Garden igloo
When a 2016 blizzard dumped record amounts of snow in New York, Patrick Horton and his roommates decided to build an igloo in their Brooklyn backyard and rent it out on Airbnb for US$200 a night. “Dripping with ingenuity and alt-lifestyle aura lays this snowpocalypse’s most desirable getaway. Built completely by hand all natural. Come experience this chic dome-style bungalow with Bae,” the listing said, referring to a hipster term for a significant other. Horton said he received three enquiries before Airbnb removed the igloo, which had been kitted out with blankets and waterproof pillows but was essentially just a hollowed out pile of snow, from its site, saying it failed to meet occupancy standards.
How to ensure it doesn’t happen you you
Airbnb has revolutionised travel but, as we’ve seen, it’s not without its problems. Here’s what to bear in mind if you’re considering listing a place on the site or looking for somewhere to stay. As is so often the case, communication, common sense and trusting your gut instinct are often key.
