3. The New Year’s Bash
Anyone who’s ever used Airbnb can tell you that part of the initiation process is communicating with the proprietor of the place you intend to rent (or the person who’ll be staying with you, depending on which side you’re on). Most of the time, it’s a pretty painless process; you exchange names, pleasantries, payment info, times and dates to exchange the house key, that kind of thing. Of course, that all depends on whether or not both sides are being honest. Reshma Vasanwala and Jim Santi Owen thought they were renting their place out to an aging man from Chicago. Unfortunately, what they were getting was a local kid who just wanted to throw a kickass New Year’s Eve party. And throw he did, leaving thousands of dollars in damages. Airbnb issued a statement saying it had “reached out to the host to work with them under our $1 million host guarantee” and had banned the guest from ever renting from the site again.
4. The Kidnapping
This one is straight out of a Law & Order episode. According to the New York Times, on the evening of July 4, 2015, Jacob Lopez called his mother to claim that his Airbnb host was holding him hostage. Lopez claimed the host locked him in a room, stole the key and then proceeded to taunt him, “rattling knives around in the kitchen drawer and pressing him to submit to a sexual act.” When Lopez’s mother called Airbnb to get the address, they stonewalled her, giving her the number for the local police — a number which didn’t work — and then forwarding her calls directly to voicemail thereafter. Unfortunately (and obviously), help didn’t come in time. Lopez eventually convinced his captor to release him, but not before being sexually assaulted. Said an Airbnb spokesman in an email, “We realize we can learn a lot from this incident and we can do better … We are clarifying our policies so that our team will always contact law enforcement if we are made aware of an emergency situation in progress. Safety is our No. 1 priority, and we want to get our hosts and guests as much help as possible.”
