Airbnb guest claims host stayed at property, watched them

An Airbnb customer took to TikTok to call out the company after alleging she had a “dangerous experience” at a rental she recently booked on the platform. As she tried to alert Airbnb customer service representatives to the potential dangers future guests could face at the property, she says her concerns were largely ignored.

Kitty Goff (@kittyg0ff) says she refrained from speaking publicly about her experience for a few months, hoping Airbnb would remove the rental listing from its platform.

“I was trying to handle this privately with Airbnb, but they don’t care about people’s safety,” she begins in the clip. “And I have to say something because at this point it’s not resolving, and I can’t go on and feel like a good person without telling people.”

@kittyg0ff This was the most dangerous experience I’ve had with airbnb and honestly I’m so disgusted by airbnb’s lack of professionalism in handling the whole situation…I was ignored, rejected and not taken seriously at all . Just today they asked for my social credentials when I told them I was going to raise the issue on social media, so @airbnb here’s my social media and a bit more info: We canceled our stay 5 days earlier due to the simple fact that we were unsafe and I was specifically unsafe. My boyfriend and his friend often had to leave for work during the day and staying alone in this house was not an option. 5 different customer service reps either said they were “referring me to other departments” or they couldn’t fix this issue and closed the case. The fact that this happened to other people who stayed there after us infuriates me. I suffered a loss of $800 BC, all I cared about was others being safe…and airbnb did nothing. Honestly embarrassing? anyway dont book with spencer ig #airbnbexperience#fyp#for you#foryoupage#iykykyk#Bull #green screen ♬ original sound – Kitty Goff

Goff says she booked the rental in Sebring, Florida with her boyfriend and her friend because they worked in the area. She says they were unaware that Airbnb host Spencer also lived on the property in an RV.

“It was extremely dangerous,” she says. “First of all, the Airbnb doesn’t mention, the description doesn’t mention that Spencer the host, this old guy, is staying on the property in an RV. On top of that, he is watching you all the time.

She also says that Spencer monitored their use of hot water, claiming he repeatedly called her immediately after getting out of the shower to ask her to turn off the hot water.

“Now you might ask, how did Spencer know you were done showering?” said Goff, anticipating questions from viewers. She claims the host had an office inside the property he was renting “that he could access from outside the house at any time.”

“He sat there and watched and listened to us and called us and talked about things and complained about things and waited for us to wake up so he could call us,” she continues. “He was literally waiting in there and listening for us to wake up, so he could call us and ask us questions.”

Spencer’s complaints didn’t stop there, however, and her behavior became increasingly concerning, Goff claims.

“The last night we ended up staying there, he walked through the door of the house twice drunk, telling us to close the door,” she says, “when at check-in he had mentioned that he wanted us to keep the door open if we were cooking something.

Goff says the host approached first and slammed the door. But the second time, she says he came back yelling at them for leaving the door open, despite her previous instructions.

Unsurprisingly, Goff and his other guests weren’t having the best of experiences at Spencer’s, so they decided to forgo their length of stay.

“We cancel the trip the next morning and leave, cancel the stay because it was just very sketchy and we didn’t like it,” she recalled. “And we were just going to take the loss on the money or whatever. And then we put all our stuff in the car, we’re about to pull out of the driveway, my boyfriend realizes, “Oh, I forgot my wallet.”

At this point, the TikToker’s boyfriend went back inside to grab his wallet, but she claims Spencer was standing in the doorway, refusing her re-entry.

“He says, ‘No, you can’t come back, you can’t get your wallet back. Because my soil is oily. You didn’t clean my house,” Goff recalled, telling the host.

She then explains that Spencer had earlier admitted to pocketing Airbnb’s $300 cleaning fee, instead expecting guests to clean the house before departure.

“What the fuck is this?” exclaims Goff. “Anyway, so I had to call the cops.”

However, she says the police were unable to recover her wallet and she had to file an incident report instead. She also says the situation has been made more difficult because they are from another state.

“We were working there, so we couldn’t just go home,” she explains. “And Airbnb will literally do nothing about it, and their listing is still up. It got more criticism from people who have been staying there since for the same shit that happened to them. What’s going on?”

Crowds of other TikTokers in the comments section reached out to Airbnb, tagging the company in a bid to draw attention to Goff’s story. This isn’t the first time Airbnb has been criticized for not listening customer safety issuesor users have shared regarding alleged run-ins with hosts.

Airbnb has a safety policy for hosts and guests listed on its website which outlines its policies regarding unwanted sexual advances, self-defense, threats or abuse, unsecured or undisclosed weapons, and a variety of other safety issues.

Goff says she ultimately suffered an $800 loss on the booking and encouraged other platform users to avoid booking with Spencer.

“I literally didn’t even ask for a full refund, I just asked that they take the listing down so no one else gets hurt or robbed,” the TikToker added in the clip’s text overlay.

Update at 8:15 a.m. CT, December 15: An Airbnb spokesperson told the Daily Dot in an emailed statement: “We take reports like this very seriously, the host’s account has been removed from the platform and a full refund has been issued. granted to the guest.”

The Daily Dot reached out to Kitty via a TikTok comment.