CAPE CORAL
A Minnesota man has been arrested after he was found bathing in a stranger’s house in Cape Coral on Christmas morning after mistaking the house for the Airbnb he was renting.
According to the Cape Coral Police Department, Levi Sholing, 26, of Sauk Rapids, Minn., was arrested after an officer was called to a home in Southeast 21st Place at around 7:15 a.m. regarding an intruder. .
Officers had previously attended the home over a criminal mischief call in which a neighbor spotted a man outside banging on the front door and screaming while holding a rock .
“We could actually hear him here knocking on the door yelling, ‘Let me in. Let me in,” neighbor Cherry said. “He went upstairs, took the brick, then broke the window so he could get into the house.”
CCPD arrived and did not find the man but found a broken glass front door. Before officers could complete a report, the victim called them home after hearing noises coming from the second story of the house.
Sholing was found bathing in a tub full of hot water inside the master bathroom on the second floor. He dressed and was detained, and was escorted out of the house.
“We thought, ‘oh my God, if she’s there, you know, we don’t know what that person was going to do,'” Cherry said.
Sholing told officers he and his brother spent Christmas Eve partying in downtown Fort Myers. Early on Christmas morning, they caught an Uber back to what they believed to be the Airbnb they were renting. Sholing said that due to his level of drunkenness, he separated from his brother while on his way to Airbnb. He started knocking on the front door for someone to open it. When no one answered, Sholing went to the front yard and used a rock to smash the front door glass.
“He’s lucky he didn’t get shot by someone,” Cherry said.
Sholing said he went inside, went upstairs and got into the tub, where officers found him. He insisted he had not entered the house to commit a crime and believed it was the Airbnb where he had stayed. No items or goods were reported missing or removed.
“I feel bad for him because it was just a drunken night, but I don’t know why… What made him break in,” Cherry said.
The victim said the damage to the front door would cost between $3,000 and $5,000.
Sholing faces charges of criminal mischief over $1,000 and trespassing (occupied structure or conveyance). Officers were able to locate Sholing’s family and the correct address of his Airbnb – a street away and not a two-story building like the house he entered.
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