CHARLOTTE, NC (WJZY) — Natalie Siburt is happy to own her first home. She unpacks and makes it a special place for her and her dog Winnie.
“It’s something I set myself three years ago,” added Siburt, who also works for a mortgage company. “Over the next five years, I was going to buy a house and I was determined to do it.”
Five days after getting the keys to her house, she noticed something.
“I saw him park in my assigned parking spot, then he walked up and dropped off a bag at my door,” Siburt said.
And the man didn’t knock on the door.
“I opened the door, and he came in and that’s when he thought how can I check in on Airbnb.”
The thing is, Natalie Siburt never listed the condo on the site.
“That’s when I looked at the phone, saw the registration instructions and that was definitely my address.”
Siburt told the man there had been a mistake and that the apartment was not an Airbnb, then she took to social media and had several conversations with the company to try to understand what had happened.
“On the one hand, as a landlord, I feel a little violated that someone has the list and takes advantage of the property that I own,” Siburt said. “The other side is the fact that I’m an Airbnb consumer.”
Siburt and the previous owner discovered that the tenant of the unit had listed the property.
Airbnb released a statement saying, “Issues like the reported experience are rare, and after investigation we have removed the listing from the platform. All hosts on Airbnb must certify that they have permission to list their listing, and if a problem is reported to us, we investigate and take appropriate action.
The company has not responded to the number of rare events that have happened recently, and Natalie Siburt says she is still worried.
“It worries me a bit that at some point, months later, Airbnb might reinstate the account and she might start again.”
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