Airbnb host publicly shames guests for complaining about being filmed. 'We were human zoo exhibits.' AITA?
"AITA for leaving a bad review after a super uncomfortable and borderline creepy Airbnb stay, even though technically 'nothing happened'?"
Me (30M) and a group of friends rented a house for the weekend in a small rural town somewhere inland, in a hot-ass part of the country where the sun feels like personal aggression and everyone pays in USD. The kind of place where the cows outnumber the people and gossip travels faster than Wi-Fi.
We get there and the house is completely open. Not like “keys under a rock”, I mean door wide open, zero human in sight. Eventually, an older woman shows up (really sweet, very welcoming) and says she’s the mother of the guy who rents the place. All good vibes.
She gives us just one heads-up:
“Please don’t be too loud. The neighbors are older and tend to call the police if you even sneeze after 10pm.”
Fair enough. We were already planning a chill weekend. We kept the music low, cleaned up after ourselves, no parties, no yelling. Just pool, snacks, and bad karaoke inside.
But THEN…
We notice the neighbors across the street are standing outside, obviously watching us and taking pics with their phones, not even trying to hide it. Like, zooming in, pointing, whispering to each other. It felt… weird. But we let it slide thinking maybe past guests had caused issues and they're just being protective.
Then one of the guys, random older dude, walks right up to the fence and starts filming us in the pool. Like, full video. While we’re in swimsuits. We ask him:
“Hey, is everything okay?” And he goes, smiling: “Oh yes, all good! 😊”
Suuuuure, dude.
I call the host (the son), explain the situation. He tells me, “just talk to them” and says someone from their team will come by. Turns out that guy filming us is supposedly an architect and cousin of the family, and he was “thinking about doing renovations,” so of course the logical thing was to film strangers in bathing suits without permission, while they’re relaxing.
Like it’s HGTV: Invasion of Privacy Edition. Whatever. We ignore it, finish the weekend. We even cleaned the whole place, dishes done, floors swept, towels folded. Way more than expected.
Checkout is at 11:00am. At 10:30, the entire family starts showing up. Just standing there. Watching us. No “good morning,” no “hope you enjoyed it,” just silent judging energy. It was like being evicted by ghosts.
At 11:06, one of our friends is still in the bathroom, he wasn’t feeling well, and from outside we hear the host (the son, who never once talked to us directly) yell:
“If he’s not out now, I’ll go in and drag him out with a stick!”
...Okay.
THEN, they send the mom, the same sweet lady from day one, to ask us for $50 extra for bringing a dog. The listing said “pets allowed”, and NOWHERE did it say there’d be a fee.
The house wasn’t even gated, it was open on all sides. We politely refused, said goodbye, and left a detailed but respectful negative review.
We mentioned:
The creepy filming situation.
The weird vibe with the neighbors.
The sudden fee.
The check-out hostility.
The host responds PUBLICLY calling us “entitled,” “disrespectful,” and says we’re “trying to ruin their livelihood.”
Now I’m second-guessing everything.
AITA for leaving that review even though nothing went catastrophically wrong? We were polite, quiet, clean, and paid everything upfront. But the whole thing felt super invasive and uncomfortable, like we were just tolerated, not welcomed. Would you have left the review too?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
A bad review is the minimum.
Right? If anything, they got off easy with just a bad review.
NTA, don't look at it as a negative review. Think of it as it was a factual account of what happened.
NTA there are things hosts can and can’t control and sometimes the neighbors are one of those things they can’t control. That’s too bad for the host, and it makes the stay uncomfortable for you. But every other future renter will thank you for that information.
I’m sure you would have liked to know it in advance too. I once did a review that mentioned the highly aggressive neighbor dog that lunged at me every time I entered the house I was renting.
I had to physically lean way over to open the door to stay outside of chomping distance and I’m certain the dog could have jumped the fence at any time. The owner was pissed at my review because the dog wasn’t his fault, but it was a tremendously unsafe situation and others after me needed to be aware.
NTA. I mean, if they're relying on this as their livelihood, they need to not be so creepy and aggressive and need to have conversations with the neighbors about same.
NTA. I would have done the same and would have taken it a step further by requesting a partial refund from Airbnb. What’s really “entitled” is being rude and disrespectful while expecting someone to care more about your “livelihood” than their own boundaries or the vacation they paid for.
NTA. Plenty happened. You didn't lie on the review. And your review helps others. I always ready reviews and nothing screams red flag like the response this owner gave, a much bigger issue for them than any honest review could've ever been.
If you were honest it’s on them if they got a bad review. The creepy neighbor is the one they should be mad at. I think it’s a BS story about being an architect. WTF does that have to do with filming you. That is unacceptable.
If you were out by check out then they shouldn’t be hovering. Also creepy. As someone that uses Airbnb I appreciate an honest detailed review. Their rebuttal being so unprofessional is something that would also turn me off totally from staying there.