Airbnb Host Kicks Out Guests During Their One-Night Stay After They Disconnected All Their Outdoor Cameras
This experience has her thinking twice about letting her guard down with Airbnb guests in the future.
Karolina Kaboompics | CanvaPro One woman and Airbnb “Superhost,” known as @airbnb_mountainmama on TikTok, recently shared her hosting “horror story” that forced her to kick them out with no refund.
“I’m kicking myself for giving them a one-night stay because we never do that,” she explained, “but they needed a place to stay. They also agreed to pay our $225 cleaning fee and a couple hundred dollars to stay overnight.”
The problem was that once they checked-in, they decided it was within their rights to disconnect the outdoor security cameras on the property — a major red flag.
An Airbnb host kicked out her guests without refunding them after they covered and disconnected the home’s outdoor security cameras.
After checking the property’s outdoor cameras that evening to make sure their guests arrived, the Airbnb host noticed that they were blocked with some kind of fabric.
“I’ve never had this happen before,” she said. “[The cameras] are facing the driveway and the front porch only. We already disclosed that we do have outdoor cameras … It shouldn’t be a surprise.”
The host explained that she uses the same contract with all her guests, but she’s never had to clearly state that it’s against her policy to cover the cameras. Luckily for her, the contract clearly stated that she could “kick out guests” for any reason — being shady about security cameras included.
After giving the guests several warnings, the host ultimately messaged them to vacate the property — only to be ghosted.
Despite their odd behavior, she didn't immediately kick the guests out. “I brought it to the guests' attention that we do not allow this and to remove the covering from my cameras,” she said, “but then I saw this.”
The image on the Ring doorbell app that she uses to monitor the outdoor cameras showed that they had been “disconnected.”
According to the host, the guests messed with her rental’s internet, causing the cameras outside to disconnect and stop working.
Fizkes | CanvaPro
“I told them to leave immediately,” she admits, “but I have no way to see if they actually left.” Living hours away from the property, unable to use their outdoor cameras, the host admits she decided to get the police involved.
They were not responding to her messages, and she became genuinely concerned about “retaliation.”
“A one-night stay, covering the cameras, and being from out of state, it just has my head going in a million different directions.”
After involving the police and resetting their cameras, the owner was glad to see the guests go.
Unfortunately for this host, the community surrounding the Tennessee Airbnb was hosting a car festival that same weekend — a gathering that tends to draw in police presence from neighboring cities and counties. “They couldn’t come,” the host explained after trying to get the authorities to intervene. Instead, she was forced to contact her internet provider to reset the cameras.
After getting the cameras back online, she was able to confirm that the guests had left, but she was still uncertain about the state of her property.
While Airbnb does have certain protections for hosts, many complain that they’re inefficient in addressing true problems like property destruction and squatting.
“This is what made me think something more was going to happen,” she said in response to a comment wondering why the guests didn’t just “uncover the cameras.” However, when her cleaners arrived, her worries were put to rest — the home was spotless.
“There’s nothing like the heart-sinking feeling when you have no control over what’s going on,” the host said about this entire situation, “but the locks are changed, and we’re back in business.”
Deciding to refund the guests their money, hoping they found another place to stay after being kicked out, she said she’s never “double-crossing” her own guidelines or rules again. “I should’ve known with the red flags,” she said, “but that’s why I have cameras … Never again.”
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health & wellness, social policy, and human interest stories