Airbnb is a local startup that puts travelers in touch with people willing to rent out their homes, for short amounts of time.
Recently a San Francisco woman had a terrible experience using the service, which she describes as being "violated."
According to her blog post, the woman says her apartment was ransacked and burglarized by at least one Airbnb visitor while she was out of town.
Someone she knows only as "DJ Pattrson" allegedly tore the place apart during the week at the woman's apartment.
They smashed a hole through a locked closet door, and found the passport, cash, credit card and grandmother's jewelry I had hidden inside. They took my camera, my iPod, an old laptop, and my external backup drive filled with photos, journals... my entire life. They found my birth certificate and social security card, which I believe they photocopied - using the printer/copier I kindly left out for my guests’ use. They rifled through all my drawers, wore my shoes and clothes, and left my clothing crumpled up in a pile of wet, mildewing towels on the closet floor. They found my coupons for Bed Bath & Beyond and used the discount, along with my Mastercard, to shop online.
In addition to the usual kind of burglary, the suspect(s) also did weird stuff too.
Apparently they cut the tags off all her pillows, hung up a painting of Paris that had previously not been on the wall, all while sending the woman friendly emails thanking her for the nice place, and how much they enjoyed the apartment.
Airbnb and the SFPD are investigating the crime.
In the meantime, this story evidently has enough interest to get its very own weird Taiwanese cartoon.
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