Porn shooting scene at Airbnb's rented bed room drives the homeowner crazy • WANDERLUST TIPS

(#wanderlusttips #Airbnb) Sharon Marzouk, A San Francisco woman who rented out a bedroom through Airbnb while she was away from home, claims it was used for a porn shoot by a guest who turned out to be a sex worker.

[rpi]

Marzouk, who owns a children’s tech company, described her hellish ordeal in a Facebook post – complete with shocking before-and-after photos – that has gone viral on the internet.

Sharon Marzouk said the nightmare guest created a mess in the spare room and flooded the house – causing $25,000 in damage – and she no longer feels comfortable in her own home.

When Marzouk returned home due to the flooding emergency she was shocked to find evidence of a porn shoot, including a sex toy on the bed, a bag of condoms, a checklist of sex acts for clients watching her videos online, and used tissues.

She suspected the woman also recorded X-rated videos in her bathroom and was preparing for a shoot when the bathtub overflowed.

Marzouk, from the Bay Area suburb of Menlo Park, kicked the woman out of her home and is now in a fight with Airbnb to have the damages covered, following the policy of Airbnb “USD 1 million host guarantee”.

In her Facebook post, she said she decided to list the furnished room on the website so she could make some extra cash while she was travelling.

She has owned the house for nearly three years and rents out other bedrooms to long-term tenants to offset the high cost of living in California’s Silicon Valley.

After listing the room on Airbnb she was contacted by three people and decided to rent it to the woman, who wanted to stay for two months or more.

One her profile the woman listed her name as Vera and wrote to Marzouk that she was a “quiet and clean” student from San Jose who doesn’t smoke, drink alcohol or do any drugs.

The woman had a recommendation from a previous host who wrote that she was respectful, friendly and neat.

Marzouk, who was renting to a stranger through Airbnb for the first time, invited the woman to her home and gave her a tour. “Seeing that she was a nice smiling female in her mid twenties, insisting that she was clean and easy going and eager to book my room, I thought to myself… what could be the worst case?” Marzouk wrote.

She didn’t do a background check on the woman because she thought the guest’s identity had been verified by Airbnb.

Marzouk returned from her trip abroad and was attending a conference two hours away from home when she received an urgent text from one of her long-term tenants telling her to “come home right away” because the house had flooded.

The Airbnb guest claimed she was drawing a bath but got distracted and left the water running.

“Water poured from the second floor to the first floor from the overflowing tub,” Marzouk wrote. “Water seeped through the floors, ceilings, walls. It was filling light fixtures.”

She hired a water restoration company to rip out the carpets, floors and baseboards, and punch holes in the walls to prevent mould from spreading.

“I was told by one of the water restoration workers that there was a lot of water and I’m lucky that the ceiling didn’t give way from all the weight and moisture,” she wrote.

Damage to the home was initially pegged at USD10,000, but it is now estimated at nearly USD25,000.

Marzouk said she discovered evidence of a porn shoot when she entered the woman’s room to check for water damage.

She called Airbnb to complain and has openly criticized the company over its handling of the situation and its verification process.

“When would any normal person hand someone else a key without knowing anything about that individual?” she wrote. “The only reason why we would do that is if we believe in the system and the system’s protections.”

Marzouk said Airbnb initially told her it would act as her secondary insurance and was resistant to cover her losses from the rental amount.

She was critical of the company’s response times and said it has taken a more active approach following media interest in her claims.

“Negative experiences are extremely rare as more than 100 million guest arrivals have had safe and positive experiences on Airbnb,” a spokesman for the company said. “We have zero tolerance for this kind of behavior and have removed this guest from our platform. We are working to support this host under our USD1 million host guarantee.”