"I Got A Weird Feeling From Her": Family Lose Their $4,000 Airbnb Because Of Shady Owners, Plant Their Revenge Before Leaving

A family vacation should be the time to relax and enjoy some quality time together. However, certain unexpected matters can make the holiday turn sour. Or smelly, in some cases.

Redditor u/hairyconary told the ‘Petty Revenge’ community about his vacation going south because of a misunderstanding with the rental property owners. They kicked the entire family out of their temporary home worth $4000, which is why the redditor engaged in an act of vengeance destined to make sure the place “will stink to high heaven”.

Bored Panda has reached out to the OP and he was kind enough to answer a few of our questions. You will find his thoughts in the text below.

Image credirs: BGStock72 (not the actual photo)

The OP told Bored Panda that the thing that worried him the most was being in a new country where he had very few connections and a family to take care of. He added that at the time, the owner’s response seemed threatening. “I had emailed the owner back and forth, showed video and proved that nothing was destroyed or wrecked, and they didn't care.

“It didn't matter that I had paid upfront (at first they weren't going to give me any refund at all). He threatened to have the police come kick me out (I know the police now, and it was an empty threat, but at the time it felt real),” the redditor said.

It all started when he felt suspicious of the housekeeper, the services of which were offered by the property owner. “The housekeeper just gave me a weird vibe, and she kept asking when we were going to leave, so I said we could go to the beach for a while while she cleaned, but she wanted us gone gone, not closeby, which raised red flags.”

The housekeeper was the one to tell the owner that the guests had ruined the property. The host didn’t care much for the proof the OP had sent them, which is why the family had to quickly relocate to a nearby motel. To make matters worse, the owner initially wasn’t willing to return any of the $4,000 dollars that were paid upfront. The situation annoyed the redditor enough for him to come up with a plan for petty revenge. “I didn't want to do anything that would be permanently damaging, or justify him in some way, but I wanted it to be awful... and the smell of rotting sausage is awful,” he said.

Statistics reveal that a fair share of Americans go on a family vacation at least once a year (in 2019, for instance, roughly 100 million families did). More than half of them (55%) say they consider taking an international trip to spend some quality time together, and roughly 33% show interest in eco-tourism experiences. Family travel reportedly makes up around 30% of global outbound tourism trips.

There are hundreds of things to consider when planning a family trip, one of the major headaches being finding the right accommodation. Quite a few families opt for vacation rentals for their time away from home. According to Statista, user penetration of holiday property rentals in 2023 reached 10.9%, and is estimated to rise up to 11.3% by 2027. AirDNA predicts that 2023 is likely to be a slow, however, steady year for the vacation rental industry.

Accommodating the needs of everyone in the family might not be easy; or cheap. Upon finding a suitable option, the OP was willing to allocate thousands of dollars for their home-away-from-home, but that didn’t ensure a trouble-free stay. Luckily, he was reimbursed after the unpleasant experience; and got his revenge as well. Fellow redditors suggested more ingenious ways of doing it in the comments, after he shared his story with the community.