These People Are Revealing Their Most Disturbing B&B Horror Stories

A friend and I once stayed at a pretty fancy B&B for the night. 

The lady who owned it was absolutely lovely, but would appear out of nowhere. 

We’d be sitting alone in a large room with one doorway and suddenly she was in the room with us. 

Either this joint had secret doors or something really creepy was going on. 

She seemed to know things that we’d said or done as well. 

The thing that tripped us out the most was hearing someone trying to open our door during the night. 

She was super lovely and the building was beautiful, but we were relieved to check out the next morning!

redraymus

Arrived and entered the house by way of the provided code for the electronic door lock. We had stopped to pick up groceries and some needed refrigeration so we carried those in first. 

Which is when I discovered the fridge filled with food. Looked around and saw more food and personal items in the kitchen. Called out to no answer so we walked around a bit. 

Imagine if you left your home for the day for work and a stranger walked in. This is exactly how it all appeared.

Hurried back to the car afraid we were going to get the cops called on us and called the company who reassured us and told us the house owner had said he was going to get things cleared up which apparently hadn't happened. 

This seemed like something the company should have checked, but they assured us it was fine to just push things aside.

In the process of clearing things away into a large closet we found half used bottles of cancer medications and some paperwork which indicated the owner had been being treated for a stage four cancer. 

Between these and other paperwork found in the house we are fairly certain the owner died and his children had the body transported back to where his wife was buried in a northern state. 

We guessed they arranged to rent the place out without ever coming to clear his belongings.

SillyOldBears

Termite infestation out of nowhere during my groups second night in NOLA. We returned to the house mid afternoon to regroup before going out for the night. 

Between the hours of 6 p.m. (when we left there was no sign of anything wrong) to ~midnight termites had begun chewing through walls and were all over EVERYTHING. 

In our suitcases and clothes, all over the bed, all over the food, all over the floor. It. Was. Disgusting. 

We had to find a hotel for 12 people at about 1 a.m. and spent the night in our hotel going through every item we owned one by one making sure to kill any termites we had missed. 

Thankfully got a full refund from the owner.

[deleted]

Innsbruck, Austria. We came in from Switzerland on the night train. 

We get to the apartment building (which has 12 different apartments) unsure how to enter. 

We call the host several times, leave several messages, no answer. We see a lady leaving the building with her dog; 

it turns out she is his roommate! She tells us there is no reservation, that the host is at a festival, 

but after showing her the reservation she said we could stay for one night (which was the length of our reservation). 

Apparently host had rented out his room for the festival, forgot to leave a key with the roommates, and his phone died.

pleadin_the_biz

I stayed in a B&B once but it was a basement room. I had to be in by 10:30 p.m., and as the tenants were a little "off," I went down early and said goodnight to the couple. As I reached the bottom step I heard a click of a key in a lock. I went back up the stairs and checked the door and yep...it was locked tight.

I knocked quietly and softly called out but no one replied though I could hear movement and what sounded briefly like laughing. I then phoned the B&B in the hope of someone answering and someone did...an answering machine. I felt stupid and hung up.

My prison for the night was very basic and small with a sink, a cot, and a portable heater from a place that time forgot. And lots of frames on the walls but oddly no pictures. 

I went to bed but not before I put a small obstacle course between my single corner bed and the steps.

In the morning when I awoke the door was slightly ajar. I dressed and went up for breakfast a little annoyed and creeped out. I felt like trust had been broken and maybe rights had been infringed.

The food was already ready so I ate it and no one was around. The landlady was very nonchalant and still a bit odd and when I mentioned the door locking, without looking up she said, "it was house rules and no one had complained before." She claimed it was, "for safety, as I might be a serial killer or worse" (what's worse?).

I tactfully asked what would happen if a fire broke out and she said, "there were people for that"... presuming she meant firemen who'd rescue me. On a full tummy and on my way out I realized I'd have to take up this issue online via a review and left.

At the time I didn't freak out but thinking about it all much later I really worried about being locked in a basement without any way out. Just a sealed door with a key controlled by a couple of oddballs. 

Maybe they were harmless but if that door hadn't opened in the morning or the ancient heater had caught fire. etc. Who knows?

ilivedownyourroad

While in the isles of Scotland, we stayed in a B&B. It was owned by a couple. 

The bedrooms were extremely well done and beautiful, but on everything there were signs to not "touch". 

To use the shower, you would have to ask the couple and the Internet ended at 11 pm. 

The woman would also check on everyone at random times in the night, we would hear creeping in the hallway to make sure "everyone was sleeping" and not doing any illicit things like using the Internet. 

When we checked out of her B&B, she came into our room and said that we "stunk", and opened the window to prove this and demanded money immediately. 

Another traveler was kicked out of the B&B because the checkout time was 10 am, 

and they were forced to stand outside (she wouldn't even let them stay inside) in the thunderstorm while their taxi came. 

Another traveler had to get a check (we were in an isolated place) to pay for the room and she took their bags and wouldn't give them back. 

But on the way out...she asked everyone if they enjoyed their stay!

commonvanilla

It happened in Marrakech. The guy was actually a superhost, but it got off on the wrong foot when I didn't reply immediately to his message about an hour after booking. 

He sent an angry message, called Airbnb to get the situation 'resolved'. 

Should really have canceled and booked somewhere else at that point. 

Long story short, there was no way to lock the door between the guest section and host section of the place from my end, 

and the bedroom only had locks on the outside. 

Also, there was CCTV on the property that he hadn't declared. 

Didn't really think too much of this until I left the AC on accidentally and he completely flipped, sent an angry, threatening series of messages. 

I've traveled a lot and never felt scared for my safety until that moment, which was very unpleasant.

TheBlackTaj

I stayed at this vintage Victorian-style home. I was there alone since the hosts went out of town. 

The doors and knobs were sort of old.

I ended up getting locked in the bathroom since the doorknob won't turn. 

I was so convinced that either a person locked me in the bathroom to take my belongings or a ghost is trying to play tricks on me.

Luckily I had my phone with me since I play music while I shower. 

I called the host who ended up having her co-host come over to eventually get the door to open from the outside. 

The rest of the night, I slept with all the lights on since I believed that lights will deter ghosts.

annevasian

My hosts were friendly in the beginning and kept offering me drinks throughout the entire day. 

It was fun 'til it escalated to her yelling at me about not having gone through any pain my entire life and how her life was filled with it 

and then led her to trying to throw punches at me whilst her husband was trying to hold her back, 

which led to me leaving the Airbnb at midnight in a foreign country and finding a hotel for the night.

kelseyass

We woke up in Hawaii to a maggot hatch covering the floor. 

I had been up twice before it was light enough to see it, 

so tracked it back into the bed. It looked like the floor was covered in rice, 

but the rice was moving. Thousands of little wiggling maggots coming out of the door jam.

londonlover062674

My friends and I booked a big house for a weekend near Wrigley Field in Chicago for a Bachelorette party. 

We had decorated the whole house with uh... inappropriate banners and things like that--you know how bachelorette parties go.

We spent Saturday morning brunching and pre-gaming before the evening's festivities, and by 1 p.m. or so were all certainly well on our way to party town. While we were sitting there, the bachelorette gets a call from the Airbnb owner saying he was "in the midst of listing the place" and that he "forgot to tell us he had scheduled showings all weekend." 

She told him that was absolutely not going to fly--there were women napping in rooms, women getting ready, alcohol bottles everywhere, not to mention the decor.

He replied by saying he was already outside with the first showing and was giving us a courtesy call to let us know he would be coming in. We look outside and he is standing on the sidewalk with a family including three little kids. 

He brought them inside to give them a showing and we just had to sit there awkwardly, drunk at 1 p.m., surrounded by blow-up penises, while they walked around and viewed the house. 

He even went into the rooms where women were napping and turned on all of the lights to show them the bedrooms.

Luckily we left soon after for a Cubs game but he proceeded to show the house for the rest of the day. 

We contacted Airbnb and they refunded half our money, but there weren't any other available houses in the area for them to move us to that weekend so we just had to deal.

cincbus

While staying in Colombia, around 700 usd cash was stolen from my Airbnb. 

It was a private house, and after looking at a hotel's camera across the street, 

a man came with keys, open the door, and took my stuff. 

The owners said it was a handyman that used to work for them. 

Neither owners nor Airbnb did anything at all.

gaston_bigfoot

A place in Ikebukuro, Tokyo was advertised as an apartment. Photos looked pretty decent. 

Small, but just enough for one person.

Arrived there on the day of, realised it was a love hotel (charged rooms by the hour), 

room was smaller than I thought with absolutely no floor space (you walk in and the bed and sink were right there, no space to put any luggage),

 and there was a musky stench. The wallpaper had stains from god-knows- what. 

Read some reviews that weren't on Airbnb and people mentioned having dried up bodily fluids on their mattresses and blankets.

Final straw was the fact that they had no hot water in the middle of a winter night. 

Left there pretty fast, contacted the owner, and she was nice enough to give me a refund.

[deleted]

I once stayed in a B&B that had a shared bathroom. 

The first night I got up at probably like 2am and I was bursting for a pee. 

The bathroom was down the hallway, not too far but seemed like such an effort in my tired state. 

I get to the bathroom and open the door and there was this guy just standing in the bathroom, 

dressed head to toe in a mime costume. Face painted and everything. 

He was squatted down on the floor but his trousers were still up. I looked at him for a second, 

he gave me a wave with a smile and began just silently pushing. I just ran back to my room, locked the door, and decided to pee in a bottle. 

I'm still not sure if I was just really tired and seeing things or something, it's seriously the strangest thing I've ever seen.

Jam-Polo

I was staying in an Airbnb apartment in Paris looking for a room to rent somewhere in the city.

The apartment wasn't very good: creaky floors, crappy bathroom, etc. What made it worse was the apartment next door was being renovated throughout the day from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Nonstop drilling and hammering all day, every day. On top of that was the couple upstairs had a newborn baby, and the ceiling was paper-thin so during the early hours of the morning I would hear this screaming child hour after hour.

So the worst part was after I'd returned to the Airbnb from interviewing for a room to rent that afternoon, I'd noticed that my clothing in my suitcase had been rifled through. Immediately I check my secret compartment where I'd kept my extra cash and of course everything was gone!

300€ Taken from my belongings.

But here's the thing; my $2000 laptop was on the table right next to it as well as other expensive belongings and nothing else was touched in the apartment. I'd also made sure I locked the apartment every time I left and it was locked when I returned.

I'm sure by now you've put it together that someone with a key let themselves in.

Immediately I call the host to discuss the problem and her response was arranged from "That's not possible" to "Maybe you put the money somewhere else." Naturally, 

I was furious but I restrained myself and didn't accuse. She said she'd come in the morning to inspect the apartment because I'd decided to rent the room I'd found in the city.

All she did was look around, check the lock on the door and never said she was sorry or offer to refund my money for the stay. I left that place so angry I still think about it and clench my fists. At least the people I moved in with after weren't total jerks.

 Redditor

I got an Airbnb at the beach. I had a designated spot in the parking garage. 

Long story short the wall structure fell on top of my car and cause $10,000 damage. They never paid up.

jeffdimps2

My first and last experience with Airbnb was a "small pretty flat in the garden" in Rome. 

When I arrived I found spiders on the walls, water on the floor and an unforgettable smell. 

The host said spiders are not a problem 'cause they are small and the apartment is next to the garden so she doesn't understand why I'm nervous.

green_aries

Hosts didn’t disclose that they had a month-old BABY until I got there.

Yeah.

The bed also had a metal bar underneath the mattress topper running straight through(?!) 

so you couldn’t properly lie down, you had to stay on either side of the bar, which was pretty impossible as it was a twin bed. 

Trying to sleep resulted in a metal bar hitting against my spine. 

This was in London during the hottest summer ever recorded in the U.K. at the time, and there was no fan, no AC, no airflow at all.

I left the next morning while the hosts and their loud baby were still asleep and was thankfully able to find another place to stay, but I sunk a whole week’s worth of funds into that place.

sushideception

I stayed at an Airbnb near Dallas, TX last year. It was a pretty big house, and I was all alone. 

The host was a younger woman in college. After my first night there, I woke up and started my day. 

Made breakfast, showered, sang in the shower, whatever. 

I remember hearing a noise at one point and getting pretty weirded out, so I investigated some other rooms of the house I’d never been in. 

I opened the door to a bedroom, and to my surprise, there was a sleeping woman in the room. 

I screamed and she woke up and screamed too. 

Long story short, the sleeping woman was a friend of the host, who had a key to her house and would occasionally stay there. 

She didn’t know she was Airbnbing the place. The host apologized profusely and I told her it was cool... 

I was just a bit weirded out at how all that time when I was hanging out by myself, I wasn’t actually alone.

jkillenit

A friend booked an Airbnb in the USA. We had the ground floor of a house. 

No furniture in the kitchen, no furniture in the dining room, no carpets or tables, just bunk beds and one chair in the living room. 

All windows and floors were covered in blue tarps. The only things in the bathroom were hand creams.

There were doors to upstairs and downstairs that weren't mentioned in the listing, 

and had no locks or light switches on either side, just darkness. 

We got there too late to explore, and the "host" wasn't present, so we used the chair and a suitcase to block door handles.

cruciger

There were these lovely notes from the host all around the property, 

about their life struggles and how they didn't want us to have anal sex or period sex on the bed.

The wall to the bedroom (booked as a "private room") was paper thin and didn't go all the way up to the ceiling 

- and there were several bunk beds in the living room and another bedroom, and we all got to share 1 bathroom. 

The bedroom itself was a small space with two thin mattresses (smaller than normal single beds in size). 

The room was so small the door could only open when the mattresses were on top of each other. 

My partner at the time was unable to lie down fully stretched. 

The AC was so loud we had to choose between lack of sleep due to heat or due to noise.

malstroem

The host was an avid flat earther who sat me down with his buddy to watch youtube videos about it while he condescendingly explained to me that outer space wasn't real.

Shower was so grimy and clogged it didn't drain so even showering for only two minutes left me standing in a 3 inch puddle of water and bathtub scum.

He told me I could store anything in his fridge if I wanted, so I put some leftovers in an opaque container in there. 

Another guest told me later that he complained to her that my leftovers had dairy in them (he was a fruitarian) 

which meant he had actually opened and gone through my leftovers.

All the same host from my very first-ever solo travel.

toomanypens6

Booked a houseboat in Belgrade. Looked amazing in the pictures, near the river clubs etc.

When we got there we found it to be on a 30-degree slant since the river was lower and so was half-beached. 

Also after waiting for several hours we found that the owner had lent it to their family instead that weekend and so wasn't even available.

Hilarious now, back then was not impressed.

[deleted]

In Denver, I arrived at a house. The host showed me my room 

- it was an air mattress. No sheets, dirty clothes strewn across the bed. Dirty dishes, ashtray, dirty carpeting. 

Quite a gross place. "Sorry I haven't been downstairs recently." 

Took pics, left within 10 minutes and filed a complaint. 

ALWAYS make sure there are pictures of the sleeping area.

VibrantGoo

Cuzco, Peru in high season (most places booked). Lodging for four people. 

We find a great big place for a good price. Apparently it was too good to be true; it was a hostel who was happy to host us 

(in hostel dorms for a much higher than advertised price), but denied having a reservation.

When I showed him the reservation and called Airbnb (whose staff was very helpful) he said he had to check something. 

After waiting for about an hour, I tracked him down hiding in is office. 

The look on his face was priceless. 

He was obviously hoping if he hid for long enough that he would get the double payment out of us. 

I called Airbnb again and they canceled the reservation and we left.

pleadin_the_biz

While searching for an apartment in a new country, I stayed in an Airbnb until I found a place. Explained this to the host and she was cool with it. 

Then one day as I was out apartment hunting, I got a phone call from her. 

She had been in my room and had seen that I used her address on one of the forms I was filling out which had asked for the address of the place I was currently staying. 

I had thought nothing of it--had to fill out loads of forms when trying to get an apartment. 

She flipped that I used her address without her permission. I got back and all my stuff was left out the front door. 

So I had to go to a hotel. A week or two late, I get a message from Airbnb saying "rate your stay" so I obviously give 1 star. 

She then sends a request for a huge amount of money for "loss of earnings, psychological distress, abusive behaviour, etc." 

and says if I don't pay, she will pursue it in a court of law. Absolute lunatic.

jhb5

The bedbugs at an Airbnb in New Orleans...

wasn't sure that's what it was until we were on the airplane headed home and one fell off my jacket onto the book I was reading. 

Dry heaved and felt wretched for the rest of that flight and for a while after that, honestly.

lolalivia

My mother and I were on a road trip to San Diego and she was always really paranoid about staying in hotels, mostly that someone might be watching through a camera or two-way mirror.

It was a long drive and we had to stop so we stopped at a local bed and breakfast which I thought was much creepier than a hotel. 

We check in with this older man and get to the room. 

My mom is a really paranoid person, she had kind of a routine when we stayed somewhere.

First, she checks the restroom, looked in the toilet and showed to cameras. 

Second, she checked the fire detectors for them or any audio recording. Last she would check the mirror by turning off all the lights in the room and turning a flashlight to the mirrors. 

That's when she saw the small room on the other side, only about the size of a closet. 

We left immediately before even saying anything to the man. We slept in the car that night.

TheLovelyGrimm

Stayed in a B&B in Pennsylvania that seemed cute enough. 

They did have a wall of antique dolls in the main room but otherwise no signs of weirdness.

That's until we were settled in the room. I noticed some scratches on the floor near a bookcase and after some inspection realized it was a secret door. 

When I asked the owner if it worked, he said yes and showed me that it opened to their office 

(which was a cluttered room with a computer and piles of crap). 

It had a lock on their side and when I asked if there was a lock on my side he smiled and said "no". 

When I showed some concern that there was an unlockable entrance to my room that was camouflaged that they didn't tell me about he just kept smiling.

So that night I barricaded the f*cking door and barely slept.

Ghost_Farter

Booked a place in Barcelona for 5 nights. The place was well-reviewed and located near the Sagrada Familia:

Some random friend of the owner picked us up from the airport, he was literally speeding/swerving through traffic and didn't speak a word of English. 

Got to the apartment and some other guy handed me a phone to talk to the owner - he explained there was water coming through the ceiling and he'll fix it ASAP; found this was pouring onto the boiler and a live power socket; then saw there was a piece of glass in the kitchen window missing, just to top this off.

We decided to stay one night (we had no other options). Barcelona has more motorbikes than any other city I've been to, so every 5 minutes we were woken up by one going by as the windows had zero soundproofing. 

We moved the mattress to another room away from the road (it was 3 am at this point), when a large group of drunk women came into the apartment building and were running around the staircase, screaming and laughing. Then at 4am the kids of the neighbor above started running around and playing/screaming too.

5am we rang Airbnb, received a full refund and booked a 5 star hotel for less than the Airbnb: you can get pretty good deals at that time in the morning!

Piece of advice: always use the Airbnb chat to talk to the owner, this conversation is recorded then in case they try and grift you in any way or break Airbnb's rules. 

The whole time the owner was constantly trying to get us to talk over WhatsApp, making promises to make sure we stay then trying to get us out so he could get other tenants in.

Buchiro1