'Scary experience': Woman finds horrifying cellar room not advertised in Airbnb rental



In one of the more strange travel experiences, a family from Kansas City discovered a dark cellar room during their stay at someone's Chicago-based Airbnb. A short clip of the room has gone viral on TikTok.

Xena Habashi decided to rent the basement apartment in Chicago in December, but she quickly found that there was something sketchy about the room. She told Newsweek that several doors in the apartment were never advertised when she initially reserved the space.

“While getting ready to go to sleep me and my cousin noticed a light on in one of the rooms that was locked,” Habashi said. “We decided to try and open it. … I got a fork and was able to open the door. That’s when I saw it.”

The guest posted an 18-second video clip of the freaky dungeon, which appeared to have half-full garbage bags and cardboard boxes in it.

@notxh2

Left the next morning because we kept hearing noises 😣 there was more to it, pt 2?? #scary #haunted #airbnb

The New York Post reported that Habashi spotted "wooden doors with locks on" and "chains" lying "on the ground." There was also a wooden door that went deeper into the building, but she decided not to investigate further.

The TikTok post included a caption that read "Barbarian??" — appearing to reference a 2022 horror movie about a woman who discovers that a rental home she reserved was already inhabited by an unknown person.

“I had watched Barbarian a month before and we had been joking before we got there saying ‘imagine something like Barbarian happens!’ Then the room was just like the movie!” Habashi said.

Habashi posted two clips of the footage on the social media platform, which has garnered more than 10 million views.

One user said "this is literally the Barbarian movie," and another said, "I watched Barbarian I know how this ends."

Another user commended Habashi for deciding to stay the night despite the creepy passageway, adding, "I would have been out of that place immediately. Imagine someone or something coming into your room from there."

The family heard "tapping noises," so they decided to contact the owner and Airbnb. “We had that door blocked by a table and a rolled up towel under the handle to where you can’t move the handle,” Habashi told Newsweek.

“We weren’t able to sleep. We stayed up till the morning, kept hearing noises, and before we left I decided to take that video and it went viral unexpectedly!”

Airbnb offered the family a refund for what the family described as a "scary experience."

However, Airbnb had not received any previous complaints about the apartment. It had a 4.84 rating and good reviews, according to the report.

“The listing is advertised as a basement apartment, and the separate space that was accessed is part of the basement,” an Airbnb representative told Newsweek.

“Our customer service team supported our guest with their concerns at the time, and assisted with a refund and another place to stay."

It is unknown who owns the apartment or what the cellar area is used for.

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Woman alleges Airbnb host threatened to find her personal address after she left 4-star review



A professor from the University of British Columbia was allegedly threatened after leaving a 4-star review on the Airbnb site. She claimed the host threatened to find where she lived if she did not take down the review.

In 2022, Dr. Alex Moore made a since-deleted post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that read: "In the interest of my own personal safety as well as public safety, @Airbnb @AirbnbHelp: Can you explain to me and everyone else why the host who sent me this message is still active on your platform? This person is clearly a threat and should not be allowed to host guests.”

The host, Brad, had listed a one-bedroom, one-bathroom home in Vancouver, B.C.

“I left a 4/5 review with a positive message, and the host has contacted me at my personal number with increasingly threatening text because my review brought their average rating down from a 5 to a 4.95," Moore said.

While she did not leave a perfect review, she reportedly left positive feedback, suggesting that she would rebook the location if she happened to travel to the area again. However, the host took offense at this and decided to take action in an effort to get the review removed, according to Your Tango.

Brad began sending threatening messages to Moore, claiming that he had her name, photo, and her phone number. He said that if she did not take down the review, he would track down her address, and "the fun begins."

Moore, alarmed, decided to contact the Vancouver Police Department. Police visited Brad and told him to stop harassing Moore. She noted that she was hopeful that they would revoke his house-sharing license. However, the report noted that Brad's home was still available on Airbnb at the time she reported the incident.

Eventually, the company sent her a message, saying: "Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. We have concluded our investigation and can confirm for you that we have removed the host’s account and listing from Airbnb.”

— (@)

The report noted that Moore must have come to an agreement with Airbnb, as the post was soon taken down from social media.

According to Airbnb, the company does conduct background checks on both hosts and guests. The purpose of the check is to find potential terrorist designations, public records, state and county criminal records, and sex offender registries.

Some have claimed that anything below a five-star rating would dissuade future renters from signing on with a host.

Thorn Point states: "Airbnb holds hosts to a strict 5-star-or-bust expectation. They take any review that is less than 5-stars to indicate that there are major problems with a property or host. In fact, if a host’s account average drops below a 4.8-star rating, then they lose their Superhost status. On top of that, Airbnb could permanently remove a listing if the average drops below a 4.3-star rating."

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Tori Spelling says 'extreme mold' has thrust family into 'continual spiral of sickness'



Celebrity Tori Spelling shared an Instagram post on Wednesday in which she said that her family has been dealing with frequent illness due to "extreme mold" in their place of residence.

She explained that she initially assumed the health problems were the normal consequence of having children carry sickness home from school, but that turned out not to be the case.

"Here we are again at Urgent Care. We've all been on this continual spiral of sickness for months. Sick. Get better. To get sick again. Used to think… well that’s what happens when you have young kids in school. They just continually bring sicknesses home. But, when it gets to the point where they are at home sick more than being in school we had to reassess what was going on. Kids will be kids but when you have your youngest (10 and 6) so sick they are sleeping all day and say they feel dizzy even standing I knew something bigger was going on," Spelling wrote in the social media post.

But she said that she learned that their rental residence has a mold problem.

"Enter Mold inspection! Thx to Sean at Pacific Scope Inspections who came out and discovered extreme mold in our home," she wrote. "The pieces all started to fall into place. Has anyone ever been thru Mold Infections? You just keep getting sick, one infection after another. Respiratory infections. Extreme allergy like symptoms too and like my poor Finn skin rashes as well. As we sit here today in Urgent Care … watching everyone getting swabbed and first up Finn with Strep throat," she said, apparently referring to her 10-year-old son, adding, "and high fever of 103. We now know that when the house was labeled a health hazard and not live able that wording was FACT. We now GET IT!"

Spelling noted that the family will need to move.

"It's hard to just uproot a huge family especially in midst of all feeling so sick and in bed. But, we now will vacate the home asap. Looking for an @airbnb or @vrbo or hotel till we can even grasp what to do. We are just renters so looks like moving is in our eminent future as well. Grateful we have renters insurance. We'd be lost how to tackle this without," she wrote.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, individuals, "especially those with weakened immune systems, can develop invasive mold infections days to weeks after exposure to fungi that live in the environment."

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Daughter of former intelligence director John Negroponte found guilty of butchering classmate over Airbnb disagreement



The adopted daughter of former President George W. Bush's U.S. intelligence director John Negroponte has been convicted of brutally murdering a 24-year-old man in a drunken Airbnb argument.

A Maryland jury found 29-year-old Sophia Negroponte guilty of second-degree murder in the February 2020 slaying of Yousuf Rasmussen, reported the Associated Press.

The murderer faces up to 40 years in jail. She will reportedly have to serve at least half of her sentence to become eligible for parole. Negroponte stands for sentencing on March 31.

The trial

WTOP indicated that the jury deliberated for 16 hours before arriving on an "appropriate verdict," resolving a trial that began on Dec. 6.

The Washington Post reported that the jurors determined that while Negroponte acted with "a depraved heart" and "acted with extreme disregard of the life-endangering consequences," the murder was not premediated.

Negroponte was initially charged with first-degree murder.

Defense attorney David Moyse tried to persuade the jurors that Negroponte was too drunk to form intent.

"Alcohol pervades this case from the start; it pervades her life," said Moyse. "It's one of the major reasons that this is absolutely not a murder."

The jury didn't buy what Moyse was selling. Jurors determined Negroponte had intended "to inflict such serious bodily harm" as to take Rasmussen's life.

Assistant State's Attorney Donna Fenton said, "Her hand was on that knife when it was plunged into his face, and cut across his throat, and plunged into his neck, where the blood came down and he collapsed almost immediately."

Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Terrence J. McGann ultimately revoked the murderer's bond, underscoring how her victim was "taken from this earth, at a very young age with his whole life ahead of him, in such a horrific way."

The murder

The Montgomery County Police Department arrested Negroponte at the bloody scene in Rockville, Maryland, on Feb. 13, 2020.

Rasmussen, an acquaintance and former classmate of Negroponte, was found dead inside the residence in the 400 block of West Montgomery Avenue. He had just graduated from college.

The victim's mother, Zeba Rasmussen, said, "Yousuf was a kind and gentle soul, a loving person who brought family and many friends great joy."

Rasmussen had been watching TV with Negroponte, but an argument with the murderer prompted him to leave. However, according to Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy, Rasmussen stopped back in to grab his cell phone.

Upon the victim's momentary return, Negroponte, "armed with a knife, stabbed him multiple times, one being a death blow that severed his jugular."

Despite being found apologizing near Rasmussen's corpse on the night of the murder, Negroponte told Fenton during cross-examination that she "didn't do it" and denied harming Rasmussen.

The appeal

John Negroponte, the son of a Greek shipping magnate whom Bush appointed the first director of national intelligence on Feb. 17, 2005, suggested that his family may seek an appeal.

The murderer was one of five orphaned Honduran children whom John and Diana Negroponte adopted in the 1980s. John Negroponte had been ambassador to the crime-ridden central American country from 1981 to 1985.

John Negroponte suggested that his adopted daughter ought to be cut slack for brutally murdering her classmate because of "past trauma and other factors that led to a very troubled existence."

Despite Sophia Negroponte's willingness to throw away a young man's life, her father said, "We don't want to see her life wasted in prison."

This isn't the first time that John Negroponte downplayed violence.

The Baltimore Sun conducted a 14-month investigation in the mid-90s, which found that while ambassador to Honduras, "Negroponte was confronted with evidence that a Honduran army intelligence unit, trained by the CIA, was stalking, kidnapping, torturing, and killing suspected subversives."

Despite ample knowledge about these and other human rights abuses by government security forces, he denied or downplayed them, reported the Nation.

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Airbnb apologizes after '1830s slave cabin' was advertised as luxury bed and breakfast



Airbnb removed listings and apologized on Monday after a TikTok user complained that a "slave cabin" in Greenville, Mississippi, had been listed as a bed and breakfast.

Wynton Yates, a black lawyer from New Orleans, posted a video that went viral last week blasting the online rental app for listing the "Panther Burn Cottage" at Belmont Plantation. Screen captures taken by Yates showed the listing described as an "1830s slave cabin" that had also been used as a "tenant sharecroppers cabin" before being converted into a bed and breakfast.

"How is this okay in somebody's mind to rent this out — a place where human beings were kept as slaves — rent this out as a bed and breakfast?" Yates asked in the video.

@lawyerwynton

#airbnb this is not ok. #history #civilrights #americanhistory

"The history in this country is constantly being denied and now it's being mocked by turning into a luxurious vacation spot," Yates said after pointing out the rental featured running water and lighting fixtures, luxuries that were not enjoyed by the enslaved people once held there.

The video has been viewed more than 2.6 million times and led to a wave of backlash against Airbnb.

The San Francisco-based company apologized on Monday and announced that it is "removing listings that are known to include former slave quarters in the United States."

“Properties that formerly housed the enslaved have no place on Airbnb,” Airbnb spokesman Ben Breit said in a statement to the Washington Post. “We apologize for any trauma or grief created by the presence of this listing, and others like it, and that we did not act sooner to address this issue.”

The owner of the listing, Brad Hauser, said that he only recently acquired the property in July and that it had been a doctor's office, not slave quarters. He said the previous owner had made the "decision to market the building as the place where slaves once slept," a decision that Hauser, a white man, "strongly opposed."

“I am not interested in making money off slavery,” Hauser told the Washington Post, claiming he had been "misled" about the property and apologizing for "insulting African Americans whose ancestors were slaves.”

Airbnb and Booking.com have reportedly suspended advertising contracts with Belmont "pending further investigation" into the matter.

"I intend to do all I can to right a terrible wrong and, hopefully, regain advertising on Airbnb so The Belmont can contribute to the most urgent demand for truth telling about the history of the not only the South but the entire nation,” Hauser said in a statement.

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