Every year, I like to take my family on vacation, so that we can all have an enjoyable week of relaxation and bonding time together. We usually stay in hotels, but after having a 3rd kid with my wife, we decided that it would be best to stay in a house, since our 7 month old son would often cry and throw tantrums most nights. I’ve never stayed in an air bnb before, but I decided I would give it a shot since my coworkers spoke highly of it. After getting used to navigating the site, I started to narrow down my search within a couple cities that my wife and I thought would be nice. I was excited when I found a beautiful house that went for a decently low nightly rate that was just a short walk away from the ocean. In addition, there were shopping plazas where we would be able to get our groceries for the week just a short drive away. I looked over the hosts rating on the website, who was a middle aged man named Tom, and, was happy to see that he was consistently given a 5 star rating. I booked the house for 7 days, officially planning the trip.
After a super long car ride, we finally pulled up to the house around 10:30pm on the Friday we scheduled to check in. The house was pitch black and surrounded by woods, which gave off a bit of an eerie vibe. We followed the emailed instructions given to us from Tom to get into the house. We typed in the garage code, and walked to the safe in the corner of the garage to enter the code to get the key. We got inside without much trouble, and began unpacking. The house was huge, having 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, which was quite an upgrade compared to our home with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. My wife and I noticed that the air smelled musty inside, but we just assumed that nobody else stayed here the week prior.
We all brought our luggage up the stairs and picked out our rooms. Our 2 sons stayed in the same bedroom at the end of the hall, while my wife and I took the master bedroom, putting our baby in the room directly next to us. We were all exhausted from all the traveling and we probably went to bed around 11:30.
At some point during the night, I was awakened to hear my son talking to my mom next to our bed, saying that he heard scary noises, so my wife calmed him down and tucked him back into bed. This wasn’t something uncommon, since our sons were both 5 years old, and would often get spooked at night. I dozed off again pretty quickly.
Again, I was awakened to both of my sons running in our room crying. They both insisted that they heard footsteps coming from above them, so I decided I’d flip on the lights to get up and walk around with them to show them that they were safe and nothing was there. After doing this, they finally relaxed and laid back down into bed. After I closed their door, I checked around again feeling a little concerned. I opened the door by their rooms that led to the attic, and walked up the steps to see that the door at the top of the stairs was locked, which didn’t surprise me.
Within minutes after crawling back into bed, I heard loud screaming coming from my son’s room. I flew out of bed and sprinted down the hallway, opening the door to their room, flipping on the lights. I saw my sons laying on their beds hiding under the covers. I walked over to them and asked what was wrong, and their response was very unsettling to hear. My one son told me that he heard their door creak open, and there was a shadow of someone staring at him right outside his room. Something about the tone in his voice and the terrified look in his eyes worried me. I typically wouldn’t think something like this was true, considering they both get night terrors and we were staying in a foreign place, but with it being the third time now, I couldn’t help but believe them. By now, my wife was standing in the room with us and she heard everything, so I asked her to take everyone into our room. Now I have a concealed carry license and always carry my gun with me, but I left it back at home not thinking I’d need it. I regretted not having it with me, but I knew I had to search the house.
As I crept downstairs to the main floor in the dark, I felt scared since it was pitch black and completely quiet. The sound of my breath and light footsteps were the only sounds I could hear, which felt loud despite my efforts to stay quiet. I knew the light switch was somewhere at the bottom of the staircase, but I fumbled around in the dark for a minute until I finally found it and flipped it on. My jaw dropped as I looked around and noticed that the front door to the house was wide open. I knew I had made sure that the doors were all closed and locked before we went to bed. I slammed the door shut, locking it again, and ran upstairs to tell my wife and kids, as I locked the master bedroom door behind me.
She dialed 911, and they said they would have officers there soon. We were instructed to stay inside the room no matter what. Even though it was now around 2:30 in the morning, I thought I’d call the air bnb owner to let him know that there was some sort of break in. I dialed his number, and i put it on speaker so that my wife could hear him too if he picked up. What we heard next still haunts me to this day. A faint ringing, coming from above us in the attic, sounded as I called him. My wife and I both looked at each other in total shock, knowing that the house owner’s phone was in the attic.
Thankfully, the police arrived minutes after and we explained everything that had happened. We booked a hotel that night which was a short drive away from the air bnb and enjoyed the rest of our vacation. We eventually followed up with the police, wondering if they obtained any information. It turns out, Tom, the owner of the air bnb, was in the attic that night walking around, which explains why our sons kept hearing the noises. He snuck down and opened the door to our sons room, but then hid as my wife and I got up after hearing our sons screaming. As we passed one of the rooms on the way down the hall, he must’ve crept down the stairs and ran away. Finally, we learned that the attic had several monitors hooked up to secret cameras around the house, so he was able to see and hear everything. It was quite a horrifying experience as a first time air bnb guest, and I plan on only renting hotels from now on.