An Airbnb guest in Lynchburg, Virginia., apparently fell in love with a piece of art in his rental that he allegedly took it, the Washington Post reported.
Amy Corbett, the apartment’s owner, discovered that a painting of a map that hung above a couch had been replaced with a painting of an airplane propeller.
“It freaked me out,” Corbett, who doesn’t live in the apartment but rents it out and also uses it sometimes for work, told the outlet.
Security camera footage revealed a man taking a large item wrapped in a blanket outside of the apartment around checkout time. Shortly thereafter, the man, wearing different clothing, bringing a large item, also concealed, into the apartment. Corbett believes those items were pieces of art.
Corbett, who runs the short-term rental company All Belong Co, took to TikTok to share her experience, which earned the guest the nickname “the Airbnb bandit.”
Some said the new piece of art Corbett acquired was nicer than the map, while others theorized why the guest allegedly pulled the switch to begin with.
The guest, for his part, declined to answer Corbett’s inquiries. Corbett decided against going to the police — the map wasn’t expensive and it didn’t have much, if any, sentimental value.
So she turned to Airbnb, which ultimately paid her $100 for her loss, while the guest also kicked in $25 and was removed from the short-term rental site. Corbett didn’t get the original map back, so she had it replaced with a painting of the James River that she commissioned from a local artist.
In addition, Corbett raffled off the airplane-propeller painting, raising close to $1,500m which was donated to a housing instability nonprofit.
“It blew me away that out of this, we were able to do something good for humanity,” Corbett told the Post.
— Ted Glanzer