Cory Tschogl

Cory Tschogl rents this Palm Springs condo.

Airbnb is a hugely popular way for people to rent their homes to thrifty travelers, but there are times when things go terribly wrong.

We've shared stories of hosts coming home to find their homes trashed, and a story of an inebriated host using his keys to enter the property at night while the guests — a Business Insider employee and his girlfriend — were sleeping.

Here's a new one: A woman rented her 600-square-foot Palm Springs, California, condo to someone for a little over a month, and now she says the guy won't leave and is threatening to sue her.

Airbnb Customer service email squatter More

Cory Tschogl

One of the emails.

She's had to hire a lawyer and go through the entire eviction process, which could take 3-6 months, the same as if he were a long-term tenant.

It's "been a nightmare," the host, Cory Tschogl, told Business Insider.

Tschogl is a rehabilitation therapist, helping people with vision problems, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She got "priced out" of buying a home in the Valley, so she invested in a vacation rental condo in Palm Springs. For about the past year, she had been renting it on Airbnb and Flipkey, a vacation-rental site owned by TripAdvisor, making enough money on it to help her make ends meet with the higher rents in San Francisco.

She was happy with Airbnb until a man who goes by the name "Maksym" contacted her through Airbnb asking to rent her Palm Springs condo for longer than a month. He told her he needed accommodations for an extended business trip, Tschogl says.

He didn't have any reviews on Airbnb, which she says in retrospect should have been a warning sign.

But his initial interactions with her seemed OK, and she agreed to let him rent the condo from May 25 through July 8, a total of 44 days.

For long-term reservations, Airbnb bills on a monthly basis. Tschogl says she received advance payment for 30 days.

On day one, after the guest checked in, he called her and complained about two odd things, Tschogl says. He didn't like the tap water (complained it was cloudy) and he didn't like the gated entry to the condo complex. He asked for a full refund, according to Tschogl. She had a bad gut feeling about him, she says, so she agreed to a refund.

She says she had difficulty getting hold of Airbnb right away to make the refund happen. After sending multiple emails and making phone calls, Airbnb responded two days later. In t hat email, on May 27, Airbnb told her it asked the guest to leave. The company also told her since Maksym had stayed in the condo for two days, she was entitled to keep an appropriate portion of the money he paid.

But Maksym stayed in the condo, according to Tschogl. "It became a confusing situation. Both I and Airbnb told the guest to leave, but he would not," Tschogl told us.

After a number of antagonistic texts with the guest, Tschogl says she decided that perhaps the best course of action would be just to let him stay for the duration of his reservation.

Then came the second hiccup. On June 25, when payment for the last part of his reservation was due, Airbnb couldn't collect the money. Airbnb warned Tschogl in an email, she says.

Both Airbnb and Tschogl contacted him and warned him to pay or leave, according to Tschogl.

Two days later, on June 27, he was still in the condo, she says.

On the last day of his reservation, still unpaid, Tschogl says she sent him a text message telling him if he didn't vacate the property, she would have the utilities shut off.

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