Peninsula woman finds vibrator, $10,000 worth of damage after Airbnb guest stays at her house

A vibrator was on the bed when Sharon Marzouk walked into a bedroom in her Menlo Park home being rented by an Airbnb guest. A vibrator was on the bed when Sharon Marzouk walked into a bedroom in her Menlo Park home being rented by an Airbnb guest. Photo: Courtesy Sharon Marzouk Photo: Courtesy Sharon Marzouk Image 1 of / 10 Caption Close Peninsula woman finds vibrator, $10,000 worth of damage after Airbnb guest stays at her house 1 / 10 Back to Gallery

Sharon Marzouk confronted what looked like a bad scene out of a porn film last Friday at her Menlo Park home where she was renting a bedroom to an Airbnb guest.

When Marzouk walked through the door, she says she found water trickling through the ceiling as the bathtub in the upstairs bathroom was flooding the second floor and pouring into the first.

Marzouk was hit with more surprises inside the bedroom of the Airbnb guest who she claims accidentally forgot to turn off the faucet: a large box of Magnum condoms, a vibrator, a bag full of used tissues, a few pairs of killer high heels, and a hand-written list of "pics" that included items such as "masturbating vid," "bent over green Abercrombie," and "blue and white skirt vibrator."

Marzouk says the guest told her she was a real estate agent after confirming the booking, but when she stepped inside that room last week, she realized this was probably a lie.

"I don't know what she was doing exactly," Marzouk, who started a company providing tech-oriented educational tools to children called TechyKids, said. "I can only make my own conclusions based on what I saw. I believe that she was creating some sort of media at my house. You can make your own conclusions based on the evidence I put out there."

The evidence to which she refers are a series of photos of the scene she included in a Facebook post dated Aug. 6 recounting the incident and shared above.

The flooding resulted in what Marzouk estimates is more than $10,000 in damage to her home, and now she's sharing the experience with media and through social media as she hopes Airbnb will cover the cost of repairs and her time spent dealing with the mess as well as change its systems to better protect hosts.

Marzouk isn't seeking retribution from the guest, whose name she and Airbnb aren't revealing, because she believes Airbnb's systems are to blame for putting her in this fiasco.

On Facebook, Marzouk criticizes Airbnb's "complex" process that requires hosts to dig for a "hidden" box that must be clicked to ensure they rent only to guests who've gone through a verification process, which includes providing a digital copy of a government-issued ID and links to social pages revealing information such as a guest's profession.

Marzouk assumed Airbnb verifies all guests, and didn't know she needed to take an extra step to select this setting. As a result, her account was set at Airbnb's default, which allows you to confirm guests who haven't gone through the Verified ID process.

"If I had known that Airbnb hadn't done the proper verification, I would have verified [the guest's] place of work," Marzouk says. "People don't know about Airbnb's hidden settings that you have to click through and find. They never give anyone a warning. There are no red flags. You even have to do an extra click to find out what Verified ID is."

She adds: "In my opinion, this isn't accidental design. They should do their do diligence and make sure they're connecting people safely."

According to Airbnb, this was a unique situation among the more than 100 million hosts who've used the service and had positive experiences.

"We have zero tolerance for this kind of behavior and have removed this guest from our platform," an Airbnb spokesperson wrote in a statement. "We are working to support this host under our $1 million host guarantee."

Marzouk says she has spoken with an Airbnb claims agent about covering the cost of damage, and her concerns are under management review. But in addition to money, Marzouk wants to see Airbnb make information about its Verified ID process more visible on the site.

In an email statement, Airbnb shared that the company has safeguards in place to prevent troublesome hosts and guests.

"For United States residents, we run host and guest information through several public databases to check if there are matches with certain felony convictions, sex offender registrations,

or significant misdemeanors," a spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also pointed out that Airbnb allows hosts to use the Verified ID process, but didn't comment on how prominent that feature is on the company's website.