Guest finds hidden camera inside smoke detector at Airbnb
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KATV) - An Arkansas family is suing Airbnb after finding a camera hidden in a smoke detector on one of their trips.
“I looked at my wife and I said, ‘That’s a damn video camera,’” Eliot Young ed. “And she thought I was crazy and said I was paranoid.”
Young, his wife and their two teen sons flew to Scottsdale, Arizona, for MLB spring training, rest and relaxation last year.
But Young says after unpacking and lying down, the smoke detector right over the bed made him uneasy.
After a Google search the next morning, Young found the exact same smoke detector with a hidden camera online.
“I reached up, pulled the camera down and confirmed it had an SD card slot. It was Wi-Fi accessible,” Young said.
Young put the SD card into the computer to try and remove images of him and his wife, but his mind started racing after viewing the explicit clips he discovered.
“What if it streamed to his computer? What if he’s accessing this, watching us remotely, which prompted me to call the police, and then they said someone would be in with us in a few days,” Young said.
A statement from Airbnb regarding Young’s complaint reads, “Hidden cameras have always been and will always be banned on Airbnb. We ed the guest and suspended the host from the platform last year. And we stand ready to assist law enforcement.”
Scottsdale police also provided a statement.
“Their short-term rental department cited the homeowner for vacation rental license required and vacation rental failure to respond to emergency,” the law enforcement agency said.
Police are calling this specific case a civil violation since the original male who found the SD card was not on the videos.
“It makes me suspicious to stay anywhere, not just at an Airbnb or anywhere outside of my home. I feel like you’re always being watched,” Young said.
Neither Young nor any of his family were victims or on any of the secretive recordings found on the SD card, police said. Only previous Airbnb guests were.
“If you’re a criminal, if you have a criminal mindset to put a camera above a bed, and what would keep them from photographing an area of the house geared towards children?” Young asked.
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