While staying in our rental, I noticed a faint blue glow coming from behind a painting above the bed. My husband lifted it, revealing a blinking device taped to the wall.
We grabbed our bags and ran. As we left, I quickly wrote a review to warn others.
Minutes later, my phone buzzed with a message: “Congrats, you just ruined everything.”
I froze. My hands shook so much I almost dropped my phone. The message was from an unknown number—no name, no profile picture. Just those chilling words.
“Did you see this?” I asked Sajan, thrusting my phone toward him as we sat on a curb outside a gas station, miles away from the rental.
He read it, exhaled slowly, and said, “We need to report this. Like, really report it.”
We had already called Airbnb’s helpline during our frantic drive. They opened a “case” and said they’d escalate it, but this message felt personal—like someone was watching us.
I reread my review. It was factual, no ranting—just the truth: “Camera found behind artwork. Taped to wall, blinking red. We left immediately. Be careful.”
Sajan opened the Uber app. “Let’s get a hotel. We’ll figure this out in the morning.”
But that night, in a Marriott off the freeway, we barely slept.
Sajan and I were hardly seasoned travelers. This was our delayed honeymoon—three years late, thanks to COVID, student loans, and his mom’s surgery. We had finally saved enough for a road trip down the California coast.
The Airbnb in Santa Cruz looked charming: a little guesthouse tucked behind a larger home, with string lights, a garden path, and great reviews. It only took two hours for everything to spiral.
The camera was tiny—barely the size of a lighter—and nestled in the corner behind a painting of a lighthouse. A red light blinked in the dim room. It might’ve gone unnoticed if I hadn’t dropped my phone charger behind the nightstand and stooped to pick it up.
The painting looked slightly off-center.
Instinctively, I pulled it back. And there it was.
The next morning, Airbnb called. A woman named Renee was polite, but I could tell she was reading from a script.
“We take safety very seriously,” she said. “We’re conducting an internal investigation and may need more information. Did you take any photos of the device?”
Sajan had, and he emailed them over.
They assured us not to contact the host and promised a refund. I asked if they’d contact the police.
“That’s up to you,” Renee said, her tone softening. “We can’t file for you.”
So, we did. We went to the Santa Cruz Police Department, handed over the photos, and gave them the address. The officer on duty jotted down the details, asked a few questions, and said someone would follow up.
Honestly, we didn’t expect much.
We moved on with our trip, staying in hotels from then on. I tried to put it out of my mind, but every time I posted a photo or story from our trip, I’d get strange DMs.
Most were just dots. Some had a random “?” attached. Once, someone sent a clip of me walking along the Santa Cruz boardwalk.
From behind.
The angle was too distant to make out any real details. But I recognized my dress. My bag. It was me—on that exact day.
“Delete your socials,” Sajan urged one night as we sat in a hotel parking lot, eating takeout from the back of the car. “At least for now. Please.”
I complied, but something still felt wrong. I began to notice a blue Toyota Corolla parked near us at different stops. First, outside a beach motel in Monterey. Then in a grocery store lot in Morro Bay. Sajan tried to convince me it was just a coincidence. I wanted to believe him.
Then, it all came to a head in Santa Barbara.
We had just checked into a Best Western. As we walked back from dinner, laughing about something silly, I saw the Corolla parked two rows down in the lot.
This time, someone was sitting inside.
A man. Wearing sunglasses—even though it was 9 p.m.
I froze. “That’s him,” I whispered.
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
Sajan didn’t question me. He grabbed my hand, and we walked straight past the car, then ducked around the building to enter through the side. We informed the front desk and called the cops again. By the time officers arrived, the car was gone.
Back in our room, Sajan locked the door and wedged a chair under the handle. Neither of us slept.
The next morning, I found an envelope slipped under our door.
No name. No return address.
Inside, there was a photo of our wedding.
It wasn’t online. Not from our official photographer. It was one my aunt had taken, showing me adjusting my earring while Sajan looked off into the distance.
Written on the back:
“You should’ve stayed quiet.”
We cut our trip short and flew home.
By then, Airbnb had quietly removed the listing. I couldn’t find it anymore. But no one ever told us what happened to the host. No police followed up. Everything just faded into silence.
Until two months later.
I got a call from an unfamiliar number. I don’t know why I picked up.
“Hi, is this Palavi Sinha?”
“Yes.”
“This is Officer McClellan from the Monterey County Sheriff’s Department. Are you available to speak about an active investigation?”
I sank to the floor. My knees gave way.
The officer explained I wasn’t the only one.
The Airbnb host wasn’t the actual property owner. The real homeowner lived abroad and had left the place in the care of a property manager—his nephew, Arlen. Arlen had been subletting it illegally as an Airbnb for nearly a year.
And he’d installed multiple hidden cameras. Not just in our unit, but in the bathroom vent, the smoke detector, even behind a mirror.
At least six other guests had come forward after my review went viral. My post had triggered the domino effect.
One of those guests, a retired teacher from Fresno, had recognized a man who’d followed her home from the trip and identified him in a photo lineup.
Arlen had been arrested three days earlier.
I cried. Not from relief, exactly. More like all the fear, self-doubt, and paranoia I’d been carrying collapsed at once. Suddenly, it all made sense.
The officer thanked me for my help and mentioned I might be contacted if the case went to trial. Then he paused and added, “One more thing. The anonymous number that messaged you? We traced it. It was Arlen.”
My blood went cold.
“He admitted to using multiple fake accounts and burner phones. He said you ‘ruined his system.’ That’s a quote.”
I hung up, utterly stunned.
Sajan came in from work twenty minutes later and found me curled up on the kitchen floor.
In the months that followed, I joined a small group chat with other victims—all women—who had found cameras in various ways. One found a camera while cleaning a vent herself. Another discovered it when her boyfriend did a sweep.
One woman, Margaux, had been filmed three times across different trips—once even with her kids in the room.
Airbnb eventually offered settlements and NDAs. Some women took them. Others refused. I didn’t sign.
Instead, I shared my experience on Facebook in a longer post, with screenshots, dates, and part of the police report. I didn’t name Arlen directly, but I told enough of the truth to warn people. The post went viral.
Thousands of comments. Hundreds of messages.
Most were supportive.
But some made me sick: “Should’ve checked the place better.” “Bet you staged it for attention.” “Women always exaggerate.”
Still, it didn’t matter. The story had spread.
People needed to know that this could happen—not just in sketchy hotels, but in cozy Airbnbs with twinkly lights and handwritten welcome signs.
Six months later, we received a package in the mail. No return address.
This time, it wasn’t a threat.
It was a small photo album, wrapped in brown paper. Inside, there were printed screenshots of my viral post, a few of the comments, and handwritten notes.
All from women.
One wrote: “Because of you, I bought a camera detector before my trip.”
Another: “I recognized the same painting from your photos. I canceled my stay. Thank you.”
And one simply said: “You saved my daughter.”
I don’t know who sent the album. Maybe one of the other victims. Maybe someone who saw my post. But I keep it in my nightstand, next to my passport and my old wedding jewelry.
It’s a reminder that one terrified decision—to speak up when I wanted to hide—mattered.
We still travel, but we do it differently.
We stay in hotels with good security. We pack a camera scanner. We double-check everything—vents, smoke detectors, and wall art.
It might sound paranoid to some.
But if you’ve ever felt the chill of a lens pointed at you in a place you thought was safe, you get it.
And you know what else?
Sajan and I? We’re stronger than ever. That trip, as cursed as it seemed, brought us closer than anything else had. He believed in me when I doubted myself. He never once told me to let it go.
I’ve learned that protecting your peace sometimes means making noise.
Sometimes it means being “the difficult guest.”
Sometimes it means ruining someone’s sick