The world is a scary place.
That is besides all of the internal things that are out to get us, like fear turned crippling anxiety or the existential crisis that is inevitably getting old and having to deal with all of that, just to name a few.
But there’s also all of the externals. I’m not talking about the obvious ones. No daylight muggings, no car crashes, no random raccoon attacks. Nope. This is even more subtle than that.
I’m talking about someone messing with your food. Well, not yours, per se, but definitely food that was handed to you as a gesture of welcome to an Airbnb. But the catch here is it tastes funny. And upon further investigation, you find out that it’s not actually meat spaghetti that you’re munching on, but dog food spaghetti. Buon appetito!
More Info: TikTok
You think your waiter meddling with your food is bad enough? How about dog food as the meat on pasta?
Image credits: msmysteryjones
So, a former employee of Airbnb, Kendall Marie, a.k.a. MsMysteryJones, has recently stumbled upon a video discussing her former employer. Long story short, it’s about how it became the very thing it swore never to be.
But what Kendall actually did was stitch the video to share a horror story of sorts. You see, she used to work at a call center that serviced Airbnb. She one day received a call from one of their hosts’ guests.
The call started off pretty standard. Apparently, the lady that the guest was staying with had the venue marked as “private” when it was actually a “shared space”. Something that can be easily cleared up.
A former Airbnb employee shared her favorite customer service horror story which included spaghetti laced with dog food
Image credits: msmysteryjones
But the call turned really bizarre when the guest explained that this host had a “welcome spaghetti” thing going where she offered minced meat spaghetti as a gesture of gratitude for choosing her home.
How? Well, no, it wasn’t that the spaghetti wasn’t gluten-free or that the meat wasn’t vegan-friendly or something, no. Something actually tasted quite off about it.
So, the guests decided they’d do a little detective work and checked the trash for what was actually used to cook the dish. They couldn’t find any evidence to support the claim of meat being used. However, they found all of the evidence to support one of the main ingredients—dog food. Yep. That happened. Allegedly.
The dish in question was called "welcome spaghetti" and it had surprisingly good reviews on the host's Airbnb page
Image credits: msmysteryjones
You can check out the now-viral video below
Image credits: Marco Verch Professional Photographer (not the actual photo)
And while one should not joke at the expense of another person’s misfortune, it is still funny to note that this Airbnb had raving reviews praising the “welcome spaghetti”. Kendall, however, thought it was traumatizing.
The video inspired several directions of comments, with the first and foremost being all the things that Airbnb does wrong or the ways it has wronged its clientele. Kendall does address some of this in another one of her videos, but that’s a topic for another day.
But others thought this was a tad bit shady as, #1, why is minced meat canned?, which Kendall elaborated on as she had to somehow justify this reimbursement; #2, finding a can of dog food in the trash isn’t proof, but remember that it was a shared space, so the food was most likely prepared then and there, so the evidence had to be there, right?; and #3, why would you take food from strangers?
For the most part, folks shared their frustrations with Airbnb, but there were also skeptics as well as jokers in the comments
Whatever the case, the video, as of this article, got over 800,000 views, with a bit over 95,000 likes. Besides that, the story made some headlines on the internet here and there.
Kendall continued responding to folks’ comments in video form, but the video that’s worth mentioning, since we’re on the topic, is tips that help folks as guests if something goes awry in their Airbnbs.
Keep communication “on the platform”. This means to try and keep all of the communication using the Airbnb website and app. And if the host is ghosting you, this would help Airbnb make a better judgment and kick their butts about it.
Also, don’t try to pay the host using outside means, so no Venmo, no cash, no nothing. Keep all of the financials inside the Airbnb system, because otherwise, Airbnb won’t be able to help you. Besides, hosts are not allowed to ask for money off the platform. And they know about this.
You can check out the full video here, or you can check out the other videos Kendall posted on the topic here. But before you go anywhere, like to this article about tips on how to stay safe in a hotel room, we’d like you to share your thoughts in the dedicated commentary section found below this very article.