‘Leave or else.’ Vrbo renters wake up to threats and slashed tires at California home
A group of friends renting a vacation home in California was met with a menacing message that let them know they weren’t welcome.
Alana Harrison, from Kansas, said she and her friends booked a rental home on Vrbo. They hoped to enjoy a peaceful trip going wine tasting in Green Valley, California for one of their birthdays, ABC 10 reported.
But the group of 11 was startled the next morning, Oct. 9, when they discovered that all four tires on their van were slashed. They also found a message spray painted on one of the garage doors.
“This is your final warning. The tribe has spoken. Leave or else,” one of the doors said, SFist reported.
On the other door was another foreboding message, according to SFist: “You have no idea who live on this mountain. Do not underestimate our people!”
“I was so freaked out. This house is in a cul-de-sac and we were like, how did people even know?” Harrison told ABC 10.
It’s not known who slashed the van’s tires or spray painted the messages. But Cliff Neal, a neighbor who captured surveillance video of the individual who spray painted the house and slashed the guests’ tires, told ABC 10 that the person approached the home around 1 a.m. and left 17 minutes later. He did not recognize the suspect.
The Solano County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to McClatchy News request for comment.
Vrbo said in a statement to McClatchy News that the company has now removed the listing from its website.
“The host has refunded the guests in full and, as a gesture of goodwill, we’re reimbursing these guests for the additional cost incurred when they rebooked the property for the rest of their stay,” the company said.
Harrison and her friends had unwittingly found themselves in the crossfire of a neighborhood debate over whether short-term rentals should be allowed to operate in the neighborhood. The couple who owned the house did not have a permit to rent it out, and short-term rentals are/a contentious topic in the area, ABC 7 reported.
Some residents are against short-term rentals because of concerns that the homes would have too many guests, that guests would disturb neighbors in the area, and that rentals would be unhosted — in other words, that the owners of the home would not be there when guests were, according to the Daily Republic.
“It’s concerns about the impact on your neighborhoods, property values, fire risk. Those are the main concerns we’re hearing,” Solano County Supervisor James Spering told ABC 7.
Neal said that there were a variety of problems with the use of the home as a short-term rental, including “late-night noise and trash left behind,” ABC 10 reported. But he also disapproved of what happened to the recent guests.
“It’s appalling. There’s no one that can justify spray painting and pumping tires,” Neal told ABC 7.
Harrison and her friends found the incident strange and felt inconvenienced by the wrench thrown into their trip.
“I just learned, be very diligent to look at the property you’re staying at,” Harrison told ABC 7. “Don’t just go off the reviews alone.”
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