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Airbnb host filmed threatening to ‘smack’ guest in face [1]

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Date: 2023-01

An Airbnb host was caught on camera threatening to “smack” a woman in the face and calling her a ‘prostitute’ before telling her no one would believe her if she complained.

In the shocking video, seen by openDemocracy, the landlord says: “Film me and I’ll take that phone and smack it around your fucking jaw.”

Yet despite complaints to Airbnb and local police, the man has faced no sanction more than four months on. When contacted by openDemocracy, Airbnb claimed it had suspended the listing, but several others from the same landlord – including one in the same building – are still available to book as of 6 January.

The woman and her cousin, both of whom asked openDemocracy not to name them for fear of reprisals, were staying at the flat in Somerset, in the south-west of England, over the summer.

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At the end of August they say they received a phone call from the landlord threatening to physically attack them unless they left.

One of the women, Mary,* told openDemocracy she didn’t know who she was speaking to at first. “I asked him who it was and he said he was the ‘fucking landlord’, and that we were prostitutes running a business from [his] flat,” she claimed.

Shortly after the phone call on 31 August, the landlord let himself into the flat, where the women allege he threatened them again, made racist remarks and pinned one of them against the wall. Fearing for their safety, they began filming him.

He told them: “I’m not arguing with you. You are prostitutes operating from this apartment.” He went on to say he had seen men visiting the flat and accused the women of running an escort service there.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/airbnb-host-smack-guest-face-somerset/

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