Is This Airbnb Haunted or Just Scary?

After leaving her Airbnb rental early to stay at a Hilton hotel, a woman posted a viral TikTok telling viewers she discovered unusual signs in the rental.

Emily (@emilypfaithpresents) reached over 89,000 views on her video “Airbnb Nightmare” in response to a previous comment made by Hilton.

While staying at the Hilton, Emily posted a video of herself lying in bed with the caption: “I’m not just staying at a Hilton because I want to be… I’m staying at a Hilton because when we got back to our Airbnb after dinner, ‘get out’ was written in Scrabble letters on our fridge.”

Hilton left a comment that read: “STOP! Ok, we’re sitting down for the story ASAP! Glad you’re all safe.”

What happened?

In her video, Emily begins by thanking the Salt Lake Hilton for allowing her group to check into the hotel in the middle of the night.

Emily says the first thing her group noticed when they arrived at the Airbnb was the smell of cat urine. She says they also noticed that the rental’s gardeners lived in a basement around the corner.

“So it’s not a house for just us like we thought it would be,” she says. “We thought, ‘This is weird. … The vibe is not right.’”

Emily says the house was generally a bit dirty, but they didn’t pay attention to it because she had read the reviews of the house before booking. However, she says the group decided to check the reviews one more time to see if they had missed anything.

What do the critics say?

She says they found a few women who stayed alone in the house and left comments saying they felt a little “weird” but decided not to worry about it.

Then Emily says one of her friends started whispering because she felt like someone was listening to them conversing in the house, but she couldn’t explain why she felt that way.

“At dinner, we talk… It’s scary,” Emily says, but she insists she believes it’s “just in our imagination; it’s no big deal.”

Emily says that when they came back from dinner, before they opened the door, the first problem they noticed was that none of the lights were coming on. “We’re doing something weird, like we’re fooling ourselves,” she adds, mentioning that her group was debating whether they had already turned the lights off or turned them on.

She says that once the door was open, she turned to her friends and said, “Don’t close that door. I’ve seen way too many horror movies. Don’t close that door.” Emily adds that the only way to lock the door was to use a keypad code, which the guards next door also had access to.

She says she decided to go deeper into the house and was lucky enough to find a few lights to turn on. That’s when one of her friends started whispering again that she felt like someone was listening to her.

“All of a sudden, we felt like there was a bang coming from the basement on the floor, so we panicked again,” she continues. Despite the signs, Emily says the group decided not to worry and got ready for bed.

“I put on my pajamas… and then all of a sudden I hear my friend say, ‘Guys, who did this?’” she explains.

Who did what?

Emily says the group followed her friend into the kitchen and discovered the fridge had a surprising message written with magnetic Scrabble pieces. She adds that each person had looked at the Scrabble pieces when they arrived but hadn’t noticed the message before.

“Who wrote ‘Get Out’ on the Scrabble board?” Emily asked, according to her friend. “Really admit it. We freaked out. Tell us right now who did it.”

She says they started panicking for about two minutes, trying to figure out who had written the message. They finally came to the conclusion that none of them had written the message.

“Because I’m in fight, flight or freeze mode,” Emily explains, “I immediately start packing. … I need to get out of here. That’s what the message says. I’m going to listen to it.”

What happened after she heeded the warning?

She said she started calling hotels to find the closest, cheapest place that would accept them without notice.

Luckily, the nearest Hilton hotel had reservations open and was available to accommodate Emily and her group for the night. However, she tells viewers that the drive to the hotel turned out to be “the scariest part.”

“On the way to the hotel, we stopped at a red light,” she begins. “I looked to my right and saw a sign that said ‘Get Out Gym.’ It was a fitness place.”

Shocked by the sign for the gym, Emily said she thought, “You didn’t have to tell me twice. You’ve already told me twice: I’m leaving.”

“Needless to say, I never want to go back to Salt Lake City. I think it’s haunted,” she adds. “Thank you, Airbnb. We filed a complaint… and they paid for our hotel room.” She also mentions that she didn’t speak to the owners and went directly to Airbnb to file her complaint.

Before ending her video, she asks viewers: “Do you think it was a prank? Do you think it was a ghost? Do you think it was actually there before? Do you think there was someone held captive in the basement?”

@emilypfaithpresents In reply to @hilton ♬ original sound – emilypfaithpresents

“I would honestly call the police and have them do some sort of health check on the people living there,” one user told Emily in the comments section.

One viewer thinks: “They make you book, then scare you into not staying and maybe they just collect money if people don’t complain?”

What should you do if you feel threatened while staying at an Airbnb?

Airbnb states that if you find yourself in an emergency situation where your personal safety is at risk, “contact local police or emergency services immediately.” If you don’t know the phone numbers for local emergency services, Airbnb has provided emergency service phone numbers for you.

The Daily Dot reached out to Emily via email and TikTok and Airbnb for comment.

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