Woman sues Airbnb, claiming sexual assault by ‘Superhost’
Updated 3:41 pm, Friday, July 28, 2017
A Bay Area woman rents her Palm Springs condo out to a guy for a little over a month. Then he not only won't go, but he threatens to sue her!
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A Menlo Park woman did not get good vibrations from this rental. She came home to find what looked like a bad scene from a porn film and an overflowing bathtub. But her real anger wasn't at the guest, but at Airbnb's systems, which she blames for the fiasco.
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... moreA 51-year-old woman from Santa Fe, N.M, on Thursday sued Airbnb, claiming the San Francisco short-term rentals marketplace did not properly vet one of its hosts, who allegedly sexually assaulted her and held her against her will.
The woman, Leslie Lapayowker, said in the complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court that Airbnb “creates a false sense of security to its lessors and lessees.”
Though the legal action appears to be the first of its kind against Airbnb — at least in the United States — it is the latest in a line of lawsuits questioning just how responsible the company must be for the conduct of its hosts and guests. The consequences are occasionally dire. In 2016, Airbnb did not admit fault after four friends fell from a second-story flat in England, leading to extensive injuries, the Guardian reported.
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Lapayowker’s lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages and legal fees, also names the man she said locked her inside a room in his Los Angeles studio she booked through the service in July 2016. The man pushed her into an Ikea armchair, pulled down his pants and began masturbating, she said.
The man then allegedly forced her to kiss him and, when he finally let her go, asked for a “positive review on Airbnb” as a parting comment, she said.
Lapayowker said the assault derailed her life, prompting her to move to Santa Fe, N.M., after she lost her high-paying mortgage job in Beverly Hills because she could not cope with what happened to her.
“I don’t want this happening to somebody else, you know, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, somebody’s wife,” she said. “It’s not about me. And me, personally? I need so much therapy. I’m still in such a bad place.”
Nick Shapiro, Airbnb’s global head of trust and risk management, said in a statement that the “abhorrent behavior described has no place in our community and we will not tolerate it. We have been trying to support her in any way we can and we will continue to do so.” The host has been removed from the service, he said.
In the suit, Lapayowker’s San Francisco lawyer, Teresa Li, claims that the rental-sharing behemoth “does not perform background checks on its lessors or lessees.”
According to Li, a representative from Airbnb told her client that the company had failed to perform a background check in the case of the man accused of sexual assault.
“They knowingly send the sheep into the lion’s den — and charge for it,” Li said of Airbnb.
Shapiro said that the company hosts and guests in the United States must pass a background check as a requirement to use the service. The company requires a first and last name, as well as a date of birth when people sign up as guests or hosts.
The man, who did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment, did not face charges. In an interview, Lapayowker said she had pushed the district attorney in Los Angeles to charge the case.
In an earlier incident involving a battery allegation in Florida in 2013 for which he was arrested, the man avoided charges through a first-time offender program, Li said.
On its website, the company outlines its policies and standards around safety when it comes to hosting, prominently featuring the slogan “Trust is what makes it work.”
Lapayowker said that the man who sexually assaulted her had been designated as a “Superhost,” a benchmark for highly rated hosts. That’s why, she said, she was not concerned with booking the Los Angeles residence with the man for an entire month.
But the 30-day booking, for a total of $2,541, quickly unraveled, she said. The man allegedly starting making “sexually suggestive” comments to Lapayowker.
Lapayowker left only three days into her month-long stay, after the man started using drugs in the open, “pounding” on her windshield as she sat near the residence in her car and screaming at his underage son all the while.
Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michael_bodley
