In our rental, I spotted a blue glow peeking out from behind a painting above the bed. My husband lifted it: a blinking device taped to the wall.
We took our bags and ran. I wrote a review on our way to warn others.
Minutes later, a message pops up on my phone: “Congrats, you just ruined everything.”

I blinked at the screen. My hands were shaking so hard I nearly dropped my phone. The message came from an anonymous number. No name. No profile picture. Just that creepy line.

“Did you see this?” I asked Sajan, shoving my phone toward him as we sat on a curb outside a gas station a few miles from the rental.

He stared at it, then exhaled slowly. “We need to report this. Like… really report it.”

We had already called the Airbnb helpline during our panicked drive. They opened a “case” and said they’d escalate it. But this message—it felt personal. Like someone was watching.

I reread my review. I’d kept it factual: “Camera found behind artwork. Taped to wall, blinking red. We left immediately. Be careful.” I hadn’t said anything inflammatory. No ranting. Just the truth.

Sajan opened the Uber app. “Let’s get to a hotel. We’ll figure out next steps in daylight.”

But that night, in a Marriott off the freeway, we barely slept.

Sajan and I weren’t exactly seasoned travelers. This trip was a belated honeymoon—three years late, thanks to COVID, student loans, and his mom’s surgery. We’d finally saved enough for a weeklong trip to California, road-tripping down the coast.

The Airbnb we found in Santa Cruz looked charming: a little guesthouse tucked behind a larger home, with string lights, a garden path, and high reviews. We’d only been there two hours before everything spiraled.

The camera was tiny, barely the size of a lighter. It was nestled in the corner behind a painting of a lighthouse. A tiny red light blinked at us in the dim room. It could’ve gone unnoticed if I hadn’t dropped my phone charger behind the nightstand and stooped to grab it.

The painting looked slightly crooked.

Instinct made me pull it back. And there it was.

The next morning, we got a call from a woman named Renee at Airbnb. She was polite but clearly reading from a script.

“We take safety very seriously,” she said. “We are conducting an internal investigation and may need additional information. Did you take any photos of the device?”

Sajan had. He emailed them over.

They told us not to contact the host and promised to refund our booking. I asked if they’d contact the police.

“That’s up to you,” Renee said, her voice softening. “We can’t file for you.”

So we did. We went to the Santa Cruz Police Department with the photos and the address. The officer on duty jotted everything down, asked a few questions, and said someone would follow up.

Honestly? We didn’t expect much.

We moved on with our trip, staying in hotels from then on. I tried to let it go. But every time I posted a photo from our trip—on Instagram or even just a Story—I’d get weird DMs.
Most were just dots. Sometimes a random “?”
Once, someone sent a clip of me walking on the Santa Cruz boardwalk.

It was from behind.

The angle was too far to make out details. But I recognized my dress. My bag. It was me. That exact day.

“Delete your socials,” Sajan said one night as we sat in the hotel parking lot, eating takeout from the back of the car. “At least for now. Please.”

I did. But something still felt off. I started noticing the same blue Toyota Corolla parked near us at different stops. First outside the beach motel in Monterey. Then in a grocery store lot in Morro Bay. Sajan tried to convince me it was coincidence. I wanted to believe him.

It all came to a head in Santa Barbara.

We had just checked into a Best Western. As we walked back from dinner, laughing over something dumb, I saw the Corolla parked two rows down in the lot.
This time, someone was sitting inside.

A man. Wearing sunglasses, even though it was 9 p.m.

I froze. “That’s him,” I whispered.

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

Sajan didn’t argue. He grabbed my hand and we walked straight past the car, then ducked around the building and re-entered through the side. We told the front desk and called the cops again. By the time officers arrived, the car was gone.

Back in our room, Sajan locked the door and wedged a chair under the handle. Neither of us slept.

The next morning, I found an envelope slipped under our door.

No name. No return address.

Inside: a photo. Of our wedding.

It wasn’t online. It wasn’t even from our official photographer. It was one my aunt took, from the side, showing me adjusting my earring while Sajan looked off into the distance.

The message written on the back:
“You should’ve stayed quiet.”

We cut the trip short and flew home.

By then, Airbnb had quietly removed the listing. I couldn’t find it on the site anymore. But no one ever told us what happened to the host. No police followed up. It all just… faded into silence.

Until two months later.

I got a call from an unfamiliar number. For some reason, I picked up.

“Hi, is this Palavi Sinha?”
“Yes.”
“This is Officer McClellan with the Monterey County Sheriff’s Department. Are you available to speak about an active investigation?”

I sat down on the floor. My knees gave out.

The officer told me that I wasn’t the only one.

Turns out, the “host” of the Airbnb wasn’t even the actual property owner. The real homeowner lived abroad and had left the place in the care of a property manager—his nephew, named Arlen. Arlen had been subletting it illegally as an Airbnb for almost a year.

And he’d installed multiple hidden cameras. Not just in our unit, but in the bathroom vent. In the smoke detector. Even one behind a mirror.

At least six other guests had come forward after I posted that review. My message had triggered the domino.

One of them, a retired teacher from Fresno, had recognized a guy who’d followed her home from the trip—and identified him in a photo lineup.

Arlen had been arrested three days earlier.

I cried.

It wasn’t relief, exactly. More like everything I’d been holding back collapsed at once. The fear, the gaslighting I did to myself, the paranoia. All of it suddenly justified.

The officer thanked me for my help and said I might be contacted again if the case went to trial. Then he paused and said, “One more thing. That anonymous number that messaged you? We traced it. It was Arlen.”

My blood ran cold.

“He admitted to using multiple fake accounts and burner phones. Said you ‘ruined his system.’ That’s a quote.”

I hung up and just sat there, stunned.

Sajan walked in from work twenty minutes later and found me curled up on the kitchen floor.

In the months that followed, I joined a small group chat with some of the other victims. All women. All had found the cameras in different ways—one because she was cleaning the vent herself. Another only found out after her boyfriend grew suspicious and did a sweep.

One woman, Margaux, had been filmed three times across different trips. Once with her kids in the room.

Airbnb eventually reached out offering settlements, NDAs, the works. Some women took it. Others refused. I didn’t sign.

Instead, I shared my experience in a longer post on Facebook, using screenshots, dates, even part of the police report. I didn’t name Arlen directly, but I told enough truth to warn people. The post went viral.

Thousands of comments. Hundreds of messages.

Most supportive.

But a few made me sick. “Should’ve checked the place better.” “Bet you staged it for attention.” “Women always exaggerating.”

Still, it didn’t matter. The story had legs.

People needed to know this could happen. That it was happening. Not in sketchy hotels, but in cozy Airbnbs with twinkly lights and handwritten welcome signs.

Six months later, we got a package in the mail. No return address again.

But this time, it wasn’t a threat.

It was a small photo album, wrapped in brown paper. Inside were printed screenshots of my Facebook post, a few of the viral comments, and then—handwritten notes.

All from women.

One wrote: “Because of you, I bought a camera detector before my trip.”
Another: “I recognized the same painting from your photos. I canceled my stay. Thank you.”
And one just said: “You saved my daughter.”

I don’t know who sent the album. Maybe one of the other victims. Maybe someone who saw the post. But I keep it in my nightstand, next to my passport and my old wedding jewelry.

It reminds me that one terrified decision—to speak up when I wanted to shrink away—mattered.

We still travel now, but differently.

We stay in hotels with good security. We pack a camera scanner. We double-check everything—vents, smoke detectors, wall art.

It might sound paranoid to some.

But if you’ve ever felt your skin crawl from a lens pointed at you in a place you thought was safe, you get it.

And I’ll tell you something else.

Sajan and I? We’re stronger than ever. That trip, as cursed as it felt, made us a team in a way nothing else had. He believed me when I doubted myself. He never once told me to drop it.

I learned that protecting your peace sometimes means making noise.

Sometimes it means being “the difficult guest.”

Sometimes it means ruining someone’s sick little setup.

And if I had to do it again, I’d still rip that painting off the wall.

Even faster this time.

If this ever happens to you—speak up. Don’t second-guess your gut.
And please, share this with someone who travels alone. It might save them too.