The owner stopped in the doorway, breathing hard, and pointed at the towel covering the device. “You idiots, this is a smoke detector camera aimed at the hallway, not the bed!” My husband immediately stepped between us and demanded to know why any camera was inside the bedroom at all. The owner’s face changed. He explained that the device had supposedly been installed after several break-ins and that it only monitored the entrance. I didn’t care. The listing had never mentioned an indoor camera, and from where it was mounted, the lens could clearly see part of the room.

Then my husband noticed something even worse. The owner had unlocked the front door at two in the morning without knocking first. We asked why he had entered our rental while we were sleeping. He claimed he received an alert saying the camera had gone offline and feared someone was tampering with the property. That explanation only made everything more disturbing. If covering the device triggered an alert immediately, then someone had obviously been monitoring its status in real time.

We packed our bags while the owner argued that we were overreacting. Before leaving, my husband photographed the camera, its position, the listing, and every message exchanged with the host. We also called local authorities and reported what had happened. The officer who arrived told us not to touch the device further and documented where it was installed. We contacted Airbnb support from the car and sent them the photos, explaining that the undisclosed device was inside a sleeping area and that the host had entered without permission.

By sunrise, we were in a hotel. The reservation was refunded while the property was reviewed, and the host’s listing disappeared shortly afterward.

The strangest part wasn’t finding the camera.

It was realizing that covering it for less than two hours was enough to make the owner personally unlock our door in the middle of the night.