A devastated Airbnb host has shared her ‘nightmare’ experience of ‘becoming homeless and $300,000 in debt after reckless guests flooded her home with sewage earlier this year. 

Expectant mother Erika Gemzer is demanding answers from the staycation company after visitors clogged her toilet and fled, leaving behind ‘a literal s***storm’ which flooded all three levels of her San Francisco home with wastewater. 

Gemzer shared details of her horrific April ordeal on X, formerly known as Twitter, as she grapples with mountains of debt, which she says Airbnb has done little to help with over the past seven months.

The Google employee, who also runs her own tech advisory business called Pocket Board, said she used her life savings to buy a two-unit home in the Golden City.   

She lived in the lower unit with her husband, rescue dog, and tabby cat, while renting the ‘larger, fancier upper unit’ to guests via Airbnb. 

Expectant mother Erika Gemzer (pictured) is demanding answers from the staycation company after visitors clogged her toilet and fled, leaving behind ‘a literal s***storm’ that flooded all three levels of her San Francisco home with wastewater

Gemzer said the enterprise turned sour on April 14, when she awoke to the sinister sound of dripping water despite it being a clear, dry day – after their upstairs guest checked out early with ‘no warning’

Gemzer shared photographs of the devastation, including a room full of expensive-looking power tools flooded with excrement-filled water and fluid running down her walls

Gemzer said the enterprise turned sour on April 14, when she awoke to the sinister sound of dripping water despite it being a clear, dry day – after their upstairs guest checked out early with ‘no warning.’

‘I jumped out of bed and ran into the hallway,’ she stated. ‘Waterfalls were pouring from the ceiling and light fixtures.’ 

Gemzer said the dripping was caused by carnage in the bathroom upstairs – where the guest had ‘clogged the toilet with baby wipes and human waste’ and ‘damaged the valve that manages water flow’ before fleeing. 

‘The water kept running from the tank, to the bowl, over the bowl, and into the flat, nonstop for 15+ hours,’ said Gemzer, who was 12 weeks pregnant at the time. 

‘I had gone to bed (the night before) at a normal hour, dealing with ungodly pregnancy nausea and with no idea that the unit above was flooding. 

‘Then I woke up to a nightmare: a literal shitstorm in my own house, flooding all three levels of the building that I bought with my life savings. And remember – it’s fecal water.’

Gemzer shared photographs of the devastation, including a room full of expensive-looking power tools flooded with excrement-filled water and fluid running down her walls.

The desperate host called Airbnb, who advised her to file a claim against the guest for the full amount – and if they rejected the request, to create a case for Host Damage Protection. 

The Google employee, who also runs her own tech advisory business called Pocket Board, said she used her life savings to buy a two-unit home in the Golden City. She lived in the lower unit with her husband, rescue dog, and tabby cat, while renting the ‘larger, fancier upper unit’ to guests via Airbnb 

 

Gemzer shared details of her horrific ordeal on X, formerly known as Twitter , as she grapples with mountains of debt which she says Airbnb has done little to help with over the past seven months

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‘What kind of support was this?’ she fumed. ‘It was a multi-hundred thousand dollar, multi-month home destruction and rebuild project. There was no way the guest could afford to pay it, and what about that $3M Host AirCover Guarantee?’

Airbnb’s website says this guarantee protects all hosts with $3 million coverage for any damage that exceeds the security deposit. 

‘I watched final drips of water coming down the 120-year-old coffered ceiling, and my brain could barely register what had happened,’ Gemzer said. 

‘The gravity of the situation hit hard. I was homeless, one week after I hit the 12-week pregnancy milestone and started to share the good news.’

Gemzer said she scrambled to relocate her upcoming guests, including one who needed a place to stay while they underwent surgery, before spending ‘dozens of hours’ on the phone with Airbnb and exchanging 93 emails. 

She said the online property marketplace giant eventually agreed to a third-party investigation, which took seven weeks to conclude the toilet clog and damaged valve had caused the carnage. 

But this wasn’t the end of her misery – as Airbnb followed up with an email ‘alluding to some doubt about the origin of the baby wipes and feces’ that caused the blockage, hinting at ‘concerns about maintenance issues.’

Gemzer said her toilet had never had issues before, and Airbnb offered her $6,000 while asking her to ‘sign away’ her ‘rights to future payments.’

She said that after desperately contacting several current and former Airbnb workers for advice, one ex-employee told her about an ‘internal escalation process’ where employees can file an internal bug. 

Gemzer said her baby is due ‘any day now,’ adding she shared her story ‘out of desperation’ in the hope that Airbnb will turn it from a ‘tale of horrific financial ruin to a cliffhanger thriller’ by making things right now

After exchanging dozens more emails with a new case manager, Gemzer was offered $31,000. 

‘If you’re following the math, that’s 10 percent of my total out-of-pocket financial losses to date,’ she said. 

‘Each time they offer a reimbursement, they ask me to sign away my rights to future reimbursement claims, amongst other rights.’

Gemzer said Airbnb told her the $3 million guarantee doesn’t cover the other 90 percent of her losses – including the water bill from the flooding, lost revenue while the unit was unusable, mold testing, demolition and storing her belongings. 

‘I truly cannot imagine that a company like Airbnb intends to leave hosts homeless and otherwise high and dry in their darkest moments,’ she said. 

‘Especially when the source of the hardship was 100% caused by guest damages.’

Gemzer said her baby is due ‘any day now,’ adding she shared her story ‘out of desperation’ in the hope that Airbnb will turn it from a ‘tale of horrific financial ruin to a cliffhanger thriller’ by making things right now. 

She said she has struggled to find long-term housing since being forced out of her home and has had to move multiple times. 

DailyMail.com has contacted Gemzer and Airbnb for comment. Neither party responded in time for this report.