An Airbnb host had the shock of a lifetime when she saw how a group of 23-year-olds left her house after a birthday party. The damage the young women caused in the all-pink home she spent over a decade saving for and a year renovating purportedly cost her $100,000 of damage.
She says the guests didn’t even apologize.
Grace Mattei (@thegracemattei) posted before and after photos of the Los Angeles, California Airbnb earlier this week. The before photos show a perfectly appointed space decorated in various shades of pink. The after pictures look like something out of a war zone.
Mattei’s text overlay reads simply, “4 guests, 23 years old, 1 birthday party, 100,000 of damage caused.”
She captions it, “I’m still so sad.”
Her post has racked up 4.7 million views as of this writing.
How did a birthday party cause $100,000 of damage?
In a follow-up post, Mattei explains what happened to her all-pink Airbnb. She says one of the guests reached out to her beforehand to ask about renting it for her twenty-third birthday.
Mattei allowed the young women to rent it. On their final day, they contacted her.
“The guest reached out and said, ‘Hey we don’t have any water at the house,'” Mattei says.
After some research, she determined that the city had shut off the water due to a break in a main line. She let the guest know and went about her day.
Then the person who lives next door to the Airbnb called and said her house was flooded.
Mattei says she logged into Airbnb and found a message from the young woman asking her to call regarding an “urgent” matter.
“The guest admits fault over the phone,” Mattei says. “…All I know is that over 1,000 gallons of water has burst out into my house according to the water district.”
One of the young women had accidentally left a faucet on while the water was out, according to Mattei. When the city turned the water back on after completing the repair, they either didn’t realize it or weren’t there. By the time they turned it off, her Airbnb was filled with water.
She says she contacted her cleaner, who went to the home and started vacuuming water out that day.
Video she says her cleaner took during this process shows several inches of standing water in the Airbnb.
Her repair woes were just beginning.
A months-long process
Mattei says that she hired a flood damage mitigation company immediately and had them at the property within 48 hours.
“They brought in industrial grade dehumidifiers to run for literally like a month,” she says.
Her electric bill was sky-high, she adds.
“The reason the house looks so destroyed is because even that was not enough,” Mattei continues.
The home was fully saturated, she says, so they had to cut away two feet of drywall throughout just to dry it.
Then she got another unpleasant surprise. Because her home was built in 1959, she was required to get it tested for lead and asbestos.
There was no lead. There was asbestos, however.
“They then had to bring an abatement team to remove all the asbestos,” Mattei says. “It was a crazy crazy in depth process.”
Now she’s out $100,000 or more and her Airbnb still isn’t habitable.
“I have no idea if they had to pay Airbnb anything, but I do know that they are still on the platform which to me is very wild,” Mattei wrote in a comment on her post.
The 23-year-olds who destroyed weren’t even sorry, according to Mattei. She says the cleaner told her that when she arrived to start vacuuming out water, the young women were drinking and taking shots like nothing was wrong.
“They flooded my whole house and they did not apologize,” she says. “And then on top of it all they asked for a refund. They asked for a refund for the last day they were staying here. Airbnb gave it to them because they didn’t have water.”
Airbnb did not immediately respond to an emailed inquiry sent Wednesday morning.
The aftermath
Now, Mattei is in the process of rebuilding the dream home she scraped and saved to buy and painstakingly designed.
Most people have been sympathetic about her plight.
“I am not lying when I say this is literally my dream Airbnb,” one commented on her viral TikTok. “I can’t believe someone disrespected such a beautiful home this way, it enrages me.”
“I know for sure Airbnb did not properly compensate you and the insurance is not going to cover all the time and effort you put into this beautiful Airbnb,” another said. “I’m so sorry. Idk how ppl do this and don’t care.”
A third said it was a “tricky” situation. “So they got confused about no water and tried turning handles and then left one of them turned and the city turned it back on when they were gone?” they added. “Eeek this is kinda their fault kinda terrible luck idk.”
Others urged her to sue. Mattei hasn’t said if she intends to.
A few have reacted to her tale with scorn. One person informed her that real estate investments have risks and accused Mattei of being “a vampire on society” for reasons unknown.
Mattei responded, “Big news everyone, I deserved what I got! Thank you for showing me the light angry internet stranger!”
Now she’s trying to block out the hate and focus on rebuilding her Airbnb.
“I understand that accidents happen but that doesn’t change that the outcome of something is horrible and devastating,” Mattei says.
@thegracemattei I’m still so sad. ? Storytime? #airbnb #airbnbhost #homerenovation #homereno #shorttermrentals ♬ nothings gonna hurt u baby – stvrnaudio
She didn’t immediately respond to a direct message seeking comment.
Update July 17, 2025:
In an email to the Mary Sue, an Airbnb spokesperson shared the following statement:
“We recognize how distressing property damage can be, even when unintentional. Our teams supported our host through our AirCover for Hosts program, which provides up to $3 million in damage protection on every booking.”
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