It was a hot day, I had just dropped my wife off to work, and was sitting somewhere having brunch. With our car full of suitcases, I was just trying to pass the time really. When check-in time came around I headed over to our new AirBnb, in a relatively new apartment complex. I’ve checked in at a few different places now, so I think I’ve figured out the routine.

Go to the guard house, check in, find the mail room, find your mail box’s apartment, get the key, find your car spot.

After negotiating a visitor pass, not in my first language, with security and getting their help to access my mailbox, it was off to find my car spot. I’ve since noticed that many apartments number their car spots according to each unit in the complex. That’s not to say they’re logically arranged but after about 10 minutes, on the fifth floor, I found my spot. I was already sweating and tired, so I decided to only bring my wife’s and my small luggage bags up with me. Once I found my apartment, all I really wanted to do was just slump on the bed for a while and maybe shower. What I found once I unlocked the door however, scared and shocked me.

What was supposed to be a nice, little apartment was untidy, had hair all around the floor, and the bath towels were strewn on the kitchen table. I took a deep breath put my bags down and sat on the couch. That’s when I saw it. A lovely personalised message board, for the host to communicate with his guests. “Welcome to our AirBnB” it said, but the name at the end was surprised me. “Mary”. That wasn’t my wife’s name! “Hello.” I called out. I didn’t expect anyone to reply and I had no idea what to do if someone did reply; it just felt like the right thing to do.

I took a peep outside the front of the unit again. Yep that was correct, that was the unit we booked, and the key had worked. I slowly made my way around the house. The bedroom was an unkempt mess, pillows and blanket scattered around. Then I got to the bathroom, which hadn’t been cleaned and still had traces of someone living there; if you know what I mean. I ran back to the couch, sat down, and looked at the welcome board again. Of course, “Mary”, was the last person who stayed here, right? Yet it should’ve been changed by now. I knew there was a logical explanation for all this, but my mind kept trying to feed me horror stories from the deep recesses of my subconscious. Maybe “Mary” was a code? Maybe, any moment now, Mary would walk back in to her apartment and demand to know how I got in? I sat for a good ten minutes, silently doubting and worrying about all the different possible outcomes.

Ten minutes later, I was still on the couch, and no-one had come in demanding me to leave. I decided then, that I was just being paranoid. I would clear my head by getting to work on making this place more liveable and cleaning up after whoever Mary was. I began first, with the worst. I cleaned, with my own hands, the mess left in the bathroom. Reset the bedding, and got to work vacuuming all the hairs around the house. It had finally begun to like a home so I went for a shower; that’s when the door bell rang. Suddenly all logic had been throne out the window and my initial fears of the masked resident Mary came straight back!

They rang again, and I was sure it was no mistake. I opened the door to find a few men, as well as the security guard who had let me in at the beginning. I hadn’t committed any crimes, except to clean this place up!

“Are you checking out late?” The man asked in Malay.

“What, no. I just checked in.” I stumbled.

I said who it was booked under and the man confirmed. “We’re the cleaners.” He said. “Sorry we’re late. Would you mind if we cleaned up for about an hour?”

This is a fictional account of something that actually happened to me. While I had already been to a few home-stays before, I hadn’t ever thought that if I walked into a place that’s an absolute mess the first thing I should do is call the Host. Because there’s probably been a delay in either previous check-out or cleaning service. This was a fun little experiment after last week’s article. Hope you enjoyed!