I arrived to the home in the rural south around 5:00 PM as planned. The host had messaged me letting me know that the door would be open, which seemed fine to me because the location was very remote. When I arrived, I saw three other welcome letters besides mine on the table, which was comforting because it was a single male host who stays on the property and I didn’t want to be the only person there.

Well, needless to say, those other letters were for people who were checking in way after I’d left. Within minutes of my arrival, the host told me about his marriage, about the girl he was dating and how that might not work out, and asked me if I wanted to go with him to dinner. I know a lot of hosts offer dinner but in combination with the talk of his relationship status and the fact that I was there alone and the remote location, I got nervous. I told him I was tired and just needed to relax to which he suggested I get in the hot tub. Um… no, and this was before I looked around.

All of the surfaces in the house were covered with stuff: dishes, trinkets, what have you. All of the cabinets were full of opened and unopened food. There was a piece of a condom wrapper on my bedside table and in the bathroom there was douche. Who would borrow that as a traveler? I decided to crash and just sleep this away. Of course, the bedroom door didn’t lock. I stood there in the dark in my room and seriously contemplated crawling out the window and never looking back.