Airbnb CEO got a refund request over a 'haunted' house — calling the host for backup backfired when he confirmed friendly ghost 'Stanley'

Your stay during vacation or leisure time is supposed to be relaxing and flexible. But not so flexible that there’s room for a “friendly ghost…” right?

Airbnb’s CEO, Brian Chesky, shared an incident where he received a call from a guest demanding a full refund during their stay at an Airbnb house. Sharing during an event by the New York Times, the clip mentioned that the CEO has had to deal with a couple of surreal experiences where guests wanted refunds or had unexpected stays.

One of these encounters involved a woman seeing a ghost and claiming that the place was haunted. As any sane person would, Chesky decided to investigate by questioning the host, but received a reply he didn’t expect. 

The frustrated customer demanded a full refund. When the CEO asked why, they claimed that the house was “haunted” and that they’d seen a ghost. This part is still not the fact that made it the “most bizarre” call he’d received.

“So we call the host, and all the host has to do is deny it because there's no photo evidence of the ghost,” Chesky remarked. The conversation could have ended then and there if the host had denied the scenario. Instead, they agreed. They mentioned that their ghost is a “friendly ghost named Stanley” and has also rightfully earned his place in the place's description.

Cross-checking their Airbnb page, Chesky realized they were, in fact, telling the truth. The ghost was a co-owner.

Chesky immediately got back to the customers, who, in turn, said they specifically booked the place because of the ghost. Now, they didn’t want a refund because there was a ghost. They wanted one because the creature refused to keep up with his personality (which was “friendly”) and instead “harassed” the customers all night.

Caught off guard by the turn of events, the CEO couldn’t argue further. “How do you deal with that? There's no playbook for this stuff,” he remarked. He didn’t mention whether they ended up getting the refund, but one can imagine how hysterical it is to even have to make a decision based on those factors.

The Airbnb Community shared several other “spooky” experiences they have had, right from lights going off at odd hours to their dogs barking for no good reason at night. A woman named Laura shared her experience of booking a farmhouse with her husband and dog.

“About 2:30 or 3 am, I woke up to a light going on in the closet. The dog is going NUTS and barking/cornering something under the bed.” When she went to check, she saw nothing. The dog continued to growl through the night.

She thought nothing of it until her husband mentioned the next morning, "I thought I saw you in the closet when the light went on, but then realized you were asleep next to me." "That's when all the hair stood up on the back of my neck," she remarked. 

Nothing went wrong; fortunately, they stayed there a short while and left.

A host named Bonnie shared her guests’ experience. “My current guests asked me this morning if I had a ghost upstairs,” she said. She explained that they had turned off all the lights before bed, but around 1 am, one of the guests found all the lights on.

 “They are certain that it must be paranormal. I've had my bnb for 4 years, and no one has ever had something like this happen,” she noted. Despite the handful of spooks, Airbnb gained popularity for its competitive prices and wide variety of options compared to traditional hotels.

According to Statista, as of 2025, the platform includes around five million hosts with offerings that fit all budgets. Hosting around 2.5 million guests, the company banked a revenue of 12 million dollars that year, an all-time high for them.

According to Ruby Home, as of February 2026, there are 8 million active Airbnb listings across 220 countries. There are around 275 million users, out of which 45 million are from the U.S. So, the focus still remains to find a budget-friendly, vibrant space that fits all needs on vacation — ghost or no ghost!

The story, also shared on Instagram by @learnasentrepreneurs, was received with lightheartedness. @chrisowl15 wrote, “We need Stanley's version of the story.” @pauloramirez humored, “Stanley's house is being used by strangers. How would you react?”

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