A predatory ABnB host

[Unbroken1]

 I'm posting this as a warning to anybody else who might have encountered an short-term rental host who was maybe a little too accommodating.

After my divorce 7 years ago I made plans to move across the country from the East Coast to the West Coast. My past history is that when I have closed a chapter in my life, a move to a new location has usually followed. I realize in this case, it was partially to  get as far away as possible from my uNPD ex wife, with whom I initiated NC 4 years ago.

Prior to moving,  I traveled to the area I was considering  and booked a 6-week stay at a studio apartment attached to the host's residence, so I could see if the area was going to work for me. I had been in contact with the host after making the booking as I was considering bringing my 2 pets with me and I wanted to make sure it would be OK.

What I did not understand was that I was incredibly naive and in an emotionally vulnerable state during that time after the end of my 23-year relationship. When my charming gregarious host told me that she would serve me dinner on my arrival, that was the first red flag that I missed. What would be not to like about that for a newly-divorced man? Anyway, the triangulation with her ex-husband happened almost immediately, as she went out of her way to make sure he met me and knew I was staying there.

Then the requests for favors started: would I take her dog to the vet while she was out of town for a few days? Feed the cat? Etc etc etc. I cut her a lot of slack since she was helping me look for a new place to live.

About a week after I moved into my new place, I experienced a medical emergency that required me to be transported via ambulance to an ER 40 miles away. Seeing as how I only knew one person that I considered a friend, I called her to ask for a ride home when my discharge came later that afternoon. She said that if I were willing to wait a couple of hours there, she was running errands and couldn't make any promises but would see if she could help me out later. At that point I realized who I was dealing with and was incredibly hurt that the one person I considered a friend could be so callous. I ended up taking an Uber.

Fast forward a couple of years and it's now easy to see the pattern in retrospect. The devaluation started very quickly after I bought my house (5 minutes away) and it became apparent that this woman had no boundaries and was willing to use me to outsource her personal responsibilities to because she could. So long as I was willing to. After the second time I took her cat to the vet and had to explain to the vet why she didn't want to pay for all the things the vet recommended, particularly vaccinations (this was a year before the pandemic). As an animal lover, I was sickened by having to do this on behalf of someone else. I would do anything within my power to insure the health of my pets but this cheapness, combined with her anti-vax mentality, was disturbing and disheartening.

She also would make a huge deal about having friends over to celebrate my birthday. The one time she did this, I and another male guest were asked to help put together a new bed she had ordered online, a surprise announcement to us  after arriving. At the same "birthday party,", I was served second to last, and because she had invited more people than food was available for, some dishes were gone by the time they got around to me. There was one other occasion where she pulled the "help me assemble my new furniture" trick on us unsuspecting dinner guests. How could such a minor, reasonable request be refused? To do so would be unseemly considering the invitation.

The next year, she invited a group of people to a restaurant 30 miles away for my birthday. Everyone declined the invite, so it was just the two of us (me driving, natch). When the tab for dinner came, it got really weird, really fast as she stumbled in asking me to pay an odd fraction of the cost of drinks and dinner, despite the fact that she was taking me out for my birthday.  I later figured out that had the original number of invitees attended, that fraction would have made sense if the cost was split between all of us. Just... weird. I later realized that the true purpose of the outing was to hear the singer performing as she wanted her to play at her upcoming self-planned retirement party, for which she also expected invitees to chip in.

Shortly afterward, when I realized what was happening based on my research into individuals with NPD, I came to understand that I was  little more than an unpaid handy person to her. When she planned a monthlong trip to New Zealand as a retirement present to herself and asked me to be available to give her hired pet-sitter a ride whenever needed, I flat out said no. It turned out that she had neglected to confirm whether the sitter had a car (I live in a rural area) before hiring her, so I was expected to solve that problem for her.

The last straw came when she triangulated me with a mutual friend and confabulated a scenario in which I was unwittingly involved, for which I called her to account. Her response was a verbally and emotionally abusive attack characterizing me as a difficult friend. After that I have maintained NC with her, which is really uncomfortable since it's a small community and there is no way that I can avoid her. Now that I've been NC for a few years, whenever she sees me she is going out of her way to make sure I know it, waving and calling me by name, saying hello like nothing ever happened. I continue to stay in Grey Rock mode when this happens, which probably looks weird to third parties that might see this. I wonder if this is her sneaky way of making me look cold and unfriendly to anyone else that might be around.

I now understand that her vacation rental is a trap for unsuspecting individuals: be friendly, establish trust with the guest, and then exploit that trust and manipulate the guest to do her bidding. So long as irony is still alive, though, the fact is today, I'm one of her competitors: I created my own ABnB, which I launched in the midst of the pandemic in 2019 and which now has a 100% 5-star rating. I value my guests' privacy and find that the majority of them do not want to socialize, which is fine. The respite that my place offers to guests was something I created as if it were for myself, which seems to resonate with them.

[bloomie]

Unbroken1 - Wow!!! What a truly uncomfortable journey came from simply trying to move on with your life! I cannot imagine this person has a friend left in the world or that her rental will have many return guests when they are treated with such entitlement and intrusive behaviors. Taking advantage of a kind and generous renter is awful. And then what sounds like a painful discard when you needed a true friend.

I imagine this experience makes you such an aware and sensitive host yourself and it is not surprising you are booked out and have such positive reviews!

[Unbroken1]

Thanks for your comments. To reframe the experience, I now see it as a lesson I needed to learn about my unconscious need to repeat my childhood trauma with NPD individuals (she also confessed that she was narcissistic and also had a bipolar disorder). I was raised by an uNPD/BPD mother and up to this point in my life have been involved in relationships with three women who I now see are most likely disordered.

I'm fortunate that this particular acquaintance revealed her pathology as soon as she did. After I got wise to what was happening, I started playing dumb while trying to figure out what was going on, and not reacting because her goal was all about finding my vulnerabilities.  She did this once in plain view after eliciting an annoyed response from me, and actually said "it's good to know what your triggers are." Just... wow. My uNPD ex was also an expert at provoking me into an angry reaction and then playing the victim card but I never understood this until now.