This is one of the strangest things we’ve encountered in nearly three years of blogging. A reader (thanks, Sara!) alerted us that photos of our living room and guest bedroom were being used on a vacation rental listing on Airbnb. The listing’s “host” claimed the images showed their home in Pasadena and was offering the space for $48 a night, with a priority booking option for stays of one or two weeks (amounting to $336 to $672), citing unusually high interest.
That felt incredibly unsettling. What happens when guests arrive and the place doesn’t look like the photos? Or worse, what if the listing is a scam and the person collects payment without ever providing an actual address? We were seriously creeped out. We contacted the site’s webmaster and the listing’s “host” to inform them that the images were ours, taken in Richmond, and were not available for rent. The photos were removed soon after. Relieved, yes—but also baffled.
This episode reminded us of another instance when a reader (thanks, Michael!) pointed out that someone on Rate My Space had posted our bathroom “after” photos and claimed them as her own shortly after our big bathroom reveal.
In that case the fake post was getting positive feedback, but the problem was obvious: it wasn’t her bathroom. Even more bizarre, the user named Amber was answering questions about paint colors and sources with incorrect information—crediting our inexpensive Overstock sink as an expensive Kohler fixture and calling the wall color a fanciful name rather than the actual hue we used (Dune Grass). We left a comment with a link back to our original post explaining where everything came from. Within a minute the post was taken down.
Thinking it over, the Airbnb listing might have had an obvious motive—financial gain—so that kind of theft makes a certain sense, as distasteful as it is. The Rate My Space incident feels stranger because no money was involved. Why would someone post our bathroom photos and pretend they were their own on a forum that offers recognition rather than profit? Maybe the person didn’t want to photograph their own space, or perhaps they were seeking an easy path to attention. We still don’t know.
We’re grateful to our readers who keep watch and email us whenever they spot our house online where it doesn’t belong. We’ve seen our images pop up on eBay or Craigslist used by people trying to sell identical rugs or duvets, and once even noticed before-and-after photos of our front yard on a landscaper’s site in Texas. Those were strange, but the Rate My Space and the vacation rental episodes have been the oddest yet.
Have you ever found your photos used without permission? Do you think there’s any sensible explanation for people posting others’ work as their own when there’s no monetary benefit? We’d love to hear your stories and theories.