Study-o Apartments: Airbnb’ing Study Room Horror Stories

Any Honors student at UofSC will admit that their residence hall is a source of constant frustration. The elevator is always busted, the dorm rooms are minuscule, and the wings of the building are arbitrarily named A, B, AB, and CA, which is exactly the kind of alphabetical mastery that you’d expect out of UofSC’s best and brightest. 

However, some enterprising students have decided to capitalize on one of the building’s quirks. The study rooms, which reach up to 3 times the size of a normal dorm, are being pushed as studio apartments available for rent on Airbnb. 

“It’s, honestly, such a logical conclusion that I can’t believe no one thought of it sooner,” said Honors resident-turned-Airbnb Superhost Brandon Tuggles. “The buck always gets passed to custodial, so what do we even have to worry about?”

However, some students have expressed concerns.

“Anyone here could be a psycho,” claims Honors freshman Natalie Schtuber. “I bet you fifty percent of the kids here are psychos, and I’m not a psycho, which means you….” 

Natalie’s right, though. Honors does have psychos in spades, as anyone would know if they’ve heard these haunting Airbnb horror stories:

When Devin Spimms rented his hall’s study room to a couple from Beloit, KS, he didn’t expect their “rest and relaxation” to result in his shock and surprise. Devin entered the room to tidy up for the next guests when he realized that they had never left and, even worse, decided to open a “wasp honey” operation. An altercation ensued, resulting in the release of several specimens. Devin and the guests were rushed to the hospital and received treatment for “a seriously fucked up amount of insect stings,” in the words of Columbia EMS. The $100 security deposit went one forty-third of the way to covering medical expenses.

When Anna Glemblehoff hosted a “Swiss grad student in town for a conference” she didn’t expect to be confronted with this grizzly scene: After the guest’s stay had expired, she entered the study room and was immediately struck with the stench of dead bodies. The carpet and all the furniture were caked in dried blood. Lab equipment, flasks of strangely-colored liquids, and dissection trays containing freshly removed organs were strewn everywhere. In the center, a Frankenstein-esque abomination made from the stitched-together appendages of various campus squirrels was standing over the guest’s mangled body. Squirrelenstein is presumed to have killed its creator for cursing it with a loveless existence and is still at large.  

Melinda Bunger rented out the A354 study room to a group of five who claimed they were in town for “the uhhhhhhh….Redwood Festival?”. On night one of the group’s stay, Melissa was alerted to strange noises and screams from the rented-out room. She went to investigate and was horrified at what she saw. The frenzy she was witnessing was none other than an anarchic, barefoot light bulb war. The guests, boxes in arms, mercilessly pelted each other with light bulbs. Blood streaked from the guests’ gushing wounds. Melissa was immediately thrust into the carnage, suffering several lacerations and, most painfully, the cutting realization that renting out the room was not the brightest idea. 

At press time, members of University Housing were seen shooing would-be guests away with brooms.