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My Airbnb host in Lisbon asked me to pretend I was her nephew for 3 days
Three years ago I booked a cheap room in Alfama for a month of remote work and the host, Marta, met me at the door with a weird request. Her building had a rule against short term renters, so she told the neighbors I was her nephew visiting from the US. For 3 days I had to call her "Tia Marta" in the hallway, and I slipped up in front of the lady in 2B when I said "thanks for the wifi password" instead of just nodding like family. The neighbor stared at me for what felt like a full minute and then asked, in perfect English, which side of the family I was from. I panicked and said Ohio, which makes zero sense as an answer. Marta still got a 5 star review from me because the place had a real desk and the fastest internet I have had in Europe. Has anyone else had a host ask them to lie to the whole building, or is that just a Lisbon thing?
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reese_anderson11d ago
The part nobody talks about is how this puts you in a weird spot legally, not just socially. In a lot of these buildings the rule against short term renters exists because of actual housing laws, and if a neighbor reports it, you're the one standing there telling a fake story to whoever shows up. Marta gets a fine, you get a headache and maybe a knock on the door. The Ohio answer is funny but the real risk is that you had no paper trail that made you family if anyone pushed harder.
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