Long time readers may recall my husband John and I opened an Airbnb apartment above our garage last spring. Despite its rocky start, we’ve been pleased to work together running the Airbnb, and most of our guests have been delightful.
We were realistic, however, and knew eventually we would have a not-so-delightful guest. Lo and behold, it happened a couple of weeks ago.
The guest who booked and paid for the Airbnb – we’ll call him Benjamin – messaged us saying he and his friends were coming into town for the Kesha concert Sunday, Aug. 30. Concert attendees have been our primary guests, since we live 10 minutes from Ruoff Music Center. John and I didn’t think anything of it.
We greeted Benjamin and his friends that afternoon and went on about our lives. Imagine my surprise when I woke up on Monday, Aug. 31 to a message saying Benjamin would be leaving at 3:30 a.m. This was due to a major argument, and he hoped the guests wouldn’t leave a mess “out of spite.” John and I were not thrilled.
Once the guests left in the morning, John went up to assess the situation while I worked at my computer. I had to tell myself to breathe as I waited for a report.
While the guests didn’t trash our place – thank goodness – they did leave something neither John nor I would ever have expected. Glitter … All. Over. The. Apartment.
We learned something new. Tossing handfuls of glitter into the crowd is a trademark of Kesha shows. I learned a new term while researching this fact online – fans are often “glitter drenched.” And our Airbnb was also glitter drenched.
It took John twice as long to clean the apartment, and we’re still finding glitter to this day. We reached out to Benjamin to ask for an additional cleaning fee, which he refused saying there wasn’t a broom or dustpan. We would have been happy to have provided one upon request. Thankfully, Airbnb took our side and paid us extra money.
Apparently, we’re not the only ones who deal with this after Kesha concerts. I saw a headline online about a TikTok video called “Kesha Concert: How to Handle Glitter Mess.”
John and I have learned some valuable lessons from this experience. I’ve marked my calendar to check to see if Kesha is coming to Central Indiana in 2027 and beyond. If so, the date(s) will be quickly blocked off from our calendar.
Thankfully, we also learned Airbnb is a responsive and fair company. Kudos to them!
By now we’ve started laughing about this incident, and we know there will probably be more surprises ahead. In the meantime, we’ll continue to battle the sparkly stuff in the weeks – or months – ahead.
All that glitters is DEFINITELY not gold.
Amy Shankland is an empty-nester, writer, and fundraising professional living in Noblesville with her husband John and two dogs. You can reach her via email at amys@greenavenue.info.
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