13 Creeped Out Travelers Explain The One Couchsurfing Host That Left Them Crawling In Their Skin

1. Dead at Sea World.

My roommate started sleeping with a transient, Phish-following type. I had to put my foot down and disallow his presence in the apartment. He smelled and was clearly mentally unstable from too much partying. He was eventually found dead in a Sea World Orca tank, apparently sans testicles but otherwise unmarred, having most likely died of hypothermia. He had hidden in the park until close and built some little shrine. I haven’t seen her in years, but I don’t imagine she’s lived it down yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incidents_at_SeaWorld_parks#SeaWorld_Orlando

2. “Do you have a little belly?”

I’ve been couchsurfing a few times and all my hosts have been really great, generous and pleasant people, except for one older man who gave me creepy vibes.

He was somewhat 60 years old, living alone with his cats. He constantly kept talking about how difficult the last ten years without sex have been, was commenting my appearance all the time, came too close to my ‘personal space’ (like, he grabbed the hem of my shirt, lifted it up and said “do you have a little belly? No you have no little belly”) and when I was hanging my laundry to dry he commented my underwear (“sexy, I like those ;)” ). I’m not sure if he himself realized that I felt uncomfortable by his actions, although my body language was very clear about that.

He was very generous, paid all my food stuff even when I insisted I of course can pay my half, but I anyways ended up leaving one day earlier than planned since I just didn’t feel comfortable.

… And one of his cats, the oldest one, had “shit problem”. She would not be able to poo for a few days and would eventually start meowing in pain. The guy would then stick one of his fingers in the cat’s asshole and dig the feces out.

I have no idea how he can do that without the cat killing him.

3. Thaaat’s not on Netflix.

This was actually someone I knew, whose couch I was going to crash on after a motorhead gig. I already thought he was really strange, but hey, motorhead. He asked me if I wanted to watch a video on his PC that he insisted was “funny”. So the video starts and it’s a woman giving birth, the baby is delivered and then immediately stabbed to death with a sword. Disgusted, I ask if it’s real and he says “of course it’s real, it wouldn’t be funny otherwise”

I get a little freaked out, so I just busy myself on my phone away from the PC trying not to acknowledge him showing me more videos. Curiosity got the better of me though and as he watched more videos I kept peeking at them. He watches…

• A guy get electrocuted into a melted pile of flesh
• A woman begging for her life being shot in the head
• A guy being chased down in a park and murdered with an axe.

Each as disgusting as the last. He laughed like a maniac at all of them and kind of looked like he wanted to masturbate, which struck me as really strange.

I made my excuses and left, going to another friend’s flat nearby. I immediately cut contact with him and so did everyone I know who knew him. He disappeared not long after that. Rumour has it that he went to live with some elderly woman he was having sex with.

4. A wolf without claws.

I stayed with a guy in Sydney, in his 60s, he instantly said I didn’t look a thing like my picture and said I looked ‘small and boyish’ in the pic, but I am a big 6ft 8 guy.

He told me he was gay, which was fine, I told him I was straight. He then began to explain that he was a ‘wolf without claws’ and began explaining in detail his previous sexual encounters.

I tried to laugh it off and said I felt awkward but it continued for a few days… My room was past the shower room which he always left open when he was in there, I saw more than I would have liked.

Just before I left another couchsurfer arrived who knew the host quite well and had stayed over a few months. Turned out he was from the same town as me back in the uk, small world…. Anyway he hooks me up with a job in Queensland where I was planning on going. The host got very upset when I said I was leaving and stormed outside, shouting at the other couchsurfer ‘why are you sending him away to Queensland’ I left the next day.

Shortly after I met a Swiss girl staying with a man who looked like Napoleon dynamites brother, tried to take pictures of her in the shower…

Heard a lot of horror stories in my time about couchsurfing, I stay away from it now… Hostels are my friend.

5. “I’d really like to get some women while I was here.”

This was my first and last couchsurfing guest.

To clarify, I think couchsurfing is awesome- I’ve stayed with a bunch of people all over the world who were very respectful, and I still let people crash with me if they’re a highly recommended friend-of-a-friend. But I no longer accept requests through the website.

So, I’ve been living abroad for a year in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia. It’s a small country just east of Turkey, and it gets a lot of cool visitors- backpackers heading to India or Nepal, students and researchers, artists, musicians (the music here is really unique), foodies.

It’s also a really cheap travel destination for people from surrounding countries- especially Turkey. So when I first moved here, I got a couch request from this Turkish guy. He seemed really chill and had TONS of great recommendations. My roommate and I emailed him back and forth and accepted his request.

He came in really late on a Friday night, and we went to meet him near a big monument by our apartment (we lived in the city center). We took him to the apartment to drop his stuff off, and we all started chatting. I ended up cooking some food for all of us, and then invited him to come out with us. We were going to a friend’s birthday party with two of our best guy friends, and thought he might like to go and experience a Georgian party (they’re really fun and very unique). He happily agreed, and then my roommate went to go change her clothes. I was left alone talking to him and asked, “So, what do you want to see while you’re in Tbilisi? We can show you around tomorrow during the day.” To which he replied, “You know, nightlife, art, the usual… and I’d really like to get some women while I was here.”

I wasn’t really sure what that meant, because no one had ever said it like that to me. So I was taken a back, but I explained that, in Georgia, they’re very, very traditional and women do not have sex outside of marriage. It’s a huge cultural taboo. There are, of course, exceptions, but the party we were going to was with some very traditional Georgian people, so I explained that it would be really inappropriate to try to sleep with any of the girls there. In fact, some guy at the party would probably kick his ass if he tried.

He seemed satisfied with my answer, so we go to the party. Within minutes, he has walked up to a group of traditional Georgian girls and said “Would any of you like to have sex with me?”

Naturally, they get incredibly offended, start calling over their brothers/cousins/whatevers at the party and I’m convinced that they’re going to kill my couchsurfer. I got my Georgian friend to calm them down and then we decided that we should just leave and go to a bar.

As we’re in the taxi going downtown, the couchsurfer then proceeds to hang out of the window and scream “Liberate Georgia! Die fascist pigs!” at a group of police officers standing in a square. Georgia is not a country where you want to go to prison. I start panicking and yelling “Sit the fuck down and shut up or I will throw you out of the taxi!” Then he shuts up.

We get to a bar, and our guy friends are super pissed that we brought this couchsurfer out, but crazy couchsurfing dude is still having a great time. I’m so uncomfortable and anxious that all I want to do is go home. I tell everyone that I don’t feel well and I’m going to just go to bed early- and my couchsurfer says that he’s also really tired from traveling and should just crash.

The two of us get a taxi back to my apartment. I’m still trying to be nice, and I grab him some sheets and pillows for the couch. After I start making up the couch, he says, “You know, your bed looks really big. Shouldn’t I just stay in there with you?”

At that point I was fucking done. I gathered the sheets back up- grabbed my phone, wrote down the number of a hostel, and told him to get the hell out of my apartment. He was really upset and started yelling that it was really, really late and all the hostels would be full. I said I didn’t care and he could sleep under a damn bridge, and then I threw his backpack out of the front door and pushed him outside.

After that, I decided that couchsurfing is just not for me.

TL;DR Had a guy try to crash with me when he was apparently just on vacation to scout for sex.

6. Farts in the face.

Couch surfed three times while roadtripping in the USA:

1. Lovely guy, with an awesome house. Turned out he had just gotten back from a trip to Oslo and he really wanted my friend and I to go party with him. Sadly we’d just driven for the better part of 8 hours and had landed in the usa just 24 hours before. We declined and passed out in his guest room. Awoken later that night by him and his friends returning to continue the celebrations. Passed out from sleep again. In the morning we where groggy but ok, he was toast. or he was until he said “give me a minute” and came out of the bathroom with a fine white dusting around his nose and bags of energy.
2. She lived in the basement of her friends parents house. She had too many small animals and the place smelled of urine/feces because of this. Now she kept on going on about being in debt etc whilst we where there which made us feel uncomfortable. But it also turned out she worked in a restaurant. So we thought awesome we will go to her restaurant sit in her section and give her a big tip! Unfortunately the restaurant is rammed and they can’t seat us in her section. important point: my friend and I have different dishes (he has steak, I have salmon). Later that night we BOTH have the worst case of food poisoning ever. We also discover at this point that she doesn’t have a bathroom, you have to go up into the house to use it. We don’t make it that far. Instead we stagger out into the garden and throw up everywhere. And i mean everywhere, we coated everything in vomit. It just went on and on until dawn. At this point we apologised profusely staggered into the car and drove off. As we had different food we wondered if it was contaminated cutlery. we also wondered if she’d done something to us deliberately because we where skirting around her begging.
3. Oddest of the lot. We met up with a girl who said she had a house and a room for us. Read a small section of her bedroom floor in her shared apartment. Things just got weird as the two girls (she invited a friend over) then begun discussing underwear and burning man festival (which for them consisted of drugs and a lot of sex). They then pranced around in their undies before snuggling in bed and falling asleep. Her dog then joined me and my buddy on the floor where it promptly farted in my face. To cap it all off, found a monstrous bag of pills in the bathroom.

7. Future hand model. 

Stayed at my friends grandma’s house who wanted to take pictures of my “lovely hands”. EDIT: I should add that she took Polaroid pictures.

8. Animal corpses everywhere.

There was one farm owner and I was couchsurfing at his place during my travels in America.

Anyway, he was really creepy and kept talking in the most creepy way. I decided I was gtfo’ing the next morning as quickly as I could. I was leaving early in the morning and I walked past his barn and could see a small peak through the slightly open doors.

Full. Full of dead animals hung from the throat and butchered apart like he had just torn a knife aimlessly around the body. Blood everyfuckingwhere and butcher tools on the side. He had put the eyes left over from the corpses ON HIS SHELF JUST AIMED AT THE DOOR.

Fuck you Texas. I ran the fuck out of there, down the fucking road and kept running until I was on a fucking plane and got back to my motherfucking country which is even more dangerous so fuck.

EDIT: The hung up cows weren’t butchered for meat. They were literally just torn apart by a knife or a chainsaw or something. Aimlessly brutalised and missing parts of their head. I was traumatised and completely done for a long time.

9. Sleeping beauty.

Woke up to find him watching me sleep and eating a sandwich and drinking vodka. Obviously I kind of freaked out, I mean who eats a sandwich wile drinking vodka? I get juice but vodka?

Edit: It was in a coffee mug, for those interested.

10. Surprise kiss.

I am a little late to this party but I’ve got a few.

A host in Honduras lied about having a couch and I ended up sleeping on a chair most of the night. He wakes up and offers to switch in the middle of the night. I accept and doze off only to wake up to him spooning me and getting handsy. I get right outta that bed and try to leave but I am literally locked in his apartment building because there is a gate with a massive lock on it. I waited hours for someone to leave the building and open it for me. I found out later the guy was a coke fiend, could barely afford rent (his electricity was cut off), and stole from CSers.

Older guy near Sydney hosts me. Just got weird vibes from him. Older, lived alone, never married, no kids. Damn, this guy’s gay I thought to myself. He was never too forward about it til my last night. I’m tryin to look for the southern cross in the night sky and he walks up behind me and puts both his arms on my shoulders to point to it. Then he starts coming up with reasons to stay up late including making a fruit salad. Jesus. I turn down everything and just go to bed and the douche leaves me negative feedback.

Another gay guy in Sydney comes back to his apartment drunk at 10pm. He tries to get me to go out but I just needed to crash after a long travel day. I’m dozing off and the dude kisses me on the lips. I’m just like, “what the hell dude?” as he leaves.

I am wary of staying with dudes now and I unfortunately have a glimpse of what it’s like for girls who constantly have dudes tryin to bang them.

I do have to say that these few negatives are far outweighed by the positives. I’ve had some incredible experiences and met some amazing people through Couchsurfing that I never could have done with a guidebook. Just vet the people carefully by looking at their feedback, and be honest about your expectations from the start.

11. Loaded gun.

Late to the thread but while I was staying at this family’s house whom I’d just met for a few weeks the guys my age thought it would be funny to show me their illegal pistol by calling me in a room and pointing it right at me. Loaded and off safety. I got the hell out of there after that.

12. Prayers for Stephen King and Hillary Clinton. 

I was a couch surfer/ church sleeper for a few years in high school and shortly after. The Catholic Church I slept in was the creepiest by far, as it was reputedly haunted, but as this is a couch surfing thread, I will discuss Ellie, the grandmother of a friend whose house I couch surfed at for a while. My friend had a number of couch surfers at her house because her parents didn’t mind much if we smoked or drank in the house, and there was a spare room beside her bedroom which we stayed in.

But Ellie wasn’t so keen on the situation. She was a doddering old woman who lived in her bathrobe, though, and couldn’t seem to voice her concerns. So she spied on us. Whenever we arrived at the house, Ellie would be sitting by the piano, pretending to read a romance novel, her little rotten-apple face squinting in concentration. We could tell she wasn’t reading, though, because her book was often upside-down. We also could hear her creep up the stairs and scratch a little at the door when we were hanging out in the bedroom. When my friend opened the door, Ellie would suddenly pretend she was just going to the bathroom. The guest room didn’t have a door, unfortunately, so I would sometimes wake up with the feeling I was being watched. In a stupor of drunken grogginess I would look up and Ellie would be standing there in the doorway making little hissing sounds, her bathrobe swaying. She would keep staring at me for a bit as though she couldn’t tell I was looking back at her. I would say “Ellie, go away,” and she wouldn’t register my words. She would eventually turn and walk slowly down the stairs.

Worst of all: some nights we would hear her in her dark, crucifix-lined, brown-stained room, talking to herself. It sounded like she was reading aloud, but then we would be quiet to hear what she was saying through the wall. She was praying for everyone she ever knew the name of, her lisping voice echoing through the wall: “Please watch over Princess Diana. Please watch over Abigail, and Eleanor, and Jim. Please watch over Timothy and Stephen King and Hillary Clinton…” This would go on for hours until she fell silent. The. I would wake up later and she would be standing in the doorway again, staring down at me.

13. Some masturbate thing.

 My first, and by far the most weird couchsurfer experience:

I just joined couchsurfing, and was eager to test it. So one easter some 2 years ago I decided to take the train to Copenhagen. I asked some friends to join me, they had re-exams and whatnot, anyways I went alone. Made a couchrequest and got a reply. This is where I made my first big mistake: Read the description of the people replying. Since I was new to CS I didn’t do that, and thought aw nice a couch. Anyways I stayed the first night at a hostel. The next day I met the guy, he was 39y, 1,5m tall, and Colombian man. After approx 4min I understood that he was by far the most gay person I´ve ever met. But hey, I dont judge people I thought. He showed me around and was really good at it. After the day walking he invited me home, but by then I was like “na man I have to do something else.” But he told me he had bought strawberries and had whisky and stuff so I just followed. At his place he told me he was a “sex guru” in Christiania and wanted to show me how to perform some masturbate thing so he took off all his clothes and jerked off in the couch while talking about ones inner energy flow and how it got disturbed by me having my pants on. After that I ran out and walked to the other side of Copenhagen. :D

After that I just had awesome couchsurfer experiences.

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