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Former Cruise CEO Kyle\u00a0Vogt holds a visual sensor at an unveiling of its fully autonomous passenger vehicle on Jan. 21, 2020. A San Francisco Airbnb host sued his new venture Tuesday, alleging the company tested a robot in his house causing damages.<\/p>\n
Carlos Avila Gonzalez\/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Sean Donovan has rented his childhood home in San Francisco on Airbnb for years. Tech workers in town for conferences, and families coming for graduations are common customers, but last month he had a new guest: a robot that he said left a mess.<\/p>\n
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Donovan alleges that a San Francisco startup booked his home on Airbnb last month under \u201cfalse pretenses\u201d to conduct tests on the \u201crobotic prototype,\u201d and left the place in shambles, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in San Francisco County Superior Court. He\u2019s seeking more than $12,000 for a laundry list of damages from the Bot Company, (identified in court records as \u201cBotco\u201d) for personal property damage and unauthorized entry into a locked closet.<\/p>\n
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Donovan told SFGATE that he and his partner had never put more hours into fixing the house after an Airbnb rental.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a ton of work to do when we got back,\u201d Donovan told SFGATE. \u201cWay more than we\u2019ve ever had before.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Everyone has to start somewhere\u2019<\/p>\n
Donavan started renting out the four-bedroom, three-bathroom Portola home on Silliman Street in 2022. Workers coming to town for a conference tend to be his favorite customers: They\u2019re typically out all day and just come back to sleep, he said.<\/p>\n
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Last month, he said a group with little rental history claiming to be remote workers from Thailand inquired about the house. (The lawsuit notes a May date range for the booking, which Donovan said was an error in an interview with SFGATE). Airbnb allows renters to check rating histories of potential guests to assess any potential risk, but this booker had no reviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cHosts are pretty careful about zero,\u201d Donovan said, but \u201ceveryone has to start somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donovan said he realized it wasn\u2019t a normal rental when he came to the house to take care of the guests\u2019 trash. While moving a bin, he said he could see bundles of wires strung along the house’s interior. Following the wires to the dining room table, he said something that looked like \u201cthe borg,\u201d a nod to a cyborg-like species from the “Star Trek” franchise. Next to it, he said, a man typed on a laptop.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit calls the alleged machine a \u201crobotic prototype,\u201d but in a Wednesday interview, Donovan likened the bot to an estimated six-foot \u201cRoomba with treads,\u201d affixed with \u201csquare-shaped\u201d poles and belts. Donovan didn\u2019t claim in his lawsuit to have seen the device in action, nor are there cameras inside the home in accordance with Airbnb policies, he said.<\/p>\n
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After reviewing outdoor Ring camera footage and audio, he told SFGATE that he suspected his house was temporarily flipped into a makeshift research-and-development lab. According to the suit, more than 30 individuals came to and from the house during the April 12-25 booking.\u00a0Donavon also told SFGATE that he heard audio from the Ring camera of a woman outside the house talking about shifts, and that she could potentially stay to work through the night, but opted not to.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter they left, we could hear what is going on,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cYou can hear them talk about catching the BART or going to the East Bay or riding their bike.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018They completely moved everything\u2019<\/p>\n
The Bot Company, which aims<\/a> to make robots for household chores<\/a>, is the latest startup<\/a> of Kyle Vogt<\/a>, the former CEO and founder of failed robotaxi company Cruise<\/a>. Last year, the Bot Company reportedly was set to raise $250 million<\/a> last year at a more than $4 billion valuation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The alleged property damage includes two heirlooms, a dining room table that had been in his family for 70 years, and a Franciscan pottery set that had a piece missing, Donovan said. Other items listed in the complaint include chipped bathroom tile, stained sheets, a damaged coffee table and credenza, a scratched washing machine and even a broken mug with a handle glued on.\u00a0Donavon also alleges that his shoes and a shoe rack were missing from a locked closet.<\/p>\n \u201cImagine you go into your house, and everything in every drawer is gone and there\u2019s new stuff there,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cThey came in and put everything back in a new place. Silverware in a new drawer or a different room. It was like they completely moved everything.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bot Company did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Stay informed, and entertained.<\/p>\n By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use<\/a> and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Donovan did not file a police report, though he stated in his civil filing that the missing shoe rack was potentially \u201ccriminal.\u201d He said he believes that with all the people allegedly coming in and out of the house, that some individuals potentially took things by mistake.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Though he alleges he could have filed for more, he arrived at his total claim of $12,383.50 by subtracting the Airbnb rental cost from potential filming costs, and then reducing the figure slightly to remain within the $12,500 ceiling for filing in small-claims court.<\/p>\n In his court filing, he called it a \u201cgood faith\u201d reduction of the more than $22,000 that he believes he\u2019s owed, though he maintained he\u2019s not waiving his right to collect more if his case is bumped to a higher court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Cruise CEO Kyle\u00a0Vogt holds a visual sensor at an unveiling of its fully autonomous passenger vehicle on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105,1692,1976],"class_list":["post-335278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sfgnews","tag-sfgtech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778921290_52_rawImage.jpg\" "\\"#\\"")
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