{"id":336670,"date":"2026-05-28T23:31:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/336670\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T23:31:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:31:23","slug":"a-sf-startup-is-secretly-testing-robots-in-airbnbs-and-trashing-them-lawsuit-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/336670\/","title":{"rendered":"A SF startup is secretly testing robots in Airbnbs, and trashing them, lawsuit claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published May 28, 2026at3:48pm<\/p>\n

The reservation request didn\u2019t seem out of the ordinary: Eight colleagues visiting the Bay Area for work were looking for an Airbnb with reliable Wi-Fi.<\/p>\n

But at check-in time April 12, a Ring camera captured footage of people moving large, black cases into Sean Donovan\u2019s home in San Francisco. Later that night, the security system was shut off.<\/p>\n

Two days later, Donovan stopped by the house to take out the trash. He looked through a window and saw black cables taped to the walls. A man was typing on a laptop sitting next to what appeared to be a robot.<\/p>\n

When his guests checked out 11 days later, the house was a mess, Donovan claims. Glasses and dishes had been removed from kitchen cabinets and left elsewhere. The dishwasher, refrigerator, and washing machine were scratched. Dishwasher racks were bent and removed. Wooden furniture was scratched and stained. Bathroom tiles were chipped. A shoe rack and several pairs of shoes were missing from a locked bedroom closet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the hell is going on here?\u201d Donovan recalled thinking.<\/p>\n

After scouring the damage and conducting a bit of online sleuthing, he thinks he figured it out. In a lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court Tuesday, Donovan alleges that employees of the Bot Company (opens in new tab)<\/a> rented his home \u201cunder false pretenses\u201d to conduct prototype testing on robots they\u2019re training to do household chores. Founded by alums of Tesla and the autonomous vehicle company Cruise, the San Francisco startup has received hundreds of millions in venture capital funding and is valued at $2 billion (opens in new tab)<\/a>, according to the tech research platform Sacra. The Bot Company did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Donovan is seeking $12,383.50 for damage to his home and belongings and for lost income he believes he would have received had the company correctly booked the property for commercial use. He is suing the Bot Company but not the individuals who rented the property.<\/p>\n

Through his own research, Donovan concluded that the guests at his home worked for the Bot Company. The Standard has been unable to verify their employment status.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dishonesty is really what upsets me the most,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they had come straight up, \u2018Hey, we would like to rent your house for testing of our robot,\u2019 then we could have come to an agreement. But it\u2019s the lying and the misrepresentation that makes me feel violated.\u201d<\/p>\n

It appears that he\u2019s not the only Bay Area resident who has been duped.<\/p>\n

Three of the guests connected to the April 12-25 booking for Donovan\u2019s home have received negative reviews from at least 12 other Airbnb hosts alleging they damaged the property and personal belongings, failed to clean up, exceeded the limit on the number of guests, or violated other house rules during their stays.<\/p>\n

\"TheySource: Screenshots Airbnb\"ASource: Screenshots Airbnb<\/p>\n

The owner of an 1896 Victorian in Ingleside told The Standard he rented his home to three of the guests linked to the booking at Donovan\u2019s house. When he returned home after the group\u2019s six-night stay in March, he said, there were scuff marks on the walls and nicked paint on doorframes. A refrigerator shelf was cracked, and a broken glass or dish had been left in the garbage disposal. A wooden nightstand drawer was chipped. Cups and plates were in the wrong places. It looked like the furniture had been moved around.<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry \ud83d\ude41 Did my best!\u201d said a pithy message the group left on a whiteboard on his scuffed-up dining table.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just kind of assumed they might have had a party,\u201d said the owner, who requested anonymity for privacy.<\/p>\n

But then a neighbor told him they had seen people bringing big black boxes into the house, so the owner thought maybe they had filmed a movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe robot thing kind of makes sense now,\u201d the host said.<\/p>\n

\"AA whiteboard left at an Airbnb in Ingleside apologizing for the mess. | Source: Courtesy<\/p>\n

He spent a week cleaning and making repairs. He filed a claim with Airbnb for the damages, but the company rejected it, he said, citing his lack of before-and-after photos.<\/p>\n

The group of guests never responded to his message about the damage, he said.<\/p>\n

Have thoughts on this story?Start the conversation<\/p>\n

Like Donovan, the Ingleside homeowner said he would have been OK with a company renting his house to test robots had the employees been upfront about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they\u2019re trying to better the lives of humans with robots, I\u2019m all for that,\u201d he said. \u201cI think there\u2019s a good future in that, but they don\u2019t need to be all sneaky about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other negative reviews cited similar damage, though it\u2019s unclear if these owners suspected there was a robotic culprit.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of my hardwood kitchen cabinets were scratched\/gouged after their stay,\u201d a host in Burlingame wrote on Airbnb in February. \u201cThere were also some black streaks on my walls and baseboards. During their stay, they brought multiple large plastic cases and boxes at various times which I suspect caused the damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another February complaint came from a host in Foster City: \u201cThere was a lot of damage like significant deep scratches to the kitchen cabinets (like more than half of the kitchen), and nightstands, moved everything all over the place, and took some items.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bot Company has not revealed a prototype. Its bare-bones website (opens in new tab)<\/a> states that it is \u201cbuilding a helpful robot for every home\u201d that can do \u201call the little things that eat away at our time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA Ring camera at Donovan\u2019s house captured footage of a mechanical device during the guests\u2019 stay. | Source: Courtesy Sean Donovan<\/p>\n

Sacra describes the Bot Company\u2019s product as resembling \u201ca low coffee table on wheels,\u201d with \u201can articulated arm and dual grippers\u201d that allow it to \u201cpick up and organize household items autonomously.\u201d The website says the company plans to market its robot to families as well as \u201cshort-term rental operators, elder care providers, and small office facility teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

The irony is not lost on Donovan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis company is trying to build robots to make Airbnb turnovers more easy,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cIn the meantime, they are damaging Airbnb hosts\u2019 houses.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he and his partner spent several days repairing the damage. A reimbursement request he submitted to the guests through Airbnb is unresolved. His shoes? Still missing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what will happen, and there are potential negative repercussions, but I also feel like what they\u2019re doing is wrong,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cThey\u2019re doing it to lots of people, and they should stop and at least be honest with what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published May 28, 2026at3:48pm The reservation request didn\u2019t seem out of the ordinary: Eight colleagues visiting the Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[2007,24812,40082,30486,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-336670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-ai","tag-airbnb","tag-cruise","tag-robot","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336670","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=336670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}