“Yes,” he cut in. “It means I got a 2 a.m. call from my security system telling me the fire alarm was malfunctioning. I had to get out of bed, drive all the way here, and barge into my own Airbnb like a lunatic—just to stop you from accidentally suffocating yourselves in your sleep.”

“Suffocating?” I repeated.

“Yes! Covering a fire alarm is dangerous! If there had been an actual fire, it wouldn’t have detected the smoke in time.”

Silence.

I let out a weak chuckle. “Okay, so… big misunderstanding.”

The owner groaned. “Yeah. You think?”

My husband, ever the optimist, shrugged. “Hey, at least now you know your system works.”

The owner just stared at him. “That’s… not how this works.”

Sensing we had tested his patience enough, I quickly apologized. “We’re really sorry. We panicked.”

The owner took a deep breath, clearly forcing himself to move on. “Fine. Just—” he pointed at the alarm, “leave it alone. Please.”

We nodded enthusiastically.

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going home to try to salvage my sleep schedule.” He turned and grumbled his way out the door, slamming it behind him.

For a moment, we just sat there, staring at the now towel-free, definitely not a hidden camera smoke detector.

Then my husband turned to me. “So, uh… should we mention this in our review?”

I whacked him with a pillow. “Absolutely not.”

The Lesson?

Paranoia can make fools of us all. It’s good to be cautious, but maybe double-check before assuming someone is running a secret surveillance operation. Also, if something is blinking, it’s probably just doing its job.

Lesson learned.

(And yes, we left the owner a very apologetic review.)