Spotted by PC Gamer on Reddit’s /isthisAI, an Australian Airbnb host attempted to scam 1700AUD ($1,183) from a client by creating an AI-generated image of the house’s toilet, blocked and overflowing, and sending it as “proof” to justify their claim that the tenant had caused damage to the space. However the image, showing the small room a good few inches deep in water, was not exactly a masterpiece.
Claiming for damages must be a constant chore for Airbnb hosts, and unscrupulous people like this will only make it harder. The unidentified host sent a photo claiming the guests had blocked the toilet such that it was spilling over the seat and filling the room with toilet water.
Posting the image to Reddit’s channel for requesting help identifying AI images, Redditor FurinaDeFontaine suggested it had some dubious inconsistencies, like how the rivulets of water cascading down from the seat weren’t leaving splashes, and the rather larger issue of just how the water was managing to remain contained to the one room and not spread across the whole house.
“I did not even use toilet paper during my stay,” says FurinaDeFontaine in a perhaps also concerning comment, adding, “but I am wondering if someone else might have and those are real.”
Others in the thread quickly identified that the photo was watermarked with Google’s SynthID, suggesting it was most likely created using Gemini or another of Google’s genAI tools. But many others pointed out just how impossible the photograph was on its face. Unless the bathroom were somehow set a large step down from the rest of the house, the water should obviously have been pouring out into other rooms. Oh, and the room is upstairs in the building, so obviously were water to have pooled like this, it would have done untold damage to the ceiling below, and certainly more than $1,200 worth.
Thankfully the situation resolved appropriately. “Good news everyone!” FurinaDeFontaine wrote the next day, “I had this case resolved and deemed ineligible for the reimbursement they asked for.”