Airbnb guest stopped paying rent, then claimed California law entitled him to stay in the $1.9 million home

A professional poker player says she went through months of stress after a guest refused to leave her $1.9 million Airbnb property in Hermosa Beach, California. Wendy Weissman, 60, said the guest stopped paying rent but would not move out of her townhouse.

Weissman identified the guest as a Frenchman named Evhan Lamarck. He had booked the property for 48 days at a rate of $12,500 a month before he stopped making payments, according to Weissman.

Weissman said California’s occupancy laws worked against her, since a guest gains tenancy rights after staying in a property for 30 days. This made it much harder for her to remove Lamarck from the home, reports the Daily Mail.

Guest cited tenancy law after payments stopped

Weissman said the trouble began when Lamarck’s rental period ended and she did not receive another payment. She said he told her he had lost his credit card and needed to stay until he received a new one. Airbnb’s troubles go beyond non-payment, as one guest left a negative review after being charged for violating rules.

When Weissman pushed back, she said Lamarck began quoting sections of California tenancy law that he claimed gave him the right to remain in the home. When a reporter from ABC7 asked Lamarck if he thought it was fair to stay without paying, he said, “Yeah it’s really fair.”

Weissman said she contacted the police, but was told the matter was a civil issue that would need to go through the courts, a process that could take up to six months. She said she faced the possibility of losing around $70,000 in rental income, along with high legal costs.

Weissman also turned to social media in an attempt to draw attention to the situation, though she said Lamarck still refused to leave the property. Weissman’s experience highlights broader guest-host tensions on the platform, such as when guests at another Airbnb washed dishes and took out the bins themselves, only for the host to ask for a tip.

A break in the standoff came after a neighbor reported that water was leaking out of the townhouse. Weissman said the emergency gave her the legal right to enter the property. “I sent him the video of the leak and he didn’t so I called the police,” she said. She added that Lamarck denied knowing about the leak, which she said was another lie.

Weissman said she eventually told Lamarck she was declaring an emergency and would have a plumber come to the property. Soon after, surveillance footage showed Lamarck loading his belongings into a U-Haul van with help from a woman, who at one point placed a towel over the camera to block its view.

When Weissman was finally able to enter the home, she said she found it in poor condition, with cigarette butts piled up, damage to a closet from a suspected break-in attempt, and trash and dirty linens left throughout the property. Weissman said Lamarck was also able to leave her a negative review on Airbnb, which stayed on her listing for several days before she managed to have it taken down.

Weissman said she expects to lose only “a couple of thousand” dollars overall, thanks to insurance and the damage coverage provided through Airbnb’s Air Cover program. She said Airbnb’s response to the situation fell short. “Airbnb did like the absolute minimum. I mean, they said: ‘Call your local law enforcement,'” she said.

Weissman said Hermosa Beach also bans short-term rentals of less than 30 days, a rule she said added to her difficulties. “California has the most lax laws for this kind of thing in the US and it’s taking advantage of law abiding citizens like myself,” she said.

Airbnb said in a statement that cases like this are uncommon. “Issues like this on Airbnb are very rare. In this case, we are in contact with the host and have removed the guest from our platform,” the company said. Airbnb confirmed that Lamarck’s profile has been removed from the platform, and his negative review of Weissman’s property has since been taken down.

According to legal information site Justia, hosts in California can run into trouble because of the state’s 30-day rule. Once a guest occupies the same property for 30 consecutive days, they stop being considered a transient guest and gain tenant protections that require a formal court eviction process rather than a lockout or forced move.