Haunted Otranto: Our Stay in Italy’s Most Unsettling Airbnb

We thought we were just booking a simple Airbnb in Otranto, but the week turned into something else. The house was unsettling from the moment we arrived. All over the ground floor there were strange openings built into the floor, some of them dropping into deep stone shafts. One was filled with bottles, others just sat dark and empty, and they made the whole place feel uneasy. By the second day we found an extinguished cigarette left on a ledge that hadn’t been there before. At night the noises started, sounds we couldn’t explain that kept us awake and on edge.

In this episode we talk about the week we spent in what we started calling our ScareBNB. We share the details that made the stay so unnerving, how it felt to live in that house for days on end, and why this trip to Puglia became one of the strangest travel experiences we have ever had.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello and welcome back. I'm Lisa. And I'm Erin. And this is the Getaways Podcast. We have a special guest today. We do. Hello. It's Megan. She's a repeat guest. Yes, she is. And Rex might have a little something to say in the background too.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Yeah, we're recording in a different location downstairs, having a, you know, a drink. So it's gonna be different sound. You might hear the dog, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

But we also have a little bit of a different podcast for you guys today because we are calling this one Scare B. Over the summer in Otranto, we stayed at a little bit of a crazy Airbnb. Is that a fair statement? Oh, it was wild. Yeah. All right. So it was the end of July, beginning of August. Yeah. Which we talked about Otranto on the previous podcast, but we sort of left this because it's it's a little bit of you know, story.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

It's a special story. And since Halloween's coming up, we thought we would just tell our whole Otonto experience.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Not all of it's scary, but Well, it is, just in different ways.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

And Megan was with us, so we thought we'd invite her. So here we are, shrewdive in.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Yeah, let's dive in. Okay, so we drove down, as we've mentioned before. Megan came in the morning and then we hung out and then drove like midday to Otranto and take it over.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

We met at an apartment a little off of the beach, a little off of the sea, about a 15-minute walk, probably from our apartment, which we hadn't seen yet. I didn't know anything about. And she wasn't there when we got there.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Yeah, so the the Airbnb owner is the one who told you to meet there.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

And then we get there and she wasn't there, and then but she was there within like five minutes. Yeah. And it was it was just chaotic from the start. So I don't know if she owned this apartment building, but it was like a a lot in the middle of an apartment building. It was dirt.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

It was dirt. So it was the dirt parking lot that we met her at, and it was right outside of like the old city walls. Yeah. But we don't know who owned said dirt parking lot. So anyway, and and just to like give you an idea of what we were traveling with, I mean, we were gone for four weeks. And you know, I take stuff to work out, like weights, and we take like a bag of like staples for the kitchen so that we can cook and stuff. So we have a lot of paraphernalia.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

And the a weird thing that happened is Megan called Lisa, or you called, somebody said, Hey, did you look at the listing lately? Because there's all these pictures. There's no make sure you're gonna be a little bit more. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Of not just the Airbnb in the rooms, but like the view outside at night with with the reflection with full flash through a glass window. So just the reflection of the woman. The photographer. Photographer in the glass, a photo of the golf cart that she picked us up at. The golf cart was like at the dealership. Yeah, it was like covered in plastic, but it still was when we got it. Yes, it was. It was okay. So then she shows up with this said golf cart, which is quite large, but not for not large enough. Yeah. So I'll leave it to you guys to give the first round.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

So she decided we'd leave Lisa and the dog and take all of our luggage and wouldn't let Lisa walk. She said, Too far, it's too far. Turns out it was like 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Yeah, and I would have been much happier.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

So we loaded up, stuffed everything in every nook and cranny of the golf cart, and headed towards our apartment through the old town. And and you had the joy of sitting next to her riding shotgun. I sat next to her, and so it's an old town of a very touristic city, right? Like it's crowded and it's it's there's no cars, it's not a car town. So she's busting through these cities and honking at everybody that's in her way. At one point, there was this poor little old woman that somebody was helping walk, and she's and I was like all volume honking. I was so embarrassed. But before we even get to that, she's cruising before we get to the city walls, super fast. Super fast up a hill.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Our bags are all hanging off of the back of the golf cart. So I have my arm wrapped around because my suitcase weighs at least 50 pounds. And if it falls out, it's gonna kill somebody. Yeah. So I'm holding that, and then I see the smaller bags, like there was a bag of computer bag. Yeah, your computer bag was back there. So I'm trying to make sure none of these fall. And then I see one of the smaller, like, I don't know, grocery bags, shoes go flying, shoes literally falls off the back, shoes go flying everywhere. I'm asking her to stop. She's barely recognizing it. And then finally she does, and we run down and grab the shoes, and then she continues.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Oh, honking. All right, so then we're in the mid the middle of old town, and she's honking at everybody and squeezing by people, and it was terrible. And then we get to right around the corner from her house, and there's a restaurant, a lovely restaurant that we had a great dinner at, but they're set up with their tables outside, and she starts honking at them, yelling to move the tapes. Remember how mad they were? Oh my god. Like the one guy threw to the table and broke a glass, and they were mad.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

And they were exchanging words with each other, like she's yelling at him to move the tables, and he's yelling back that they're allowed to have them there. And yeah, he's throwing things to get out of the golf cart's way.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

So and I got the pleasure of going back by them again. Megan got to stay. So we pull up to our apartment. Well, we pull up to a door. Yeah, just a door.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Yeah. And she goes, Well, you can get out here.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Because the other on the other side to get around to our front door, the restaurant had already set up their tables too. So she didn't want to have a fight. So she's like, We'll just go in this way. Didn't really tell us what this way was, but took us in, opened the door, and then said, I'll be right back. Remember, she took the crib to somebody else in another apartment down the street.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

She opens the door to this apartment to like a very old kitchen, pulls a crib out of it, takes it somewhere else, and then tells us to start unloading our bags.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

So we unload all into this Molsy smelling, yeah, smelly kitchen that was tiny, and we were like, ooh.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

I didn't hear this part of the story. Oh no, the kitchen. Is that our kitchen? No. No. Okay. Yeah, no, I didn't hear about this.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Oh, did you never go into that kitchen? No. Oh, yeah. It's not a great kitchen. And there's a door in that kitchen to another apartment.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Yeah, there was like a door to a weird, creepy storage room like we had. And then there was a door to get from that very old, unkept kitchen. There was a door that went through to get to our apartment that we all that we ended up taking. But then there was another door that went to like the tiniest bedroom.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

We had to walk through that bedroom to get to the big living room to get to our apartment.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

Yeah. A fancy living room. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

Okay. So we walk into this creepy old kitchen that connects to an even creepier tiny bedroom with absolutely no lighting. Two like small twin beds that are just mattresses on like rickety bedframes.

unknown 7:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Sounds luxurious. It's like metal bed. And I'm looking at it thinking it's our apartment. And I was like going, oh my God, we absolutely cannot stay here. And then she goes, Well, this isn't yours, as she leads us into this like grand living room that we ended up using later. Yeah, which we called our Zoom room because it was a beautiful room and so weird that we had access to it. It didn't match anything else. No, no, but it was probably she probably does really well on Airbnb with that because that room is fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

But I'm saying that living room does not match the bedrooms in that house.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

No, no, you no, I know. Well, no, I know. But I mean, just going by that picture, you'd be like, oh, this joint's fancy.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Well, and whoever's in that living room has at least two or three doors going to other apartments.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

And some of them are glass. And they're they're frosted glass. Yeah. At night, you can see the people behind us.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

It's like I'm watching a puppet show.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

And you compare their whole conversation. Yeah. So weird. So she then opened uh our door, which opened up into the room you stayed in. Right, right. And there was no air conditioning in that room. Right. There was supposed to be air conditioning. And she was like, Oh, you can just turn the air conditioner on in this apartment and down here, and it'll cool off. And we're like, This apartment? What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_02 8:44

So, anyway, so then she came back.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Her and I went back. So Megan started taking all the furniture, which I'm sure she would not heard about the bags. The bags.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

All the bags. I moved all of our luggage from this weird apartment that wasn't ours, but she told us we would have access to this big living room. So I moved all of our luggage while she went back to you.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Into another weird apartment.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Into our apartment that we had rented.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

And I will say I came back and my stuff was already in my bedroom. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Okay, so you come back and get me. And then we the whole time in the car, she's like, I pay taxes. And like she just kept saying over and over again, and I'm like, well, what in God's name happened on the way here that all she wants to do is talk about taxes? But but Rex and I, I was holding on to Rex for Dear Life as she was like careening around corners and whatever. But finally get there. And then she drops us off down the street because she didn't want to drop us off here. But I think that was also intentional because I don't think she wanted to like answer questions about the place or like Megavan already been in there. Yeah. And I think she was like, Yeah, kick you out of the curb so nobody can like complain, or I don't have to explain why place is so strange. Weird. Okay. Yeah, because we didn't know who had access, who else had access to that big living room, which was behind a door that could lock that led directly to your bedroom. We didn't have the key. Things I didn't know at the time. Yeah, we never locked that door. Yeah. Sorry. Well, I mean, I had I had big tough wrecks to protect me. But but apparently that wasn't the only place that was strange in the house. No. So should we start? Where do we start? Do we start with the floors?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yes. Yeah. Okay, so one of the first things we noticed that was a little off about well, actually, I noticed the storage room first. Didn't you? Like yeah. When I was the walk-in fridge with the dip dip body smell. Oh yeah. I forgot about the walk-in fridge.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

When I was unloading, when I was moving our bags over, I saw like the doorway to the storage room and thought, oh shoot, like what is this? What are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 10:52

And yeah, I checked it out and then you guys saw it again. It was somebody had died in that walk-in fridge where it had been stored.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Well, there was a huge walk-in fridge that was not turned on. But the door was closed, right? The door was closed. I mean, I opened it because I was I was sure we were gonna find a body, right? And that's when I realized it was oddly warm, which I guess because it's insulated, but it smelled so bad. Yeah. But and then in the kitchen, the kitchen was unusable, yeah, essentially. I mean, first of all, everything was falling apart, and then there was like a it was filthy. There was a layer of like sawdust for lack of a better. I mean, it was like a thick, thick dust that was on all of the dishes and all of the pots and pans, but somebody had been there before us, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Just checked out, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

So splay me that one.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Maybe they looked around and said, Oh, not usable.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Well, and that's kind of what we did. I mean, because I never, I mean, we always cook at the place, and I made lunch one day, but it wasn't even hot, it was just a salad, like melon and stuff. Yeah. Well, and the sink was just like one of those stainless steel, like portable stings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, butcher stings.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Yeah. Like the butcher of Otranto lived there.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Which makes sense with the refrigerator too, right? Because there was they had to. I didn't did we talk about this before? I don't remember butcher being on the thing. But we did try and like think about what because there's a lot of things that it could have been, which leads us to thought maybe fishmongered, like fish came in there.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

I don't know. It was weird. But one of the things then we noticed was multiple holes in the floor. Yeah, like at least a couple in every room. Windows that just windows of doom. Some some looked down and you could see like old wine bottles at the bottom. Yeah. And some you couldn't see the bottom. The one in the kitchen looked like there was it was it wasn't blood, but it looked like blood just oozing down the side of the walls. We don't know what was down there.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

They were the holes were like on a cliff. A meter, right? Like a meter wide with the grate and then just a piece of plexiglass over. Often broken. Yeah. Yeah, with that was cracked. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

And there wasn't grates in all of them either. No.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

And some of them had like a weird condensation that came up in one night. Not all of them. So it wasn't like it was it was weird.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

So yeah, our house was on a cliff. And if you're out in the sea, which Megan and I went swimming out in the sea and you look in, it was a cliff. Yeah. So what was under there? What was underness? What was behind the cliff wall and under our house? Creepy grounds. No, because that city's so old.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

And when we went to the museum of the capital, it said that there was an old, like ancient history of caves in some of those cliffs and cave dwellers.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Yeah. So I'm glad I was on the second story. Because they were creepy. Those windows were creepy. Yeah. They were like windows to the underneath of the world.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

Well, the other thing is the ones in the kitchen were the ones that disturbed me, but the ones in our in the bathroom. Okay, so first of all, advertises three bathrooms. By that they mean three toilets and three showers. And two rooms. But right next door to each other. Yeah. And with signs that said ladies and men's, at least on one of them, right? Yeah. It was so bizarre. So it was like, well, what was going on there before? Like, who was living there before? That you had to like have separate.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

One of the bathrooms had two shower, three showers. It was like shower stalls. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then the bathroom that I have my toothbrush in had two toilets, two toilet rooms. Yeah. It was weird. And then windows in the ceiling that were onto the balcony upstairs that somebody else somebody else had control of it.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Had control of it. But that was what creeped me out was because it was windy and you would just hear like the they was the wind, I think, was dragging the furniture on the roof. But it sounded like dead bodies just getting dragged right and left.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Six in the morning on. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Even earlier than that, because it woke me up like early one morning.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

But yeah, the bathroom that so in the bathroom with the showers. And that one only had one toilet. Mm-hmm. That one was broken. And you would step on a tile next to it, and the whole thing would do a wiggly jiggly. Like that was creepy. I was sure I was gonna fall through the floor while I was brushing it. Yeah, it's like a money pit moment where I was like, it's gonna be half of me up here and the other half of me down.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Like I I feel like they were like trying to get natural light into the service room. So they put that to go. I don't know. But there was no natural light in the bathroom. No, it was weird. Like I feel like she inherited this from her family that had had it forever, but had no money to update it. Or interest or interest to update it because she pays taxes. She pays taxes, and it was booked all summer. Yeah. And she has like three or four units, but two downstairs weren't because they were at padlock from the something's weird. Something's weird. Something's weird in Denmark.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

But something was weird in Otram to and Megan experienced something really weird. Okay, so we spent our first night there.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Yeah. With no no incidences specifically. No incidents, it's just a weird vibe. Yeah. And then I know you slept fantastic the first night.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Well, I certainly wouldn't have had I known that the door was just gonna open when anybody could go in there. You had no idea. Ignorance is bliss.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

So we went to the sea the next day, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Yeah, we spent the day at the beach. We had so much fun. And then when we came back that evening, I went into my room and I was like, oh, it kind of smells like cigarettes. That's weird. But maybe somebody outside went by smoking. And then I look over and on the like ledge of the is it wings cutting? Is that the light coating? Is that what it's like? Yeah, wings coating. Okay. Like, you know, the chair rail. Yeah, on the chair rail on the wall, right next to my bed. Right next to her bed. There was a half-smoked cigarette just sitting there. A fatty, too. I mean it was that. Yeah. A half-smoked hand-rolled cigarette just sitting there. And I freaked out because I was like, who the hell left? Like, how did that get here? Because I'm observant enough. I feel I would have known it. The room was white. Well, you would have and then you've got this like cigarette smoke that.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

When somebody leaves a put-out cigarette next to you, you smell. You smell it.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

It's a strong odor. Well, and it stood out. It was papoo brown color on a white wall. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

I did my best to try to convince Megan that it hadn't been there. She just missed it.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Yeah. She wasn't buying it. I was not buying it. I was like, I was convinced someone had come in and like checked the place out while we were gone or something. I was like, there's absolutely no way this just and I didn't at the time I was thinking your door locked, but now I'm remembering it didn't. Yeah. And it was also live. We made it made it. But also because there was so much traffic around that corner and there were so many people just like peering in all the time, then that alone was a little disconcerting. And then to have the idea that that room we didn't understand, it just there was just this sort of eerie unpleasantness.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

My dad had that weird like chimney that went down to the kitchen. And it went up and it had a rolling door.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yeah, there was like some sort of old vent from whatever. It was a really big room, and I thought Megan would pick it. And I came back. She's like, oh no, did you see this? There were all sorts of weird secret trapdoors. It was, it was, it was weird. It was weird. So the the night after the night of the cigarette incident, we were downstairs and we had we had a reservoir.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Yeah, we had gone to dinner and we were just kind of hanging out, you know, down in the like living roomslash kitchen area. And Megan was sitting in one of the chairs. You were kind of sitting, I think you're sitting your back to it, weren't you? So we were talking about how weird the apartment was and how there was just such a weird vibe. But you know, it's too bad because it's such a great location and all this stuff. And then I don't remember if you said it or I said it. And we were like, oh my God, think of the ghosts that are in this place. And what happens? The light flickers. Doesn't just like flicker, it goes like on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off. And we both go, okay, we hear you. We know you're here. And then it stopped. But it was like, it was literally like they were in the conversation. It went on and off for like 10 seconds. Yeah. And it stopped when we said, Well, you have to be nice to the ghosts. Yeah. Then the light stopped. The light stopped. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, definitive. It wasn't Like I'm getting chills right now. It wasn't like one of those things where, like, oh well, maybe the wire got. I mean, it never happened before and it never happened again. Well, and I will say that Rex never freaked out about No, I don't think that they were necessarily bad, but they were presents for show.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

All right. So talk about your our our Well, who saw it? You saw it. The light flicker? No, the roach in the kitchen. Well, yeah, because it was like a freaking horse walking into the living room. You got a rat-sized copper. I mean, you literally could have rode the thing around the kitchen. I mean, it was ginormous.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

But the weird thing about it is it disappeared. It went underneath the fridge or something, right? And the next morning we wake up and he's belly up dead as a doornail in the middle of the kitchen. Yeah. Like, how does that happen?

SPEAKER_02 20:48

And just for the record, we left him there for days because nobody wanted to come there.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

I flicked him over to the corner, so he was still there when we left. We didn't use the kitchen, Sergio didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

We paid a cleaning fee. We use somebody's else's.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Well, she should have a harness that was like infested with roads.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Well, and then one, I mean, Rex is very, very sensitive to beings in his space. And there was one that ran across underneath your bathroom. Yeah, and he lost his marbles and chased it into a corner. And then that's the night I didn't sleep because I was convinced he was going to suffocate me.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

We got in in the storage room that nobody went into except for me and Megan. I did. I did laundry. Oh, yes, you did. There was a big uh bottle of wrapped poison, bug poison powder. Probably cracks or something. But yeah. So we we put suitcases where Rex couldn't get back behind the thing, and then we just slate.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

I squeaked like the whole can back there. I'm so repulsed. Never saw him again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

And uh, you know, but she was weird, like there was weird stuff. Remember, like there was like threats of the most amazing uh payments if you even touched moving the furniture. Yeah, she didn't want the beds moved because there was something going on.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Well, well, A, I think the furniture would have fallen apart because it was like in tatters. Well, I think there was mold. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I also, but yeah, I mean, I think that there was stains, I think there was stuff we we don't need to know. It was like a base though. 200. It was like a$200 fee if you moved the furniture even slightly. Yeah, and we're like, I just moved a stool.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Is that gonna cost me? I moved a table every night, but I moved it back. Yeah, because it puts the fear of gut in you. I was like, well, she's sneaking in every day to see if we moved furniture up. Oh, I don't think she was so needless to say, we didn't want her to come pick us up or host time to check out. We got a good review from her.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

Well, yeah, because what could she say that was bad? We didn't do anything. Did we leave her review? Yeah, and I think you said something that wasn't very derogatory. So the poor fools that came after us.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Yeah, I'm gonna apologize. I really feel bad about saying bad things about people's Airbnbs, unless they're terrible people. And she wasn't a terrible person.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

But she knew that it was creepy and she did not want to be in that place with us, and that was it was all choices. Like she made a lot of choices to try and separate herself. She also didn't respond to, like, we didn't have the trash information, and then it took her a really long time to get it to us. I think she was like, here's the apartment, throw away the key. Like, I think she was like done. I think there's a reason she didn't live there.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Oh of course, like you do that app, you're in a like a$12 million house. Yeah, yeah. Well Lemon Learn.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

It was still a great base. It the location was fantastic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

I did feel dirty leaving there.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

It was our first and only scare BNB, though. So we had we had to share it with you. It was our first scare BNB. And what a scare it was. It was one that will stick with us. All right. Anyone have any last comments about the uh B that will stick with us forever?

SPEAKER_00 24:04

It is September 29th when this airs. We're a few days away from October, which means Halloween is coming. Oh, and this is going on the Haunted Getaways as well. Yes, we are. We're doing a little tie-in. Yeah, a little cross promotion. The Haunted Getaways has been on a hiatus, but it is Halloween. So we're gonna do a few episodes this month. So this is our longest episode on that podcast. So I hope you're still here. All right. Well, thanks for listening. Oh, yes, check out our website www.thetayswith.com. That was for you, Jonathan.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

And we will see you next time. Thanks. Bye. Bye.