Running furnished rooms in D.C. means we’ve seen a lot—but every now and then, a guest comes along who reminds us that hosting is basically part-time detective work with no training, no badge, and absolutely no budget.
This story began perfectly normal: a guest booked a room for a full month, moved in, and was spotted around the house for a few days. All routine. Nothing to raise an eyebrow.
Then another resident mentioned hearing her having a heated argument with… well, someone. A friend? An enemy? A ghost? No one really knew. After that mysterious argument, she seemed to vanish into thin air. Days passed. No sightings. Eventually, concern won out over our usual “adult humans generally manage themselves” policy, and we checked her room.
Everything was still there—suitcase, clothes, personal items. The only thing missing was her.
Naturally, we notified the police. Naturally, they shrugged, because all her belongings being present clearly meant she “hadn’t really left.” Logic that was both helpful and not helpful at the same time.
So, like any responsible modern landlord, we took up our new role as social media wellness checkers. every few days, someone would pull up her Twitter account, hoping for a sign of life—or at least a meme.
Silence.
More silence.
Enough silence to rehearse several worst-case scenarios.
And then one day… a tweet. A cheerful, carefree tweet. As if she hadn’t left a whole house full of people wondering if she’d been abducted, relocated, vaporized, or teleported to another timeline.
We never saw her again. She never messaged. She never picked up her belongings. Just vanished from the physical world but reappeared on Twitter like everything was fine.
And that, dear readers, is how we learned:
Sometimes the only way to know if your guest is alive is to check social media.
We don’t love that this is true—but here we are.
Welcome to HostelChic Stories. Buckle up. We’ve got plenty more where this came from.