Airbnb Renter Speaks About Staying At Home Searched In Mackenzie Lueck Case

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – A woman who said she stayed in the basement of a home searched in connection with the Mackenzie Lueck case has spoken about her experience.

Jillian Arce, rented the basement at the Fairpark-area house through Airbnb last year. She said there wasn’t anything wrong with the house, but her interactions with the homeowner made her uncomfortable.

“He seemed really kind,” she said. “Then as I was leaving, he was asking a bunch of questions about where I was going, what I was doing, why I was in Salt Lake.”

“He asked me where I was working, where my apartment was, if I needed help moving,” she added. “It seemed very kind but just also something you didn’t need to do for your Airbnb renter.”

She said the conversations he was trying to engage her in involved more detail than she was expecting.

“I knew too much about him for the relationship that we had,” she said. “It was kind of just like, ‘I’m here to stay in your room and I I’m not really here to chat.’ … I learned about his neighbor’s dog and how he was planning on building out a hot tub and what he was planning with his house.”

“It was kind of just weird  as a single person to just kind of – not be cornered – but just have all of this conversation that I wasn’t expecting as I was just sleeping there,” she added

Arce said a couple of weeks after her stay, she received a friend request on Facebook from the homeowner.

“At first, when the invitation came through, I didn’t know who it was,” she said. “Then I remembered who he was and what he looked like and what his name was – and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to kindly say no to that.’ It was just weird. I’m not friends with my landlord.”

Neighbors said the owner of the house near 550 North and 1000 West lived on the top floor and then rented out the basement on Airbnb. They said there a lot of people coming in and out of the home.

The listing has since been removed from the vacation rental site.