NEED TO KNOW
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Bride-to-be Micaela Rodriguez shared a video on TikTok recounting how a man wearing a ski mask and gloves broke into the Nashville Airbnb she and her friends were staying at while celebrating her bachelorette trip
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The man rattled the bedroom doorknob of one of the guests, prompting police to be called
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The group ended up relocating to a nearby hotel where they felt “safer”
A bride-to-be says that what was meant to be a fun trip to Nashville to celebrate her bachelorette turned into a terrifying experience after the group’s Airbnb was broken into.
Micaela Rodriguez recounted the incident in a video shared on TikTok on April 1. She began by explaining that “a couple of strange things happened on the day leading up” to the break-in. One of her bachelorette guests arrived at the Airbnb a couple hours ahead of the group and wasn’t able to open the door using the keypad, so the host eventually came to manually unlock the rental.
At the time, Rodriguez said, the guest noticed that there was “a group of men who had a direct view of the front door and they were just watching her.”
“Just like weird vibes,” she added.
Once Rodriguez and the rest of the group arrived at the Airbnb, they began setting up for the party. They noticed that the door to the rooftop was unlocked and thought it was strange — but, as the bride-to-be explained, “You kind of justify these things and don’t think about it because there’s so much excitement and things to do.”
That night, the group left to hang out in the Lower Broadway area of downtown Nashville, and Rodriguez’s sole male guest decided to stay back at the Airbnb because he was tired. As the women were out celebrating together, one of them began to feel ill and returned to the house.
Lower Broadway in Nashville
Credit: Getty
Not long after, the group still on Broadway received a text message from the guest who had left saying, “Call the police! There is somebody in the house.” She had been staying in the only bedroom on the first floor of the Airbnb.
“We came to find out that she heard shaking on her doorknob, thought it was us trying to get in, and when she opened the door she came face to face with somebody in a ski mask and gloves,” Rodriguez said in her video. “He immediately ran out and gave her enough time to lock the front door, lock her bedroom door and then lock herself in the bathroom.”
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Meanwhile, the male bachelorette guest — who was on the second floor at the time — heard the sounds of people hanging out in the house for about 15 minutes and someone flushing a toilet in a bathroom. He remained in his room, figuring it was members of the bachelorette group.
“Thank God he was just tired enough to be too antisocial to figure out what was going on, assuming it was us,” Rodriguez said, adding that once he received a text from the group alerting him to the situation, “everything kind of clicked.”
Eventually, he heard the intruders go up to the third floor. He quickly made his way downstairs and got the female guest and they left the house together.
The rest of the group returned to the Airbnb as police officers were arriving. Once they were allowed into the house to gather their belongings, they were surprised to find that “nothing was touched.”
“There were designer bags, there were laptops, there were cameras, TVs, alcohol. Everything was left exactly how we left it, which is almost weirder,” Rodriguez said.
Metro Nashville Police said they believe at least two people broke into the home that night, per local outlet WSMV 4.
Rodriguez said in her video that she and her friends gave statements to the police and then left to find rooms at a nearby hotel. They had to leave most of the party decorations, food and alcohol behind “because we didn’t know where we were going and if we’d have space for it.”
She said Nashville police told her that incidents like this “happen all the time, especially to Airbnbs that are catered for and marketed to women and bachelorette groups just because it’s so predictable what their schedule is going to be.”
In a statement to PEOPLE, an Airbnb spokesperson said, “Incidents, especially of this nature, are very rare.”
The spokesperson added: “We take the safety of our community seriously and want to support positive experiences. We’ve refunded the guest for their stay and reimbursed hotel and grocery expenses as part of our support. In the exceptionally rare event of an issue during a stay, we provide 24/7 assistance, including a round-the-clock safety line.”
Rodriguez said she is “thankful” that no one got hurt and that nothing was stolen.
As for the bachelorette celebration, she said the group carried on despite the upsetting incident. “I have an amazing group of friends. We have made the best of this,” she explained in her video. “We’re staying at a bad-ass hotel and we feel safer. But it was a bit of a buzzkill, you know.”
PEOPLE reached out to Metro Nashville Police for an update on the case.
Read the original article on People
