Ok so I’m staying in an Airbnb and it turns out I clogged the toilet. Why? Because I couldn’t be bothered to go buy toilet paper, so I wiped with paper towels.
Not the brightest idea, but nothing to panic about yet. I try using the plunger: doesn’t work, annoying. I google it and read that apparently hot water helps unblock things.
Perfect — I’ll boil some water! I grab the kettle and listen, I don’t drink tea, I never boil water. The last time I boiled water was ten years ago, so I do what I used to do with my good old kettle back then: I put it on the induction stove to heat it up.
Everything’s fine, I go to the bedroom to look at my phone and two minutes later I hear a strange noise in the kitchen. And there’s smoke.
I go check and it’s a horror scene — the kettle is catching fire and there’s smoke everywhere.
It’s 2025, of course the kettle is electric… and made of plastic. And the plastic is catching fire.
Full panic. I grab the kettle and throw it out the window.
Luckily onto the balcony — because yes, the Airbnb is on the 80th floor. I was this close to launching a meteorite onto some poor pedestrian.
Alright, the kettle is on the balcony but there’s still smoke everywhere, and of course the fire alarm goes off. Now total meltdown: I open the windows and… I run. Because I’m pretty sure burning plastic fumes are super toxic but mostly I’m wondering if I’ve just caused the evacuation of a 90-storey building.
I run down to reception and explain that the fire alarm is going off, but don’t worry — it’s not because there’s a fire, it’s just because they have the honor of hosting the biggest idiot of the 21st century.
I go back up and thank god the owner never changed the alarm code — it’s 0000 — so I’m able to shut it off.
I’m now in this apartment that reeks of burnt plastic, with melted plastic on the induction stove, a completely destroyed kettle on the balcony, and still a clogged toilet.
I’ll speed up the rest because luckily it ends well: I buy some cleaning products and manage to save the stove; I buy some kind of poop-gun for the toilet (very expensive but very effective, because I tried several plungers and nothing worked so I had to use that. I could go into the fact that I spent two hours wading in my own crap because it was REALLY blocked, but that’s not that important to the story); and I buy a new electric kettle. Altogether it cost me over $200 in the end, but hey — it could’ve been worse.
Like, I could’ve burned down the apartment.
TL;DR: I tried to boil water in a kettle on the stove thinking it was an old-school one, but it turned out to be electric… so I basically just cooked plastic and wiring.
Bonus: here’s the poor kettle. May it rest in peace. https://imgur.com/a/Tqd46G6
Comments
It is like Inspector Clouseau stayed there
I’ve … Actually done the kettle thing before. But paper towels? Man, that’s nasty
Bro how have you survived this long
Why not throw the paper towel into the trash instead of the toilet??
You are the reason people get out of renting real estate. Please visit more AirBnBs
Em dash
I’ve never stayed in an Airbnb that didn’t have a lot of toilet paper. There wasn’t a litter box you could poop in instead? You couldn’t jump in your shower to wash your ass? You just duck walked everywhere until you decided to use full size paper towels? I have a feeling you’ve burnt water before.
not every toilet can even take single ply toilet paper…
I think a guy like you might do well following the rules.
Why was there no TP in the place? That’s dumb on the owners part.
(The following is made up by ChatGPT – pretty similar to the OP, don’t you think?)
It was supposed to be a quiet weekend.
I’d booked this cozy little Airbnb cabin nestled in the woods—nothing fancy, but it had charm: a wood-burning stove, a wraparound porch, and a kitchen stocked with everything except common sense, as I would soon discover.
Night one: peaceful. I made tea, read a book, watched raccoons perform Cirque du Soleil on the trash cans. Idyllic. But night two? That’s when things spiraled.
It all started with garlic bread.
I got inspired (read: overconfident) and decided to make pasta from scratch. Never mind that I only really knew how to boil water and press “Start” on a microwave. I figured, How hard can garlic bread be?
Answer: hard enough to almost burn down someone’s rental home.
I buttered some bread, sprinkled on garlic, and placed it in the oven. No foil, no tray—just directly on the rack, because I’d seen that in a cooking video once. I set the oven to “broil” because that sounded fancy. Then I… wandered off. For what I thought was a minute.
Fifteen minutes later, I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I smelled… success?
Nope. Smoke. Thick, greasy, aggressive smoke.
I sprinted into the kitchen to find flames doing a slow-motion mosh pit inside the oven. My garlic bread was now a blackened relic, a burnt offering to the Airbnb gods.
I panicked. Opened the oven door. Bad idea. The flames flared up like they’d just been passed the aux cord at a rave.
Next mistake: I grabbed the closest thing—a dish towel—and swatted at the fire like it was a mosquito. The towel instantly caught on fire. Great. Now I had two fires.
Finally, brain kicked in. I remembered there was a fire extinguisher under the sink—because the host had very helpfully labeled it “Fire Extinguisher,” like they knew I would be the problem. I grabbed it, yanked the pin, and let loose. The fire died with a pathetic hiss, the kitchen blanketed in white powder and the smell of shame.
I spent the next hour scrubbing everything, opening windows, and fanning smoke out the door with a baking sheet. I also left a note for the host:
“Hey! Slight oven mishap. Everything’s fine. Just used the extinguisher a little. Garlic bread’s… not salvageable. Sorry!”
They gave me a five-star review anyway.
But I never broil anything anymore. I toast. With supervision. And foil.
And maybe a fire extinguisher within arm’s reach.
Okay first of all, how did you fail to notice that the kettle was made out of plastic? Second, you say you were wading in your own crap. Did you flood the bathroom? Third, how have you managed to go ten years without the need to boil water? And my final question is, what is a poop gun?
the air bnb should have enough toilet paper for u
You wiped with paper towels, and then you tried to flush them? You could have thrown them away…
Or, and pardon my brilliance here. You could have showered.
I worry for whatever person hands you something like a Rubik’s cube.
FYI you should NEVER use paper towels in a toilet. They don’t break up when submerged, they are basically the worst possible paper product you can put down a toilet next to a sanitary pad.
My main issue is the Electric Kettle being placed on the stove.
They generally are made of PLASTIC and have an electric cord attached.
The “made of plastic” alone should tell you “I can catch on fire”.
Secondly, how did you miss the electric cord/socket on the kettle?
You sound like a horror guest.
Besides the misadventure, it’s imperative that you tell the owner of the unit exactly what happened. If there’s damage to the unit — which, judging by what you’re saying, there may be – best to get it out of the way and tell them what occurred so they can get someone out to help.
The owner not providing toilet paper is insane.
Throw the paper towels in the trash!
How have you gone so long without boiling water?! Do you only eat at restaurants or frozen meals???
Throw the damn thing in the sink and turn the water on!
Kevin?
Honestly I can kinda excuse burning the kettle, even tho it’s plastic it’s something people could definitely miss. But how do you have that bad of fire safety skills? How is your first instinct to throw it out the window? Just take it off the heat, put it in the sink so it can’t burn anything, and wait for it to go out. Smother it with some baking soda to make it go faster, don’t drop a flaming kettle out the window and hope for the best.
Lots of hate but honestly OP I find this kind of hilarious. Wonder what’s the poop gun you mentioned
Lesson learned. Don’t be too lazy to buy damn toilet paper
Why wouldn’t you put it in the sink and turn the water on?
This guy gets to vote….
Owner is looking through the spy cameras wondering what the hell they’re watching.
Bro tried to fix a toilet and accidentally invented chemical warfare. Real Airbnb speedrun energy
How did you even get an induction stove to heat plastic? I have one. The burners won’t operate without a magnetic pot.
Are you American?
Are you 12? Seriously, so many bad decisions like WTF dude? Pretty sure we were all taught not to flush anything besides toilet paper in elementary school