Man discovers hidden camera in bedroom of Scottsdale Airbnb rental

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The man who discovered a hidden camera disguised as a smoke detector above the bed of his Scottsdale Airbnb is speaking out.

Eliot Young and his family were visiting Arizona from Arkansas for Spring Training in March of 2024. They found a large house on Airbnb near 114th Street and Shea Blvd that they thought would be perfect for the family. It was, until it wasn’t.

RELATED: Family finds hidden camera disguised as smoke detector in Scottsdale Airbnb, according to lawsuit

“It was a nice home with plenty of stuff for me and my kids to to enjoy while we’re in the warmer weather,” Young said.

Looking back, Young said there were red flags. There was a blocked off bedroom they could not get into. There was also a car out front. But even stranger was the smoke detector directly above the primary bed.

“As soon as my wife and I lay down, I’m staring at the ceiling, and I literally said to my wife, ‘That’s a video camera,'” Young recalled.

The retired Little Rock Police Department officer investigated, and he was right.

“I got up on the bed, on top of the bed, then reached up, grabbed it, twisted it, took it off and confirmed it indeed was a camera and with the SD card in it,” Young said.

He then opened the files. He said timestamps indicated the footage dated back to 2020.

“There were, you know, intimate moments between people on the card that I believe were not, that weren’t authorized,” Young said.

Young did not find recordings of him and his wife or their kids, but he looked up the camera online and found that it can be accessed remotely and connected to WiFi. He even found a video on the memory card of who he believes is the homeowner installing the camera and testing the livestream capability.

“You could see the video of it being streamed to the person’s phone when they were installing the camera,” Young said.

He immediately called Scottsdale PD.

“I’m very pro-police, but the police had very little interest in the case from the beginning,” Young said.

As he alerted Airbnb and packed up his family to get out, he wondered why police would not come to the home. Instead, he drove to a Scottsdale police station and gave them the memory card and camera.

“Went to their front desk and said, ‘This is what I found. These are the images. These are the this is what I’ve got, you know, please,'” Young said.

Scottsdale PD said Young and his family did not qualify as victims because they were not seen on the memory card. Scottsdale PD said it appeared that the individuals seen on camera were acquaintances of the homeowner.

“It is not illegal to have a camera in the house. It is illegal to film people without their permission when the person has an expectation of privacy (bedrooms, bathrooms, etc.), but we have no evidence this was done to any renters. With that said, this doesn’t qualify under the law because the renter was not in any videos that we have. There is no recording of the renter at any point. It is a civil violation per the rental agreement and VRBO and AirBnb policy,” said a Scottsdale PD public information officer.

Young wondered if they were livestreamed.

“My concern was that the that the images of me and my family, images, intimate moments between me and my wife were streamed for $19 a month,” Young said.

Scottsdale PD said they have no indication that there was livestreaming. 

Airbnb pulled the home from its site and police cited the homeowner for failing to have a proper rental license and for failing to respond to an emergency.

More than a year later, no arrests have been made. Scottsdale PD said their investigation remains open and active. Police said they have tried contacting the homeowner numerous times but he has not answered.

They are now asking people who visited the home from September 2020 to November 2020 to call 480-312-TIPS so police can verify if they were in any of the videos and if they agreed to be recorded.

12News spoke with the homeowner’s father who said he would pass along our questions to his son. 12News also spoke to a man and woman outside of the home who said they were not the homeowner but declined to comment further.

“There’s people out there that don’t know that they were recorded and their sexual encounters were on that,” Young said.

Young is now seeking accountability through a lawsuit against the homeowner and Airbnb. Airbnb told 12News they are prepared to assist law enforcement in the investigation but have not heard from police.

“SPD contacted both VRBO and Airbnb to delist the property directly after we learned of the camera. We are not going to contact the company to get a list of renters, as it is clear the people in the video are known to the owner at the time it was being used as a private residence and not individuals who went through the short-term rental agencies,” Scottsdale PD said.

Young fears the investigative window may have closed and wonders if he will ever know what the hidden camera captured.

“It’s what keeps us up sometimes at night just thinking about that,” Young said.