My friends, we’ve talked enough about art, business, marketing, and sales.
Today, let’s just have some fun. Over the last 26 years I’ve met thousands of customers. Most were wonderful. Some were unforgettable. And a few gave me stories so ridiculous I still have trouble believing they actually happened. Some stories come from selling Leonid Afremov’s paintings. Others come from the boutique hotels and luxury villas we opened in Playa del Carmen after he passed away. I really should have written these down in real time and took more pictures — they would have made one hell of a book.
Here are some of my absolute favorites.
Chapter 1: The Very First Guest in Playa Del Carmen
We have just finished remodeling a luxury vacation home by the beach. The original house was built in the late 1970’s. We bought it after the original owners passed away from Covid19 in 2020. We have spent more money than you can imagine. Every flower, every piece of furniture, every detail has been obsessively chosen. Then our very first guests arrive — a family of twelve celebrating a special occasion.
Since it was the first guest. I personally have arrived to greet them. I gave them the tour, explained everything, and wished them a wonderful stay.
Three days later I returned for checkout. Everything looked fine… except for a strange smell.
“Did something burn?” I asked.
“No, no,” they said. “We were just roasting marshmallows.”
Kids love marshmallows. Fair enough.
“Where exactly were you roasting them?”
“In the bedroom.”
My (non-existent) hair stood on end.
I walked in. They had roasted marshmallows directly on the brand-new king-size mattress. There was now a giant burn hole straight through it.
While I stood there in shock, all twelve guests quietly disappeared into a taxi and vanished.
Thankfully it was an Airbnb booking, so the mattress was covered. But that was my very first guest experience.
Here is the link to the this Airbnb airbnb.com/h/afremov2
Here is an illustrative image of what happened
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Chapter 2: “Rent to Older People”
After that incident, everyone gave me the same advice:
“Don’t rent to young people. Rent to seniors. Older guests are quiet.”
Sounded smart.
Soon after, a group of 4 couples have arrived. The youngest was about 65 .At 3 a.m. the Playacar security guard called, laughing so hard he could barely speak.
“Your guests are making love… in the middle of the road.”
They had dragged two king-size mattresses out of the house and turned the street into their private romantic escape. Security even put traffic cones around them so cars would not hit anyone.
The party lasted until sunrise.
The next morning one guest called me furious:
“Why did I wake up outside?! Scammers!”
I replied, “Sir, you spent the night in the middle of the road. Would you like to see the video the neighbors took?”
They checked out quietly and, to their credit, left no bad review. They also left a nice cash tip for cleaning the mattresses.
Mattresses, by the way, became recurring characters in my hospitality career.
Here are the images of the driveway where they threw their party
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- driveway.jpeg (108.98 KiB) Viewed 8983 times
Chapter 3: The Missing Refrigerator
A guest who constantly complained of back pain was otherwise perfect — he booked the physiotherapist package and everyone was happy.
Then one morning he called:
“There’s a problem.”
“Is the mattress okay?” I asked automatically.
“Yes. But the refrigerator disappeared.”
I drove over. Sure enough, the massive double-door fridge (over 200 pounds) was gone. Security footage showed nothing. Then someone suggested checking the rooftop terrace.
There it was — three stories up.
At 2 a.m., the very drunk guest and his friends decided the beer needed to be closer to the party, so they carried the entire refrigerator upstairs.
Getting it back down took eight people.
To this day, the guest still claims he has no idea how it got there.
Here is an image illustrating this sitiuation,the image is not the original incident
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Chapter 4: The Jacuzzi Winery
After enough chaos, I created strict house rules. Guests had to sign them before getting the keys. The list included:
No making love in the street
No burning mattresses
No carrying refrigerators onto the roof
Then a wedding group arrived.They loved the three giant French jacuzzis so much they decided to turn them into wine baths. They poured bottle after bottle into all three.Filling these jacuzzis with wine cost several thousand dollars.
The next morning the housekeeper called emergency services.A few days later one of the guests called me:
“Dmitry, do you know where we can buy tequila in bulk?”
I answered: “No. And the jacuzzis are now closed forever.”
New rule added: Jacuzzis may not be used as containers for alcoholic beverages.
Here is an illustrative image of how the jacuzzi looked like
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3 a.m. phone call:
“Where did you move the front door?”
“It’s in the same place it’s always been.”
I arrived to find people wandering around opening and closing doors, repeatedly asking each other, “How do we get outside?”
The front door — enormous, impossible to miss — was right where it belonged. They just couldn’t find it.
I guess some people are completely clueless of their surroundings
Chapter 6: Back to Art — The Customer Who Burned His Collection
Compared to hotels and vacation rental, selling paintings should have been easy. It wasn’t. One longtime customer (buying since the early 2000s) called disappointed. He said the painting was smaller than expected, even though the exact dimensions were listed.
I offered a full refund and told him he could keep the piece.
The next day he uploaded to YouTube a video of himself burning every single Afremov painting he had bought over twenty years. I had to file a complaint with YouTube to get it taken down.
Why did he burn the paintings, I do not know. Something pissed him off but burning them does not solve any customer service issue he could have claimed. A return for refund is definitely not an option anymore,
Here is an illustration of what was happening in the YouTube video
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A woman contacted me: “This painting is terrible.”
The photos looked awful. On closer inspection, someone had painted over half the original artwork with thick acrylic.
“Who did this?” I asked.
“My child added a few brushstrokes.”
Later she left a review saying the painting “looked like it was painted by a child.”
Technically correct. Here is a picture illustrating this situation
Chapter 8: Darts, Dogs & Sky
Another customer demanded a free replacement because her 20-year-old son had used the painting as a dartboard (over 100 holes).
Reason: “He’s a child.”
Here is an image illustrating such painting
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The dog was standing on grass. She wanted sky there anyway. After a long discussion about composition, I refunded the order. Sometimes sanity is worth more than the sale.
Young people after music festival are like vampires.
In January 2026, I have hosted a group of young people (ages 18 to 22) who were attending the Zamna music festival in Tulum. They were living like vampires, out at night only, sleep during the day. They were going to the festival at night by ADO bus from downtown of Playa Del Carmen and returning early in the morning to sleep. Their reservation was for 5 nights.
One might ask why stay in Playa del carmen and take a bus for one hour each way when you can stay in Tulum where the festival takes place. The answer is simple - Tulum is too expensive for hotels, food and anything else you might need. It's just a lot cheaper to stay in Playa Del Carmen and go to Tulum daily. I barely go to Tulum myself because it's so expensive.
These guests never gave any trouble but when the time came to checkout, they did not go out. The maid was knocking on their door for good 20 minutes and no one was coming out. Based on security camera, I knew they were inside the house. The next group was coming in a few hours so we had to clean like right now.
I told the maid to just open the door with the spare keys. She came inside the found everyone sleeping like bears during winter sleep. Snoring, not moving, and not responding to anything. The kitchen was full of empty pizza boxes and empty take-out containers. There were lots of empty bottles of beer and tequila all of the kitchen.
image illustrating the situation
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image illustrating the situation
- maid with pans.jpeg (192.99 KiB) Viewed 8983 times
While they were coming outside one by one. They were covering their faces with their elbows and saying ridiculous things
“turn of the sun”
“the sun is fucking horrible, stay way”
“save me from the sun, please”
“fuck you sun”
Here is an image illustrating the situation
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So after going outside and having an emotional meltdown because of the morning sun, their taxi has arrived and took them. However, one of them asked if he can stay and wait for his girlfriend for a few minutes. He sat down in the front yard lawn chair and started waiting. This wait extended long beyond a few minutes. He was so fucked up, he sat in this chair for 5 hours waiting for his girlfriend. Eventually she arrived in a motorcycle to pick him up.
Images from the Zamna music festival in tulum
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- zamna.jpg (223.92 KiB) Viewed 8983 times
The Simple Truth
You can build the perfect business. You can write detailed rules. You can install cameras and hire security. But there will always be someone who roasts marshmallows on a mattress, drags beds into the street, carries a refrigerator onto the roof, turns a jacuzzi into a winery, gets lost looking for the front door, burns an entire art collection, uses a painting as a dartboard, or wants to replace a dog with sky. And honestly? That’s exactly why working with people is never boring.
The mattress stories alone had me laughing, but the refrigerator on the roof and the neighbor with the ladder were on a whole different level. After reading all this, I'm honestly amazed you stayed in business for 26 years dealing with people like that lol.