Airbnb Invoice For Flooding Due To Shower-head Adjustment

Location of occurrence: Montreal, Quebec.

Personal location: Massachusetts, United States.

This past summer (late July 2025), a group of four friends and I rented out an Airbnb for a week in Canada. We had the second floor in a multi-floor unit, with residents (I'm not sure if they were permanent or also there temporarily) below us, and renovations occurring on the floor above us.

The bathroom shower had a layout none of us had seen before, I will try to explain it to the best of my ability. There was a wall of glass surrounding one side of it, the wall on the other side of it, and in front of the shower was an opening, no door or anything to prevent water from spreading.

Basically, there was no bathtub or anything, so when I adjusted the shower head, it unknowingly led to water accumulating on the floor. The drain was as long as the shower but only about 3 inches wide. The shower head was facing straight down into the drain.

On one of our first nights, I adjusted the shower head diagonally, which led to water accumulating on the ground throughout the bathroom. I tried to sop up as much as I could with the remaining towels and set up a fan to hopefully dry up the rest, but upon waking up, there was still an uncomfortable amount of water.

The host contacted us that morning and told us that the water went through the walls/floor and flooded downstairs, doing some kind of structural damage. He came in and took pictures, and eventually messaged my friend, who the Airbnb was in the name of, and told him that it was ~$25,000 worth of damages. The host told him to just "tell Airbnb you can't pay it," but there wasn't even an option to do so. Nothing really happened after this point.

This past Tuesday (3/31), my friend got an invoice from Airbnb to pay for some of the damages. The request was $25,221.04, but the invoice is for $10,801.04. I would assume the host requested the $25,000 and Airbnb determined they would cover some with insurance, but we cover the rest.

My friend filed an appeal, stating that adjusting the shower head leading to $25,000 worth of damages is a faulty design, especially because 1) the shower was able to be adjusted and not locked into one place and 2) there was no warning on the listing. Airbnb denied the appeal this morning.

He has until April 15 to pay, otherwise "your (his card) will be charged $500 USD on April 15, and a member of our team may reach out regarding the remaining balance of $10,301.04."

My question is, what responsibility does an Airbnb guest have in a situation where there may be faulty/irresponsible design? While I am aware I could theoretically bear responsibility, is the host responsible for assuming we would not adjust the shower head despite no warning of the possible structural damages?

I have done some online research and found that Airbnb "sometimes doesn't show up to small claims court" but I am unsure if an amount this high (to me) is small to them. I'm in a position where paying that much money would significantly hurt me financially, so I am considering consulting an attorney, but I am also aware that getting into a legal dispute with a multibillion dollar company could surely end in me paying an attorney to get drowned in paperwork and eventually needing to pay the $10,801.04 anyway.