Chinese Woman Had No Idea That a Popular Soap Opera Filmed in Her Home — Until She Saw Her Bedroom on TV

By Claire Spellberg @c_spellberg
Published March 10, 2021, 9:38 a.m. ET

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A woman in China received the shock of a lifetime when she turned on a soap opera and saw a character sleeping in her bed. According to the South China Morning Post, the woman, identified in court filings only by her family name Lin, hired a property manager to look after her home in 2015, but four years later, she realized that her bedroom and living room were prominently featured in drama series Heart to Heart Dialogue. Hopefully she washed those sheets!

The South China Morning Post reports that Lin first purchased the house, a large villa located in Cixi, Zhejiang, for about $4.6 million (30 million yuan) in 2014. However, Lin spends the bulk of her time about two hours away in Hangzhou, so in 2015, she hired a property management company to take care of the home while she was away.

At this point, things went off the rails. When Lin was away, the property managers allowed multiple television crews to enter the home and charged a fee without the owner’s consent or knowledge. Lin was kept in the dark for four (!) years, but in September 2019, she happened upon an episode of Heart to Heart Dialogue and was “shocked” to see the female lead sleeping in her bed.

In late 2019, Lin filed a lawsuit against Ningbo Film & TV Art Company, the show’s producer, and the property management firm. The following year, she added the producer of About is Love, another TV series that had filmed in the villa without her knowledge, to the lawsuit. In these filings, Lin said that over 60 scenes were filmed in her home, and she alleged that the production crew broke an elevator and glasses, stained her carpets, and wore down her furniture. As a result, she sought $153,000 (1 million yuan) in damages from the defendants, plus $306,000 (2 million yuan) for infringement of her privacy from several video streaming sites.

While the court rejected Lin’s claim of privacy infringement (her lawyer has promised to appeal the decision), the unlucky home owner still came away with a victory. Producers of Heart to Heart Dialogue and About is Love and the property management firm were ordered to pay a total of $63,000 (400,000 yuan) to the woman, split evenly among the three companies.

All this is to say, make sure you vet your property managers, or a random soap star could end up sleeping in your bed.