Did You Notice This About The Hometowns On The Bachelorette?

During last night's "hometowns" Rachel Lindsay visited the homes of four men she's currently dating. At each home, she met their respective family members. It's all very poignant and all-too-real for anyone who's had to meet an S.O.'s parents, but there was one thing that was amiss: The homes looked funny. Namely, they don't look lived in. That's because, quite often, The Bachelorette shoots the "hometown" dates in rented homes or even just a borrowed home.

Last night, contestant Eric Bigger brought Rachel Lindsay to his home in Baltimore to meet most of his family. The exterior of the home, though, looked more like a hotel. And it entirely could be — in 2014, a contestant on The Bachelor in Australia defended the fact that production had rented a house by the water to use instead of her parents' real home. In that case, contestant Lisa Hyde claimed production didn't want to use her home due to "noise and privacy." It's not unlikely that production rented a hotel room for 24 hours to get footage with Eric's family.

Bryan Abasolo and Peter Kraus had similar homes — a little empty, and decorated in the same fashion as the other. (One Twitter user noticed that the vases were the same.) Of course, Dean Unglert's date was different; the youngest contestant's home was markedly different from the other homes, which seemed to indicate that it was his real home.

This may seem deceptive; after all, this show is ostensibly "real." But we know better now. Unreal taught us that most of The Bachelor is producer-led theater. Most often, the "fake" parts of the show are justified. Fans loved to wonder why contestants don't eat the food on the one-on-one dates. Contestants have since come forward to say that they typically eat before the dates so they don't have to chew on camera. (The fact that audiences don't like to watch people chewing on camera is another matter.)

A fake house could be used for a number of reasons. For starters, production has to film there — so the home needs to be conducive to film production. Noisy streets won't help. But also, would you want your home shown on national television? It's an invasion of privacy, in a way, and why wouldn't you choose to stay in a hotel room for the length of shooting?

The secrets of The Bachelorette continue to unravel.