Julian:                                   00:00                     In this episode we’re talking all about what to do when someone throws a party in your Airbnb short term rental unit.

Julian:                                   00:05                     Stay tuned. Vacation rental machine helps so suggests like you learn how to start, grow and scale your short term rental business. The show’s all about creating systems that help you automate your business, giving me more time and money freedom. If you’re ready to start living a vacation rental life then subscribe to this podcast today, come in, join us on our Facebook group, the host nation, where we’ll be talking about starting automating and scaling a short term rental business. Now onto the show.

Julian:                                   00:31                     Hey, welcome back, host nation to another episode of vacation rental machine. In this episode we’re talking about parties and what happens when you do find out that your guests are throwing a party or they’re just getting way too loud and it started to make you feel uncomfortable or it’s starting to maybe potentially lead to a problem. The last episode we were talking all about the ways that you can protect your property from having those types of guests showing up. And that was including things like in your listing description and your settings, how many days or allowing people to stay. And then we also talked about the tools that you can use to be able to monitor and make sure that your property is staying within a certain level. But every once in awhile you’re still gonna find those guests that slip through the cracks. Or maybe they just start drinking, they’re having a little bit too much fun and they’re starting to get a little bit too loud, which could make you uncomfortable and your monitoring devices will be able to identify if things are getting too loud or if maybe too many people are opening and closing the door.

Julian:                                   01:25                     Or if there’s just way too many guests. These are the types of things that may be happen once they do book. So now we want to talk about what happens when things start to get a little bit too much and we need to be able to keep this under control or potentially even get them out of the property. Now I see John’s nodding his head because he does have this experience, but not everybody’s going to have this. If you just have one property and maybe it’s in your house, maybe you’re never going to have to experience this, but as you build up your vacation rental machine and you’re taking on more properties, this is just part of the nature of the business and you have to have the tools and the steps in the processes in order to keep these things under control because we’re all about preventing the loss of the lease. We’re all about keeping that lease safe. And we have to do this for our clients. We have to make sure that our clients, that we’re managing their properties for, that they are satisfied and that their property is protected. So we need certain processes. So John, what are the ways that you have been able to prevent these types of situations from escalating and what do you do when something does escalate

Jon:                                        02:23                     there prevents stuff from escalating. You gotta be aware to be aware. You’re going to need external cameras if you don’t have them, you’re okay with noise aware. The name goes perfectly here because we’re trying to prevent parties so we’re trying to deter against noise on one thing that they do great is alert me of things going on within about 10 minutes after it goes across a certain threshold. So when that happens, when I get that alert, I immediately go when I started trying to backtrack what I can backtrack on all the text that’s inside of the apartments or homes that be open doors, closed doors from the smart lock. That might mean overlooking the history of the noise. Aware for this day. That might mean looking at the cameras, trying to identify how many people are there. One note there also can be a party of one.

Jon:                                        03:17                     People like to listen to loud music, stuff like that. Some people travel with their own speakers so things can get loud with one person. So don’t just think that just one person booking and you only see one person go in in that they’re not going to party or just play loud music. Once I get that notification, I then immediately look at the noise aware and I started to look at a trend. Right. I’m looking to see if that trend is going up and down. Maybe they just turned on the TV. Maybe it’s a football game that’s online and somebody is hollering at the TV because of touchdown or something like that. I don’t want to bother anybody that’s just, you know, enjoying the space, you know, that stuff isn’t really going to make or break anybody’s rules, you know? So if it’s prolonged for longer than 10 minutes, I then we’ll shoot a message or via Airbnb letting them know, Hey, one of the neighbors just said something might be going on or it’s getting a little loud over there.

Jon:                                        04:14                     Would you mind? You know, just coming down a little bit. I don’t know. Sometimes they can be a little over the top. I told her that things are fine. Right. I send all of that in the message for kind of just gave my statement. I softened it up a little bit and just kind of just played it off like I’m one of the guests that right. I then immediately go back to the noise, aware. I look for the downturn of whatever was going on. Nine times out of 10 it goes down and never comes back. One of those instances where it goes down 10 minutes later and pops right back up. Now I gotta keep my eye on this guest. I might send another message and if I do fend another message, maybe if I don’t get a response, I’ll immediately call Airbnb. I’ll let them know.

Jon:                                        04:56                     I just want them to be aware that I’m sending messages about somebody breaking rules. What they’ll do is start to call or try to reach out to the guests. I let them try to fight whatever for me cause they’re there. They’re our mediators, so it’s easier for them to just go and message or call, talk to the guests. They’re going to be softer than I am. Just better. They can do a lot of the heavy work right there. If they don’t answer, if they don’t respond back to Airbnb, that representative will call you back and let you know, no response. Then you ask them your next steps. Basically they’re going to tell you to either continue messaging or you can go knock on the door. If I’m going to knock on a door that point, I’m almost ready to kick you out. You’ve already broken the rules.

Jon:                                        05:47                     I have proof of it. I’ve sent it to who I need to send it to you on Airbnb. I might even send it to you, but I don’t always disclose. Again, I have noise monitors and unit because normally when you do that, they get unplugged or they get found or everything gets unplugged, wi-fi, just because people want to stop you from doing whatever, so I don’t always say that I got it when I do. Sometimes people quiet down again. I don’t want to kick anybody out, but once I physically get on the premises or somebody physically gets on the premises, nine times out of 10 that’s what’s happened. Moving somebody out, right? I mean it’s just a simple knock on the door, Hey, I’m your host or working on behalf of your host. You guys are clearly breaking rules. We ask that you vacate the property simple as that conversation that you’re having with the guests could get amplified if you feel in danger of anything, call the police back off, wait till the police get there.

Jon:                                        06:45                     Police will not actually physically go in and throw anybody out, but they will be there just for your safety and that’s key. Sometimes just as a show of force, people come back down and if they know they broke the rules, it’s very easy to get them back in line when the police arrive and they are moving people out of the property. I take photos, I want to see or just have further evidence of, Hey, maybe they had coolers, maybe they had balloons, maybe they were like dressed like they were going to the club. They where they pull out a boombox and there’s just like walking back out. I just want to have that documented because there is sometimes a fight after they vacate that always that they weren’t doing anything. Maybe they were just watching TV. You want to make sure that you are protected.

Jon:                                        07:32                     That’s why we got all these devices. That’s why we capture all this evidence. That’s why we send things through Airbnb to make sure they’re documented. That’s why we picked up the phone and called them and had Airbnb go back. That way when we submit a resolution right into Airbnb and we try to cover extra charges for cleaning and whatever else that we need to cover, we want to make sure that Hey, this is everything that you need. They did this and it’s in your hands to make sure that I keep my money. Why don’t you do that? Everything should be good.

Julian:                                   08:04                     So it is really important that you do have everything that we mentioned in the previous episode because you want to be able to provide evidence of a claim. Not only is it important to be able to keep these people from coming in or to keep things from escalating, but you need evidence. You need proof, you need ways to show like if it’s Airbnb or VRVO, HomeAway, wherever it is that something was happening. Because a lot of times if a guest is getting kicked out, they’re not in the best of mood, they’re not happy and they’re going to fight to be able to get their money and to be able to try to be able to not have something taken away or not be charged anything. So they’re going to really try to fight to be able to stay there, to be able to get whatever it is that they can out of you.

Julian:                                   08:42                     So being able to have evidence is so important and it is a little bit more of an upfront cost. You know, it does cost a little bit, but in the longterm it can save you so much headache and so much pain if you do have these things set up in place. So with all that being said, host nation. Until next time, keep on hosting. Hope you host found value in this episode. If you did, please go on over to iTunes and leave us a review as that would greatly support the show. If you’d like to connect with John, the community and I, then go on over to our Facebook group, the host nation, talk to yourhost in the next step episode, keep on hosting.