Video Transcript
00:00:00
Ours is splashes of Technicolor in a sea of gray friendly gray. So I think that’s, what’s really stood us out that I didn’t follow the rules of what most guests really look for in this statistical algorithm of design. I just went with what I liked. My husband went with what he liked and we decorated with things that we love and designed it with things from our hearts and people see that. And I think it’s been an immediate recognition when they’re just scrolling through,
00:00:32
This is episode number 10 of the short term rental success stories, podcasts. And I just want to say, thank you so much. We are now 10 episodes and still going super strong and continuing to try to get the best people on the show that can provide some just amazing knowledge. And I just want to thank all of the hosts that have been on the show, as well as our community, the host nation LEAs. If you haven’t already go on over to Facebook and join the group, I would love to be able to talk more with you. That is kind of one of the sad things about podcasts is that, you know, we don’t have this one-on-one interaction. I’m just talking and you’re listening to my voice, but I want to be hearing from you. So please go on over to our Facebook group, short term rental success secrets, or follow me on YouTube, just go search Short Term Sage or Julian Sage.
00:01:22
I would love to be able to connect with the host nation community on a more personal level and see what the listeners are doing with their short term rental success journeys. I am super, just excited to see where the next 10 episodes are going to take us. I, I think that we are just going to continue to grow and continue to our community is just going to keep on getting bigger and better. And please it is just so exciting to be a part of a community that just wants to grow and wants to better their Airbnb businesses into their short-term rental businesses. So please go on over to the Facebook group, connect with the host nation. And I can’t wait to talk with you all on there today. I have the pleasure of speaking with lot of camp Jessup. Lana is based out of St.
00:02:07
Louis, Missouri, where she’s the owner of a four family duplex that she also resides in Lana is an artist that lives loves and works in the Cherokee neighborhood and is living a truly creative life. Lana was able to quit her full-time job as a bartender. After taking the pledge in to short-term rentals, she’s now a full-time host and an artist, thanks to her success, running a multifamily short-term rental unit. If you like my show notes for this episode, go to Short Term Sage dot com backslash E P 10, or if you’d like my show notes sent directly to your inbox every week, then go to Short Term Sage dot com backslash show notes with all that being said on this week’s conversation. Welcome back hosts that I have the special honor of speaking with Lon of camp Jessup. Lana, would you please let the audience know a little bit, a little bit about who you are and what inspired you to get into short-term rentals?
00:02:57
Well, hi, how are you all? I am an artist and my husband is an artist as well. We have our own different specialties and we kind of had this perfect mix to start our own business. We originally were longterm landlords and we’re currently trying to, or we were trying to renovate the other side. And once we got into the renovation of that other side, in the third apartment, we heard about Airbnbs. So we thought we would give that a try. And we designed that third apartment, which is the in suite and apartment gallery or in suite in the Cherokee art district.
00:03:44
We fixed that up as an Airbnb. It was designed specifically for that purpose. So we gave it a try. And after a couple of months, we really loved how this was working. It helped with me and my food service experience and hospitality experience, and it helped with us because we could both actually make some money doing what we love, which is, you know, hosting people and creating beautiful spaces made with our own artwork and our own design and our own flair. So it, you know, I love it. We, once that turned out pretty successfully, we waited for the long-term leases to run out on the other two apartments and have converted those as apartments as well for Airbnb’s.
00:04:28
So now, you know, when we, before we got into the recording portion, you, you were telling me that you, you know, pre previous to now, you know, owning and managing an apartment complex that, you know, you’re, you’re clearing over five figures, which, you know, in the St Louis area is, is, is really, really good. You, you said that you were a bartender that was making, you know, just barely making, you know, five figures. So how, you know, how did you get into this position where you were able to now own an apartment and now you’re, you know, doing way better than you were previously?
00:05:06
Well, yeah, again, that’s the perfect mixture of things. I mean, as time goes through one’s life, my, my grandmother had passed and I had gotten a, a sum of money that was, you know, modest, but enough to essentially I had two choices, whether I wanted to spend two more years paying rent on an apartment, or just dive into this life that we had. And go ahead and maybe commit to this fella, named Jamie and get married and buy a house and then just get our world started. So that’s kind of what, how it worked. He had a perfect situation and I had a perfect situation where we could just do this and we did. So we bought a house and then shortly after with some of will, the rest of essentially my grandmother’s inheritance, we bought this other apartment and dove right into it. It’s, you know, my husband does construction and remodeling and design on that end. And I’m kind of more of the color and shape thing of the deal. So I did the design and decorating, and he did the construction and rehabbing, and we built this house from the ground up or rebuilt this house from the ground up ourselves. And that’s kind of how it changed
00:06:35
Now, you know, that that’s really bold of you on it too, you know, you’re, you’re in this position where you’re, you’re, you have to weigh, like, should I just continue renting and continue with my life? You know, you, you receive this inheritance and, you know, that’s nice, you know, you’d, you’d be able to enjoy Vacation. You’d be able to, you know, not work as much, or you could go to school, but instead you decided to invest in, you know, a risk, you know, a risk of, you know, investing into this property that, that needed a lot of work and needed a lot of time. And, you know, how, how did you, how did you analyze the, the situation so that, you know, you, you wouldn’t just end up, you know, wasting your money, you know, how did you make this choice? Like, did you have, like someone helping you with like the numbers or did you, did you do a lot of market research? How did you come to this?
00:07:30
Well, it was by the seat of my pants, really. I don’t know. I, you know, I, it was one of those things I lived in St. Louis since I was nine, I’ve lived off route 66 since I was born. And I know about St. Louis. I I’ve, like I said, since I was nine, I was in St. Louis proper. And just getting to know all the trends, being a part of the art scene and learning about developmental phases of our city and things like that. My mother actually was a Spanish teacher and used to take in, take her kids to Cherokee street for a Mexican independence day and synchrony Mio, and all these field trips to let kids know about the culture of the neighborhood and the culture of, you know, other places. This was this close to Mexico. She could get on, you know, $5 per child.
00:08:27
So I’ve, I’ve grown up with Cherokee street and always saw that it had so much potential. And while I was going to college and, and growing up, I just kept seeing this idea that it would be great if there was a place to settle in St. Louis, I would love Cherokee street to be the place, just because it’s closer to my identity. I am a half Puerto Rican and, you know, we have a Latin flavor. That’s similar, at least something that makes me feel more comfortable being around this. And, and just, just the wonderful diversity of the people around here. That’s great. So, yeah, about 15 years ago, there was an art scene that flipped, that fled over to the south side, over towards Cherokee street. And they started kind of developing their own businesses and trying to work, I guess, you know, some people call it gentrification.
00:09:18
I call it revitalization. All of us are on a budget. All of our people trying to build houses from scratch. We are those grassroots folks that, you know, will go scavenging in the, in the dumpsters for old pieces of furniture to tack up on our ceiling, you know, and make it look cool. So that’s kinda been a, the thing, I just, it was my intuition. I thought St. Louis was a great place to, well, since I’ve been growing up there just stay, there’s no necessarily reasonably necessary reason to move if you don’t want to. It’s a very sustainable area and I love it. So yeah, the trends were just me thinking, this is a great place to do it. If we’re going to do anything since I’d met my husband at the right time. And it just, it just worked out that way by, I had very strong feelings that he and I could do something with this. And, you know, I guess we could always have fallen back to going back to the landlords, but this Airbnb so far has been a really good ride. So we’re going to try to ride it as long as we possibly can.
01:10:28
Now, when, when we were speaking, you said that you bought this apartment complex with the intention at first to long-term rent, but then after you put your long-term tenants in there, you had them renting for, and you were basically how sacking, because you lived in the, you, you lived in the apartment, correct.
01:10:46
At that time we lived in a house a while or about three blocks down, but we have this fourth apartment as our art studio. So, you know, my husband does stained glass and a sculpture. And as I said, project worked for people. So, you know, we needed a place where we could have a satellite for us to do our work. And, you know, I do oil painting and sculpting and, you know, whatever I can think to do. And so we liked to have that space as a studio, but we ended up moving over here just for many reasons, but convenience definitely trumps at all, because I don’t have to really even take my robe off if I want to go and clean the apartments right now.
01:11:27
You know, I think, I think that’s, that’s, you know, really, really cool that you, you, you, you went into the steel with the intent to long-term rent, but then you ended up after being there for some time, you’re like, you know, finding out about the Airbnb and short-term renting and you said, I can actually make a whole lot more money doing this. And then I can live in the unit. We can house sack and pay off the pay off the mortgage even quicker when you found the steel, because, you know, it’s becoming increasingly harder to find apartment buildings that are, you know, affordable or that don’t need, like just a total, total, total rehab that may be outside someone’s budget. How, how did, how did you go into this purchase? What did the numbers just make sense as a long-term or were you barely just scraping by, and then how big of a difference was it when you decided to short-term rent it?
01:12:18
Oh, it made a big difference. It’s doubled our income on, you know, normal months and tripled or more for those good debt, good months. We wanted to be affordable as apartments and we were, but we realized after crunching our numbers, it just didn’t seem to make much sense because, you know, our ideal is to try to live sustainably. We’re not trying to be rich or anything. We just want to be able to have enough time to do our art. You know, that’s always kind of been an issue with most artists. You’re too busy trying to work your nine to five, just so you can get rent. So you can live in a place to put your art because you’ve got to work so hard and you’re always tired to do anything for yourself. So w you know, we have kind of a, I would say unconventional ideal, cause we would like to just have some time to do creative things for ourselves, and it doesn’t always make the steady money.
01:13:15
So this is a good opportunity for us to work for ourselves and make for ourselves just housing market in St. Louis is a little different than I think a lot of places. Well, I’m not saying that we’re any different from all the places, but, you know, there were so many houses around the 1904 world’s fair that had been built for St. Louis in preparation for this influx of, of people that they thought were going to essentially live in, stay after discovering about all these things and this wonderful gateway to the west and this wonderful place of opportunity. So there were tons of houses around the St Louis area that were built and occupied by lots of people, but sometime in the sixties and seventies, there was a big migration westward in this urban sprawl started to take over the St Louis area, which then kind of created our St Louis county.
01:14:20
So we had essentially so many of our houses in downtown area that were just kind of vacant, you know, and that’s putting it lightly, you know, just various states of disrepair in many, many properties, lying fallow. And this area in Cherokee actually has been one of those prime real estate areas in St. Louis, because it’s just new. The housing market is still extremely low. In fact, the city of St. Louis is doing now these really amazing deals to try to get local folks, to purchase properties and own properties and, you know, take ownership. So, you know, we just kind of took the opportunity in this place that we knew that the long-term goal in the next 10 to 15 years, this neighborhood especially is going to be even more successful than it is now. And our success was maintained in the sustainability from the people that have been here for many, many years before us. So we try to work in harmony with that. And I think everyone’s goal around here is just to kind of have a nice home, a affordable living, living in a community of many people in, in a lot of diversity and just, you know, feeling like you can have a good neighbor,
01:15:43
You know, I think you are just so inspirational. You know, I think, you know, that just you coming from this, this bartender salary, that that was really, you know, it, you had a couple of degrees, but that you went to college for, but she ended up being a bartender. And now you, you know, you you’ve, you’ve done it. You you’re financially independent. You’re able to follow your passion and do art. And would you mind telling us a little bit about, because you, you, you talk a lot about the art and I, I remember you, you mentioned about you have like dedicated rooms towards your art. Can you, can you kinda explain, like how you personalize your, your unit to your, to fit your lifestyle?
01:16:23
Well, sure. All of the artists that I have dedicated to the rooms are kind of loosely based on their artwork. Mostly I’ve taken their colors, that they used a lot in their paintings to kind of inspire my, my design. I, I can’t afford an Eames dining set yet, but I would love to if I could, but we still want to try to stay affordable for people and then also be able to pay our own bills, but the inspiration, yeah, it became from that. These were a lot of my favorite artists. And at that point too, the decorating came a lot from, let’s see the first one that we did for the eons. You know, we had an old bed that it was, I think, magnificent, but we just thought, we’d go ahead and upgrade our bed. And we have put that in there. And I’ve used my old futon from college that I was my first big girl purpose or purchase.
01:17:29
You know, I use that for our extra bed there again, the furniture was stuff that I bought whenever I was growing up. I think those were my, that was my furniture. And in my twenties, my later twenties, and then we had, you know, course regular furniture to get the major things. And the restore was another place that we used a lot of things from he or we, we like that place. It’s, you know, used things that were, that were taken from other homes when they remodeled. So it’s kind of a recycling and repurpose thing. When we designed the Airbnb, the EAM suite, we originally had it to be for Airbnb. So our original purpose and eventual goal will be to wire that in, in fact, the whole apartment for a 12 volt solar system, and we have motion sensing lights, and these just little design elements that make going into a strange apartment, pretty nice remote control fans.
01:18:46
And as I said, I really liked the motion lights because you don’t have to worry about turning on and off things and thinking about little things like that. So yeah, the artwork that’s in there is a varied collection that we had in our own home. And again, with this downsizing factor in all these artworks that we’ve accumulated over the years, we just needed a place to store it and make use of it. And this has actually been perfect for us because we can clean out our closets and then showcase all these wonderful artworks that I have from my friends, from our little gathering that we had in our house called art night, which was a year modern day salon. We had artists from all facets come in. I know lots of friends from college and art scene. So I re I was, we were able to get people over to our house once a week. And we had friends that were DJs and friends that were chefs that came over to create just things that they couldn’t always do in their own kitchen, or want to do experiment with us, the massage therapists and knitters and poets, and just all sorts of people coming in and trying to just be creative with a whole bunch of other creative folks. And it became a really synergistic thing. So
02:20:15
Yeah. How have people responded to your, you these really creative rooms? You know, all this are all this creativity, do you know, do people like respond well to that? How, how does, how do they typically react?
02:20:30
Yeah, not to be boastful, but people just go Gaga over it. And I love it. I’m humbled these things, as I said, there’s well, the Basquiat suite has mainly my paintings in it and my drawings, I do figure work. And so the, that was one I was most humbled to even put for it’s my own artwork. So I never really thought it was the best, but somehow we get Mo one of the most lovely comments from our guests about how they just loved the artwork in that one. But all of them are really cool. I think with their own charm, one of them, the van Gogh suite has a lot of art artwork from our friend, Wayne St. Wayne and all members from art night. So that was pretty nice to have that kind of collection set in there. And the M suite is a lot of my artwork.
02:21:25
And then again, some of my friends are at work. Crane, Craig downs is a muralist and a friend of ours, and he has some personalized posters that we had that, of course our house couldn’t fit. So we’re really privileged to be able to decorate our place like that. And somehow it just worked out between my color design and putting the artwork together and the mismatched furniture and people seem to love it. They’re just, they think it’s great. Oh, and then there’s doors on the ceiling that my husband put up in the EAM suite. So that’s been nice to see that even the ceiling can have some personal touch to it. And I think people really enjoy that. I get a lot of comments from that. Okay.
02:22:08
I think, I think it’s just so cool that you’re able to take your, your passion and your creativity, and now you have somewhere to like place it before you could only put it in your home. And the more stuff you put, you know, the tighter it felt, but now you actually have like units that you can, that can appreciate the work, not just, you know, you and your husband, but now you have other people that are recognizing the work and your creativity. I’ve, I’ve people like solicited, like, Hey, like, can I, can I purchase this? Or is this for sale?
02:22:37
You know, there were a few things that we’d actually showcased for sale in the EAM suite. We have this Butler’s pantry and our, our dear late departed friend, Wayne St. Wayne, he passed away recently due to prostate cancer. He had so many contributions for us being one of the founding members of art night. He paints on bottles and hubcaps and, and saw blades. So you have to see it to really experience it. But we have a lot of, a lot of pieces. And as he knew that we were building this Airbnb, he started bringing specific bottles and saying, Hey, why don’t you put this in your, in your apartment? And, you know, maybe you can make some money off of it. He didn’t even want the money. He just, he’s really all about making the artwork. And that’s just a beautiful thing. So we did, we showcased his bottles and we have a description in there in the listing that says these bottles are for sale. And if you wish to buy some, we will trust you to leave $10 that we will find when you check out. And we have found that. And I think that’s just really sweet. People have picked up a souvenir in their travels and we’ve been able to make it so much more personal than tacky snowglobe. So I do love my snow globe. I have to say,
02:24:03
Do you have other people like coming up to you that know that you like have this art, this art apartment, and they’re, they’re asking you to like, showcase their work for them or like potentially sell it.
02:24:15
You know, we’ve had a couple of offers to do that, but I just don’t, we haven’t necessarily geared our, our, our apartment towards that avenue yet. I think that’s, it gets a little more complex to try to do some sort of brokering for someone in, in our apartment. But I think that was our original goal to have kind of a rotating collection of artwork from our friends and have them for sale. So, you know, it’s always a possibility, but at this point, I don’t think we’ve had enough people ask for work, although it has been really nice to hear that several people want to buy my pieces in the boss suite. So that really does make me feel good.
02:24:57
Wow. That’s, that’s amazing. Now, now you’re, now you’re running your own short term rental business. You’re you’re selling your artwork. I mean, you’re, you’re, you’re killing it. Lana. W what has been the most challenging part of starting this, this, this short term rental business?
02:25:14
Oh, the, the most challenging part of starting or running starting. Oh, starting definitely has been capital. You know, we, as I said on a budget, I know I had some money that I’d come along into, but it was really very tight on that end. We had to really get what we could do done on a budget. And I was blessed to have married a man who is extremely intuitive and knows how to do virtually anything I ask him or that he asks of himself. So the it’s been really wonderful for us. So I guess one of the big challenges was, was capital, but it, it doesn’t take an incredible amount. It’s just, we ourselves built this place essentially from the ground up, you know, I mean, not literally, of course, but we had an old gutted building. It was on a fire sale and every surface has been refinished by my husband and me. So that’s been a challenge, but I’m happy to do it. And I only wish that we could upgrade quicker, slow and steady wins the race. Right.
02:26:26
And going off of that, what is the most challenging part of scaling this business?
02:26:34
Can I ask what scaling
02:26:35
Scaling? So like, like, like, right. You’re now, or like when, when you are, when you got your first units and you had at the longterm renters in there, and then trying to get this into a short-term rental business, instead of just like long-term rental,
02:26:52
Ah, oh, that challenge really, that was not much, it was a perfect storm again, in that we were trying to downsize and make room for things. And as we were making enough money to be able to say, Hey, you know, we can upgrade a couple of our things. We were able to then take our old things and refurnish into the apartments because they’re still usable. They’re still nice pieces. It’s just, you know, I wanted to have a bed with storage, so this is something that’s not necessarily, you know, we have storage in the apartment. So it’s not necessarily something that the apartments need, you know, big old bed restored. So
02:27:43
Now are you, are you branding yourself? Like, do people in the area know like, oh, this is the, the, the art hotel or like the art place. How have you been able to set yourself apart from the competition and kind of make your, your unit, the most desirable one
02:28:01
That has been kind of a very organic situation? I, you know, I had an art degree, but it nothing specific to design or interior design, but I have a good eye for color. So I didn’t know the rules. I didn’t know that, you know, neutral colors are the way to go and subway tiles or whatever the trends were. I made these apartments, or we both made these apartments to our liking, how would we like it? So they are bold colors and my husband loves lights. So there are lighting options everywhere. You can see it as well as, you know, features that just are constant lighting. We have Christmas lights in our windows. These are all like simple budget things. It doesn’t cost a whole lot to buy a string of Christmas lights, but we made it look pretty cute and people love the gimmick. So, you know, that’s kind of what we’ve done when you scroll in this general area, you will see ours so well and not to knock anyone with their art, with their Airbnb and their design, because they have some really beautiful listings around here.
02:29:24
But to be quite honest with you, ours is splashes of Technicolor in a sea of gray friendly gray. So I think that’s, what’s really stood us out that I didn’t follow the rules of what most guests really look for in this statistical algorithm of design. I just went with what I liked and my husband went with what he liked and we decorated with things that we love and designed it with things from our hearts and people see that. And I think it’s been an immediate recognition when they’re just scrolling through and they see our thing and it has branded up branded us in a way, I think we branded the Cherokee arts district. I mean, unofficially, I see more people on Airbnb hosting in the St Louis area around the Cherokee arts district. And I’ve seen a few people using that is their term for the area.
03:30:28
And I love it. I think that’s pretty neat. So, yeah, and we called it, we had a name, which I think that was, I think very catchy too, for people to, to remember and being with my name as camp Jessup, that was a really perfect group name that we called ourselves. And, you know, with the art night at camp Jessup, we did. And as we moved into this apartment, we thought we should name this too. And that turned out to be apartment gallery. And that really took off too. Our friends have heard it, and I’ve heard people between strangers and friends. I’ve heard of a carbon gallery, or I’ve heard of art night, or, you know, I’ve heard of camp. So even, and I think that’s absolutely wild. It’s just wild. We’re not necessarily trying to be rock stars. We’re having fun with life. And social media is pretty neat. So that carries us pretty well
03:31:28
Now, you know, I think that that’s so cool that you have kind of, you know, you, you, you have something that you’re passionate about art and you, you kind of like unintentionally kind of made this, you know, you didn’t follow any rules, he didn’t follow any systems. You didn’t say, well, we have to have this type of tile, this type of bed, this type of thing from Amazon, or, you know, this is what everybody else is doing. You were just like, this is what I love to do. And it’s going to show, and I love what you said, you know, that the, your unit stands out, you know, it’s, it’s that splash of color in a sea of, you know, happy gray, but it’s still, you know, it’s still like, wow, when you’re scrolling through Airbnb and you’re seeing all these, you know, beautiful, beautiful rooms and you just see yours and it’s like doors on the, on the ceiling and aren’t everywhere. And then you’ve branded your, your name to be, you know, the apartment gallery. And now people are starting to recognize the Cherokee area as like this art district. Have you noticed that there’s more like, like art styles coming in and moving into the area? Do you, have you noticed like an increase in kind of like the art artistic flare in the area now?
03:32:35
Well, that didn’t, you know, that came along with, when we started living here, I was aware through the arts scene that there were a lot of folks kind of flocking to this area. This was kind of an art district past it being the Mexican district. You know, we have a big population of Mexican families that have lived in and sustain themselves for over 40 years around here without the artists coming in in the past 20 years. But that’s, like I said, with the city trend, all these baby boomers had kids, which were my generation and we lived in the county and went to school, but really just have been yearning for some sort of culture and, and, and history and something to be part of and what better place to do than to go back to the city that is just aching to have people live here. We have all these empty houses that can be utilized in such a better fashion than just laying there to rot. And that, I have to be honest with you, that’s why there’s this housing that there are so many houses in St. Louis that can be purchased at a very affordable price and rehabbed and restored and revitalized. And I just, I would love more people to capitalize on that in the good way. So
03:33:54
Now, now, what would you do differently if you had to start from scratch?
03:33:59
Hmm. What would I do differently? You know, I’m not sure if there’s much I would do other than just kind of, if I knew more of what to expect, I would probably spend my money. I, I don’t know a little bit differently, but not really. I mean, basically every money, every bit of money that we’re getting goes back to fixing the building in some way or another it’s a hundred year old building. So there are updates that need to be done. So there’s that. So I don’t know. I think maybe I, I might’ve done the tuckpointing first instead of the windows or, you know, I don’t know, but I don’t think I would have much that I need to necessarily change. I think it’s been a great ride. It’s still a learning experience. It’s such an organic thing. You can never know everything and each guest is different. So it’s, I think the pitfalls that we’ve ever had are kind of to be expected. So I dunno, I don’t maybe just, yeah, I guess would be money location, but I don’t think we were necessarily unwise with any of it. It’s just a matter of order.
03:35:18
And are there any tools that you use to manage your property? You were saying that you, you self manage it, but are there, is there anything that you use to help make your, you know, doing this full-time easier?
03:35:31
You know, I am not the most technologically savvy with anything. I was really fighting to even get a cell phone. Whenever those things became the thing, but we do have to communicate. And since I’ve gotten this nifty iPhone and have those apps I can use and pretty much do everything on my phone. So I don’t really have anything other than just Airbnb as a platform. I’ll, I, I’m kind of dedicated once it works, it works. So I just, I follow the listing and do what I can to keep my visuals up and yeah, phone out,
03:36:22
Keep it, keeping it simple. I mean, you, you, it’s simple as
03:36:24
I can, I don’t really want to fluff it up with all sorts of different other things. I think I’m doing fairly well. I mean, looking at the numbers, I, I think I’m successful. I can’t see us necessarily having a 100% occupancy. That would be great, but it’s hard to sometimes get a Monday or two in, you know, so that just kinda goes with the territory. I don’t expect absolute perfection. I certainly strive for it, but you know, those are the breaks. If we don’t always stay occupied, but I’ll guarantee you we’ve had every single weekend we are full. So to me, that’s success.
03:37:03
And is there, is there any product that you couldn’t live without in your rentals that has helped save you time and money?
03:37:11
Yeah. If I have to pedal a product, I, I use a naturally derived cleaning products. I wouldn’t say everything is perfectly organic, but citric acid is a very innocuous germicidal and pledge antibacterial multipurpose cleaner is one of the best things you could ever use to clean apartments. It’s a very fast using, or you can use, excuse me, it’s easy to use because it goes on every surface, you can clean the windows, you can clean every surface of anything. And if you leave it there for 30 seconds, if it’s ended up bacterial, so it really helps make things go very quickly. If you just spray the whole fence down and wipe it all down in succession, it, you don’t have to keep mixing rags and mixing cleaners and introducing all these extra chemicals.
03:38:15
So, yeah, but that’s good. I, you know, I, I think, you know, cutting down the chemicals is never a good thing. You know, you don’t want your, everything that you touch to be just coated in some type of, you know, foreign thing. That’s not, you know, not natural and not just like citrus based I’d I definitely, I’m definitely gonna check that out and see if that, that is something that we we could use is anything that you do that has helped your guests leave positive reviews
03:38:40
That has helped my guests leave positive reviews. You know, there are a few things I’ve noticed sometime last year I saw on a Facebook group site, one of our fellow hosts talking about how he’d learned about origami folds for your toilet paper. And I thought that was the cutest thing, because since we started, I used to fold my toilet paper in those cute little hotel triangles that you see everywhere. They just folded under and to a point and it looks finished. So that was one thing I even saw in one of my comments. One of our guests really thought that was adorable. So I decided to step it up. And after I saw these origami folds, I looked online and found a design for a quick little origami fold for your toilet paper that makes this lovely little leaf. And it basically kind of seals my work when I cleaned my apartment at the end.
03:39:43
I know everything’s done when I’ve gone and sat down and folded my origami leaf. And I tell ya on those little review points that the guests have, one of them is for what was it, thoughtful touches. I’ve seen a huge uptick of people saying that I have thoughtful touches. So yeah, there’s that. And people have really enjoyed having fruit juice and fruit snacks, which I think is a silly little thing, but we offer some fruit snacks and people love them. That’s kinda kind of one of our best used amenities. I mean, among others, I offered my a free nut-free, but yes, complimentary toothbrushes and toothpaste. And, you know, just your essentials that you may forget, and we have, of course your, your shampoos and body washes, but, you know, that’s one of the selling points. Plus being an environmentally kind of conscious person, I’ve put little notes next to my trash cans, asking folks to just use a grocery bag guide provided instead of the trash bag to save on plastic and to save on the environment if possible, you know, and then of course the outcome is that I saved 7 cents for not using a trash bag, but it helps us all.
04:41:09
And it’s really an environmental concern that I have. And people have seen that those little notes and have really appreciated that, that combined with my general attitude around there in my description and house manual, I’ve let them know that I have a basket of colored napkins and white rags that are under the sink that they can for especially messy messes so they can bleach. And the colored rags are, as I said for napkins, I make sure to tell people my goal is to try to help cut on cut down on paper. And I know as the, as the owner, there are many things I can do to cut down on that myself. And it, it helps whenever I can get folks to comply. And then they learn a little bit more about how they can live a little bit more sustainably in the world. So, I mean, I’m, I guess inadvertently trying to teach my guests the lesson, but I think it’s a pretty nice, I think it’s a pretty neat gesture. I’ve gone toilet or not toilet paper. Oh my goodness. Not toilet paper. I’ve gone paper towel three and napkin free for 10 years now. And I have to say, I’m sure I’ve saved so much in paper products that really can be saved by everyone. If they just took a little extra time, it takes no extra time really to add some used napkins into your laundry. And you know, you don’t have to buy paper towels and waste our forests.
04:42:43
No, I, I, I think that’s great that you’re, you’re, you’re doing something that is unique to you. I think there’s so many hosts out there that are afraid of telling their guests, you know, Hey, this is how we operate our home or, Hey, this is, this is our values. Like, you know, I’m, you know, I’ve grown up and I always take my shoes off when I get inside, because I don’t, I don’t like the idea of walking around with shoes, but, you know, so I was contemplating, should I ask guests to take off their shoes and my, you know, down in the downstairs basement, but, you know, because I know that the majority of the culture is, you know, that we’re, we walk inside with shoes, but for me, I take off my shoes. So I think that that’s really unique that you you’re able to, to do something that is unique to you and people are appreciating that and responding that, that it’s like you, you care enough to, to be able to help them and learn how to, you know, be clean or how to be more environmentally friendly. The one thing that I wanted to ask though, is how long does it take you to make the origami leaf?
04:43:42
Oh, you know, that only takes maybe a minute. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I like, I don’t skimp on time for that one because I’m, I love those little details and I, that’s kind of the most time consuming apps that I do when I’m cleaning my apartment, which is just rearranging everything. So it’s just, so it’s just been kind of a thing I always taught. I used to see my mother do this every Saturday when she cleaned the apart or clean her house, she’d walk around and just kind of just arrange things just so, and I loved that. I thought that was charming and it’s stuck with me forever. And as I said, the apartment’s clean, but I’ll, I’ll do a once-over and just kind of scoot the vase or, you know, re re straighten the napkins. So people see that. I think they really see that I take the extra time to fold their toilet paper. So I don’t, you know, these are little things I don’t like to skimp on.
04:44:41
How do you fold the toilet paper? Isn’t it a roll or
04:44:46
No, just the end. You know, when you have, you know, when you’ve gone to the host, the hotels, they’ll fold the toilet paper in a little triangle, or maybe a little origami P shaped, depending on how much you’re spending in the hotel, but it’s just to finish the end of the toilet papers. So it looks fancy.
04:45:03
That’s very unique. I’m definitely gonna, I’m going to look into origami toilet paper folding next
04:45:10
It’s cute. It really is cute. And, you know, going back with taking the shoes off, I also realized that that was, you know, that’s a big environmental issue too, that you’re tracking and everything that sticks onto your shoes. So I have been asking people to do that, to just kind of, if this is going in conjunction with my entire environmentally friendly kind of Allergan conscious type of living, you know, we’re not dedicated gluten-free, but I let people know, and I do have gluten-free options. And that’s the same thing with the, the, the foot traffic I’ve been asking people to take shoes off, because I do think that it’s good for people to realize that there’s a lot of dirt that comes in no matter how clean your feet is or your feet are. So, yeah, I think that’s a good idea. I’ve been asking people to do that.
04:46:01
Nice mate. Well, maybe we’ll start a trend of just everybody taking off their shoes. That’d be nice. Is there one house rule that has a, that you’ve included that has kind of saved you before
04:46:14
The house rule? Oh, yes. Actually I have mentioned this in several of our Facebook sites. When people talk about the horror stories they’ve had to encounter and my particular location, we all have our own kind of catered guests or demographic that we’re catering to. And we have a lot of folks around here that will come in and stay for, let’s say, Soulard Mardi Gras, because it’s far enough away that they can have quiet night or, and still party or sink Mio, or, you know, like I said, those celebrations, they happen. We have places live show venues around here, too. So as I said before, this is an organic business. So I’m constantly making rules. And one of my first rules that we had to add unfortunately, was my vomit rule. And this is something that really, to me, makes a big difference in the reason why I went into Airbnbs myself as a guest for Airbnb.
04:47:22
My big reason for transitioning from hotels was the lack of care that the, both the hotel industry had and the cleaners and all that for the, the hotel and cleanliness, it was, it’s kind of gross going into hotels sometimes and not to knock them. I know that they’re a symbiotic industry, but I found puke on a couch one time in a hotel. And when I notified the hotel owner, he didn’t seem to care too much about it. He kind of, you know, shoved me off and said, I’m sorry. And that’s where I was like, but that’s really gross. And not for nothing I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t mind if you maybe complimentary, you know, gave me a little coupon or a discount because I had to deal with puke in my apartment or my hotel. But so yes, we’ve had a couple of folks do their thing and I really don’t like cleaning other people’s puke. It’s pretty gross. So I’ve put in a clause that said, if you puke all over my apartment and I have to clean it up as a biohazard, I will take your deposit or I will request your deposit. And I think that’s, once I have been in there, this is a binding rule and it has worked for me.
04:48:56
I, Airbnb is actually recognized, you know, that you have this in your, in your house rule and they, they will abide by that.
04:49:04
Yes, we learned that the first time when it happened and the woman was, she left a dirty sponge in my sink. And the dirt was from her cleaning up her own sick in the bathroom. And I was about ready to wash the dishes that she left in the sink with that sponge. And I was so disturbed by this, we’d asked for the deposit without this rule in place. And when we were trying to fight for it, the woman only gave us $20 for an extra sponge in cleaning products and said, that’s all you get. And, you know, kind of was pretty brash about it. It was really gross. I gotta tell you, it took a couple hours extra of me cleaning just to make sure that every crack was cleaned up and it was filthy. And I think at that point, one of the Airbnb representatives kind of mentioned to me, you know, rules are in place for a reason.
05:50:09
And when you have rules, people must stick to them. And I think, you know, it was, it was worded in such a way that was giving me a suggestion that if you, you know, essentially whatever’s reasonable, that’s within your rules. That’s what binds this agreement. And they always found it reasonable since I’d written it down, that if I have to clean up, I mean, it is a biohazard. It is emotional labor. It is very stressful to try to take an extra hour or two or more to clean up whatever mess that was lived, left by them. And I’d like to get compensation for it, to be honest
05:50:58
With you, how much do you charge for the security deposit?
05:51:02
The security bar, it’s a hundred dollars dollars. I, you know, I don’t use this very often. I’ve got, I’ve got to mention that. It’s not like it happens so much before I had the rule, but it certainly cut down after I had the rule. And I’ve even had a lot of guests even mentioned to me, oh, don’t worry. I’ll not puke like that. And I don’t puke like that. And it’s really funny. People appreciate it. I’m being honest. They realize when they walk in that door, that this is not just your generic hotel room really doesn’t matter what happens to anything because whatever, they’ll clean it up or whatever, it’s just cheap stock stuff. No, this is my palace. I love these it, we love what we’ve done. And I really would appreciate our guests that appreciate it too.
05:51:54
No, that’s, that’s, that’s great. I love that. You said, you know, this is, this is your guys’ palace. This is your home, and you don’t want people throwing up in it. And then you have to clean up, you know, you’re not eating, you didn’t get into this business to become someone else’s made. You got into this business to be able to share your, your experience and share your personality and, and provide hospitality to people. So I think that that’s really, really nice and really bold of you. If you could give one piece of advice to someone who’s trying to start their short-term rental, Airbnb business, what would that be?
05:52:22
One piece of advice. I would definitely think to maintain your business, integrity, myself, being in, as I said, the hospitality and restaurant industry, since I was 15, I’ve learned to keep a rapport with your clients or your guests or your patrons, you know, to keep a rapport with them that makes them feel like they’re the best people on or did they’re the most special honor. And that you’re put here on this earth to make sure they have a good time. And so that’s kind of been one of my things, even when we have to ask for extra fees or, or they’ve done something to damage something, and we have to ask for that, I may, I try my darndest to maintain a professional standard and to keep in mind that I would still like them to come back and that while we all make mistakes, sometimes they have to be taken care of somehow. So yeah, keeping a level of impersonal yet warm and welcoming demeanor is, is a good piece of advice. I think, try to stay professional.
05:53:51
That’s good. Yeah. You see it, you see people on the, on the, on the group forums and everything. They’re just like, so, so awful to get. Sometimes it’s like, they just say some of the nastiest things and it’s like, you’re getting into the hospitality business. You gotta, you gotta have a more hospitable attitude than that.
05:54:07
I got to say though, I don’t blame them one bit because there are some times you get some really difficult guests, but that is the thing you’re going to have them all the time. And staying as impersonal as possible is key. And I think we’re specifically a little different, because again, we don’t have just the kind of generic room that everyone has. We have very personal style and, and a personal investment in these places. So it’s, it’s a little different. So I can’t necessarily say I’m particularly special, but it is a little harder to not take it personally when somebody kind of, you know, jumps on your stuff,
05:54:50
Where do you see short-term rentals in the future? Lana,
05:54:54
I think this particular city is ripe for it. It’s starving for this type of revenue. I love our city. We have so many wonderful things to offer as far as places to see, you know, things to do. And it’s underrated and people are starting to notice that around the world, even just, you know, where we’re the middle stop in the route 66 travels from Chicago to LA it, we have. So, you know, we’re the gateway to the west. We have such beautiful natural features that this is perfect for it. And in St. Louis the central to so many things in St. Louis city or south St. Louis city here is scent even more central to everything. We are so close to everything. I think that’s been, oh, no, I’ve kind of lost my train of thought there
05:56:02
That’s okay. It’s okay. Now I think you’re, you’re a big St Louis advocate and, you know, I think, you know, your, your vision of, of St. Louis and where it’s going, it’s, it’s very bright. And I think for, for future future people that are interested in, you know, a place that might be, you know, good to look at, you know, I think St Louis definitely might, might be the, I know the coast coast guard does actually does a lot of work in St. Louis. We have a, a big IT-based over there.
05:56:33
Yeah. Oh yeah. And then the NGA has just, they’ve taken over on the north side with their, you know, we have a lot of vacant buildings there too, that and areas that are just right for development. And so they’ve, they’ve picked up a lot. We’re going to have a good influx of new people coming in. We just, we have a lot of opportunity that has been underrated by many. We were able to house over 30,000 of the Bosnian refugees, and we have a little Bosnian town that’s coming down in south city to, or, you know, burgeoning, there’s a whole new generation of kids that came through from there. They’re now all second generation Bosnians. And I, that’s a beautiful thing. We were able to do this because we have so many buildings that are just waiting for someone to live there. So that’s the thing about Airbnb. I think it’s a perfect opportunity. The, we are in a good saturation point. It’s a really good opportunity to help be ambassadors for our city and, and show people that you don’t necessarily have to just find a hotel in the, in the food desert of the hotel paradise that they have in the middle of our town. You can go somewhere a little bit more charming and a little bit more personal and really get to know the city that way.
05:57:59
And that’s what you’re doing on us. So that, that, that’s amazing. Is there any way that people can reach you if they have any questions or looking to stay in a interesting place in St. Louis
05:58:11
At this point, really? We have the Airbnb listings. You can, I think, look them up through my host name, which is Lana it Starlight lab, or the names of the apartments are the Ian’s suite in Cherokee art district, or the van Gogh suite in the Cherokee art district or the Oskie ops suite in the Cherokee art district.
05:58:39
Yeah. And I’ll include all the, all the links down below for, for anybody that is interested or in the St. Louis area that I would like to stay in your, your puke free and very artistic units. It’s, it’s been, it’s been a pleasure, Ilana. Thank you so much. I think you’re, I think you’re an inspiration. I think it’s so amazing what you’ve, you’ve built up for yourself and your husband and how you’re taking your passions and you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re creating and you’re investing into the community and you’re, you’re supporting, you know, you’re supporting art, you’re supporting the culture and you’re, you’re, you’re obviously a big advocate. So I just wanna thank you and congratulate you for what you’ve done. And with that, with that being said, keep on hosting guys, talk to you in the next episode. Thanks. Bye. Copy. Host benefit from the show. If you found value, please go on over to iTunes or Stitcher, leave a review and let us know what you enjoy about the show. If you’d like to talk to the hosts that have been featured in these episodes, as well as the host nation, then going over to our Facebook group, short term rental success secrets, talk to your host and the next step sewed, keep.
