Horror stories of Airbnb

[Amy H.]

I randomly created a listing for one of the bedrooms in my house on Airbnb last week. I didn’t think much of it or that I’d get any requests, but here we are with 5 requests so far! It would be for a private bedroom & bath upstairs of our home. We have a (very furry) dog. There’s no TV in the private room. We aren’t trying to earn a ton off of this, hoping to just do a couple nights a month for an extra $1,000-1500 a year that I can put towards our investments. What have you learned from mistakes and horror stories you’ve experienced from Airbnb’s? What information do you include in your house guidelines, if you even have one? Do you require a security deposit? What should I include on the listing? What do you provide? What chaos have you experienced? What information do you disclose, especially regarding having a dog in the home. What suggestions would you give me? How much did your homeowners insurance increase when you added short term rental to your policy? Tell me everything!

[John Underwood]

@Amy H. So you don't have a separate area that can be locked to separate a stranger from where you will be sleeping? How will you vet these strangers and have a high level of confidence that you are not putting your family in danger for an extra $1000/year?

What about having these strangers in your house when you are not home or if they are coming in at 2AM?

Are you going to change locks or rotate codes to after someone stays?

Is $1000 worth that risk? Risk vs reward?

I understand someone house hacking when they have a guest house or basement apartment with a separate entrance.

I just want to make sure you have thought this through before pulling the trigger on this.