All Forum Posts by: Huiping S.

As new STR owner, we meet some new questions and like to learn from community:

1. One guest group closed air vents, so the coil was frozen .... It is very high humidity and around 100 degree outdoor.  

   Asked them why closed the air vents and they said they didn't do that!  How to prevent this kind of potential damage/trouble ?  

2. One guest family disconnect Wifi again and again when the house variety smart home equipment, especially when they are not in property.  It is 5G, we will put internet equipment into locked closet. How do you deal with it? 

3. Poor service reported high level urinate in the poo with extra treatment cost and restricted time to use pool.  Especially there are new guests arrived but urinate service restricted to use pool for certain time, how to deal with this?

Work with STR is really different from LTR.

Thanks for sharing!

Huiping

Our STR insurance cost 3+ times of resident insurance and this is the cheapest one.

The house looks nice except do not have a pool. People used pool and porch SO INTENSIVELY. Our porch next to pool be pressure washed every 2 weeks. The pool is not fancy but be used SO MUCH. Poor will add cost but guests used it lots during summer.

1 of 7 group will pee in pool(mentally disabled? when we didn't see physically)... but will charge for the treatment cost.

Thank all to share your valuable experience!

We started to interview other cleaning people.

Access to the door is easy and they have code. We have >3 set of bed sheets, towels, and not tight on everything either them or guests needs when we manage it by ourselves. The cleaning people have keys for the storages to get all they need.

We had a deep cleaning with exam on Sunday: dust under beds, furniture, on fan, lights...; food under kitchen applicants, furniture... If we will not clean those, very soon will have bugs problem.

We politely told the clean people we would rather to clean the home same day because people cooked and the food trash related bug concern. First time we were told they will not work on Sunday. At the same time, we were told indirectly they dislike to put duvet cover on our hotel collection white goose down quilts (we may should not buy so good quilts but we brought it during holiday sale time). 

Still like to hear others idea:

1. Are you put duvet covers on your quilts? 

2. Do you let the clean crew bring anything needs washer with them but not wash in the Airbnb laundry?  We have regular washier and dryer now. Should we buy some good washier and dryer? Which brand is best for short-term rental?

Appreciate all your help!

Huiping

We manage our first AirBNB(not list on other platform yet) for 6 weeks and served 6 group of guests. Leaned lots valuable thing.

Guests are good which helped us passed the nervous beginning time when all of them are families. But we like to hear what others work with the cleaning people.

We passed the spotless home to the cleaning people and paid the price they asked (3/2 for $195) but started to have issues:

1) They forget the date for check-out and check-in is the same day and asked us to let guests sit in porch when they clean, so we have to  clean by ourselves. It is July of Florida and the guests travelled with babies from the very early morning and east coast. I can't believe they can sit in porch after 4pm.

2) The clean lady tried to postpone the cleaning just before the new guests arrive. Dislike we have same day check-in and check-out. We want to finish the cleaning the same day of check-out. Because almost all families cooked and we want to avoid food related pests issue. We do not want wait until the last minutes.

    At the same time, the cleaning is ok level. We will not talk of this but planned to further clean after they finish by ourselves every 2 or 3 cleaning of this cleaning people, such as corners, along the wall, under beds, on the fan.... We are very close to our AirBNB.

3) We asked them to provide us taxID(they have a LLC) or SSN from the very beginning but they didn't give us yet.

Like to hear how others work with your cleaning people. Do you have contract with them? How often you come to exam their work? Someone told us if you exam too often, they will stop to work for you.

Thanks for sharing!

Huiping

We switched from the previous insurance company to current one. By far she is really good and best price also. bzhu at edisonins.com

Our neighbor replaced the only 9 years old roof and paid nothing! that roof looks really still new and no leaking. They replaced it because the roof company said they will pay nothing .... 

Really hope this kind of fraud can be stopped and the cost of home insurance in Florida is reasonable.

We installed one pool alarm which not like you asked but loud enough to wake parents if any water activities within the pool:

Just don't make the project too big to control. Maybe just switch the current home to a STR and let it run and bring some money in for a while and then plan next upgrade, such as switch the garage or carport to an extra unit... To switch a home to a short term rental will cost much more than you expected from workloads to money.

Hi Tatiana,

With almost month time, our STR LLC just be setup and is working with another company to transfer the property into the LLC. Compared to anything else of real estate, it is a complicated to understand work but will slowly understand. We hired others for the work.

Good luck.

Huiping