All Forum Posts by: Luke Carl

@Paul Sandhu I have to say.... your joke about sleeping with the cleaning lady NEVER gets old lol! 

Here's the story. We've had this cleaning person and this property for just about a year. She's done some shady things in the past. 

1. I've caught her lying to me (told me a cabin was completely filthy and never let that guest back in there. She didn't know I was in town and visited that cabin earlier that morning and the guest left it cleaner than before they got there). 

2. She contacted a guest one time and asked for $7 because she had to mail their debit card back to them. Lesson learned there... never give cleaning person a guests address. Duh. 

3. She was constantly asking for extra money for cleans because it was "so disgusting". We quickly squashed that. 

4. She could never put the hot tub cover back on because her "back hurts" 

These are just off of the top of my head. 

Recently we had a guest call and say they thought they had bug bits. Yes. The bad kind. We called the housekeeper. She "looked at the house and the beds and didn't see anything." 

We called again the next day. "you know my son came home with bug bites the other day" 

So....  we fired her. 

We have reason to believe she costs us the following. 

$1000 for the treatment of the house. $1500 to replace box springs and mattresses (amazon has great deals btw)

$300 for a deep clean of the house to remove dead bugs and all the filth the old housekeeper left behind. It was bad. 

Upon doing inventory of our linens we are missing $370 worth of linens. After firing her I sent her an email disclosing exactly what is missing. She said "I don't have your curse word curse word and I don't want your curse word and I need my money and I will see you in court" several voicemail and a dozen nasty emails later all of which I ignored because I'm a little too busy to read these novels....  She contacted me again this morning and "did happen to find one set of sheets and 3 washcloths and I need full payment right now" 

I'm left with a decision. Do I withhold the $370 from her pay and risk having some broken windows, especially since this person lives right down the street and I live 4 hours away, or do I pay her in full just to get rid of her. Which would bring the grand total of what she cost me in the past week to around $4300 with the bookings that I had to cancel which of course enraged a few guests and was a customer service nightmare. 

Yet another chapter in my Vacation Rental book. I'd love to hear your thoughts! 

Anyone want to buy a cabin?? LOL! 

Angelo Wong and no problems?? VRs are hard enough work. I can't imagine having to change the code on 5 of them every 2-3 days. For what? Even if the guest sucks they're not going to drive all the way back from Vermont to slash my couch cushion because I didn't give them 5 stars.

@Glen R. sounds expensive and time consuming. You mind me asking what that costs monthly? 

Valerie Rogers great info! The $500 price tag is very tough to swallow

@Michael Greenberg Ok I lied its not a nest its a fake nest the Lyric Round.  Guests can't figure out that you rotate it to change temp. Earlier this year they came out with the T5 which is extremely user friendly. 

Lyric app is for unlimited thermostats thats why I went with the T5. that and purchase price. Theres a drop down menu at the top that lets you pick which property. Also... There's owner controls and I set it so they can't go below 69 or above 72 so I generally only need to use the app to check in on the hvac and make sure they're functioning property in extreme heat. Thats how know which hvac guys I can trust even from 3 hours away. 

@Michael Greenberg  thats what I'm doing and I'll stick with it. When I was in the bar business I got a fantastic piece of advice. Don't put cameras in your bar or you'll never have a life. It's your own reality show on your computer and not a minute goes by that you don't want to watch. 

@Andrew Wong seems to have it all figured out though. At least in his market. If I put an August on my cabin I'd get a phone call every single time someone was trying to get in. They have a hard enough time with the push button dead bolts. Too modern. I'll admit I haven't researched it and I don't think I will. Looks like it creates work to work. I have one cabin with a Nest and I regret buying that thing. Guests can't figure it out and often times leave private feedback that my thermostat didn't work. Because they can't figure it out and they're too passive aggressive to ask.   Honeywell T5 all the way. Half the price and a monkey can work it. 

Just so I didn't totally waste 3 hours of my morning and another $150, I wanted to post my findings here. 

Every time I buy a new cabin I buy a new Kwikset 910 deadbolt. I get the one with Z-Wave. My thought process was that if I ever had a reason to hook my deadbolt up to my phone at least I'd have the option without having to get a new deadbolt (non zwave is 100 zwave is 150. $50 extra to not waste later. at least thats what I thought). 

Well..... This morning I hooked up my first Kwikset to a Wink Hub 2 only to find that I can open and close the deadbolt but I cannot change codes. 

There is very little about this topic on the internet. 

I called Kwikest they seemed annoyed with my question. I got the idea it was money related. I called Wink and my suspicions were confirmed. It seems Kwikset has no interest in giving Wink the rights to change codes from their App even though they have the capability to do so. My guess is Kwikset is working on producing a hub of their own as opposed to letting Wink take the extra cash.  

I give it 2 years before someone  comes out with a deadbolt that connects directly to the wifi much like a thermostat. 

If you want to be able to change codes from you phone today, you have to have a Schlage and a Wink Hub.

What did I decide to do? Save my money, leave the damn kwiksets on my cabins just like I always have, change the codes every few months, and avoid obsessing over the deadbolts like I know I will if they're accessible on my phone.  

@averycarl

We are 90% airbnb

We're considering switching from 10-4 to 11-4. The only thing stopping me is the fact that if we do that, I have a sneaking feeling that the late check out requests won't slow down so what's the point? Thoughts?