All Forum Posts by: Michael Baum

Quote from @John Underwood:

 How did you charge her $50 for the pods? Did she have to approve the charge?

It is right in my rental agreement. It has it's own section about items that go missing. The minimum charge is $50. 

Now I don't do that for things like the beach towels and even most broken items. The vases and glasses I just chalk up to the cost of doing business. 

But this lady just said she thought she should have 90+ dishwasher pods.

I sent her the $50 charge and quoted the rental agreement. She was pissed and wouldn't pay, but AirBNB (of course it was an AirBNB guest) sided with me and forced the charge and deleted the 1 star review. 

The moral of the story kids? Crime doesn't pay! :)

Yeah, there are a ton of ways to make it with a STR @Vivan Bhalla.

There is no one silver bullet that guarantees success. 

I don't check other than what VRBO and AirBNB does. 

There are quite a few that use it as well as Guesty and others. Someone will chime in.

I avoided remote controlled fans when I updated mine. :)

Hey @Lauren Lockett, gratz on getting in the game. 

I think you have a good idea of how to move forward...slower than you want but more solid. Don't want to grow too fast and then lose it all.

Are you on VRBO? Remember that you own a STR, not an AirBNB. AirBNB is a platform.

Here is a pic of one of the towels and this wasn't the worst

Amen @Trent Reeve and @Mike Grudzien.

I used to put out a full bin of dishwasher pods. Did it for a few month the first year of operation and some lady took the whole thing. 

I asked her about it and she just said she felt she could just take them. I charged her $50 for them. 

The biggest thing that goes missing is the beach towels. I am assuming that kids are being rushed to move and leave at the end of their stay and they just shove them in their bags.

It is almost time to go shopping for more. You can get them under $3 for cheap ones after the summer is over. Nice ones at Costco as well.

I keep plenty of TP out as well as an extra roll of paper towels. I do have rolls of garbage bags and no one has taken them.

This year has been especially hard on stuff in our lake house. We have had guests destroy at least 10 bath towels. We haven't lost that many since we started 8 years ago.

Broken vases, glasses, at least 10 forks are gone as well as spoons. Been a hard year for sure.

Another vote to get with a good CPA and go over everything.