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Troubleshooting Common Guest Problems · Short Term Rental Problems and Solutions

• Jeremiah Noll: Admit it, you expected your guests and contractors to act like you. We were both wrong. Now you've realized it's not all sunshine and five-star reviews. That means you are in the right place. We all have to answer stupid questions. As hosts, we get tired of our meal being interrupted by messages from guests like, hey, the TV's disconnected from Wi-Fi, or half the jets on the hot tub don't come on. So today we're going to be discussing some of the top problems guests encounter and what questions to ask before calling in a service. That's because this is the community where we talk about the gross, the awkward, and the operational messes, as well as the real strategies that help you keep going instead of quitting. Because you are not a quitter. And this is an industry where you can win. Welcome to Short-Term Rental Problems and Solutions. Let's get right into today's question. Jeremiah, is it me or are guests getting dumber? Lately, they just tell me about their problem without asking for a solution or giving me the full picture. This guest checking out today actually said, hot tub cold. I kid you not. ⁓ what am I supposed to say to that? Turned out it was just somebody left the breaker off at the disconnect, so it wasn't turning on. But that's gotta be the dumbest message a guest has ever sent. And I've seen some clueless ones. John. John, you're not wrong. ⁓ young people today are growing up completely clueless about basic repairs, mechanics, and the frequency is just going to increase on that. To help reframe your perspective, just think of them as like this little kid whose dad left and never taught them anything worthwhile. And maybe their mom didn't know anything either. That might help you feel sorry for the guest instead of assuming it's decreasing IQ, which I've heard that decreasing IQ is also something that's going on. So we're all in for a world of confusion. So I guess I'm like 40 years old now. ⁓ thinking back to middle school. I remember there being a class called technology. And technology class had some basics for home repairs. I remember re-grouting tile. So we actually scraped out the grout on this stand. It was a station. ⁓ I remember using a jigsaw, like a like a table saw, so that we could cut something. I remember, you know, some very basic wiring information ⁓ so that we could ⁓ hook up a switch to a light bulb and a few other things. Kids today, like we're talking that was in the nineties. Like kids today are not getting technology the way they were before. And that has a lot to do with standardized testing. It has a lot to do with ⁓ standards and pricing. I I say pricing, what I mean is the budgets and the budget cuts for schools. So ⁓ some of you guys know that I was a teacher for about 10 years in the local school district here. And I taught math, but I also taught technology. And technology was a dying industry. It was like that the school district kept on thinking: well, if we have to cut somewhere, we can always cut here. And ⁓ have a surplus in our budget this year. So let's add in a few more technology classes. And kept on moving towards computer technology and away from ⁓ like ⁓ maintenance items and wood shop technology. a lot of those troubleshooting skills that kids need to learn from, ⁓ know, their parents are not being learned in schools. So there's no safety net. There's no backup. Besides, got a generation of kids that were taught that they have to go to college if they're going to succeed in life. ⁓ So kind of left them all In a place where they can't spackle, they can't paint, they can't fix or troubleshoot basic things. So recognizing that those are the folks that are out there making money, staying at Airbnbs, and they are your guests and they are your future guests, let's make sure that we're prepared for them. We're going to go through today some of those common issues that guests have and some possible prompts to help troubleshoot with them. Troubleshooting also enables you to save some time and money because a water heater might just not be working because you're out of gas. There's no need to call a plumber if you're just out of gas. Another thing about this episode is because is going to cover so many topics, it's not going to go deep into any of these topics. So if you want me to go deep into one of these topics specifically, I want you to send me an email, info@galvanizedmanagement.com, and I'll create a whole episode just on that one issue. But at this point, we're just going to do a high-level kind of overview so I can keep this within a normal episode. thing to note is this might be a really good episode for you to download, keep it on file just in case some of these things come up in the future. What makes this different from a YouTube video about how to troubleshoot your electrical system? number one, I'm only gonna recommend things that are okay for you to ask guest. You're not going to ask your guest to open up the panel on your water heater and to test the thermostat. That's going to show up on YouTube videos. But your guest is not going to be there with tools. They're not going to be equipped to do those things. So what can you ask them to do? And what should you not ask them to do? and all of this coming from a licensed home improvement contractor in the state of Pennsylvania that has experience doing these of things. So the number one issue that you're going to run into is water heaters. This almost always happens. thing I asked the guest is, were you using the water? You're out of hot water now. Have you run it long enough to get hot water to that pipe, like to that fixture? ⁓ did you use it yet? So ⁓ of our houses are tank water heaters. Two or three showers is all you're going to get from a tank water heater. You're gonna get even less if the dishwasher was running or if the washing machine was on. Now, if the guest was out all day and they just got back, you probably have a water heater problem that has to be addressed. Now, if it's an electric water heater, you can check if the breaker is on. ⁓ a lot of times guests don't know how to check if a breaker is on. So if you have these things clearly labeled, then you can have that turn them off and to turn it back on. Because otherwise, when a breaker flips, when it trips. It it it's not quite on, but it's not off. It's definitely not off. I would say it's only moved out of 180 degrees from left to right, it's only moved maybe 20, 25 degrees. So it it's kind of weird, but a lot of times guests don't know if a breaker is off. And most of the breakers that you're gonna run into don't have like a little light that shows ⁓ when it's tripped to a signal that it's tripped. If as long as they're labeled, you can tell the guest to turn it off, wait a second, and then turn it back on. Sometimes that'll actually reset your water heater and everything will start working after that. So once you do that, give it like maybe an hour for them to check on it again because it's going to take time for that water heater to warm up. Another thing that they can do is they can touch the pipes that are right above the water heater. Nothing should be scalding. I mean, it's only going to be as hot as the hot water that comes out of your sink. So It's not really dangerous and there's no risk of electric shock really. So you can ask the guests to touch the pipes to see if they're warm or if they're cold. If the water is running for the for the hot water and both pipes are cold, then that tells you that you're not getting any hot water out of your water heater. But over the course of an hour, as things warm up, one of those pipes is gonna start getting warm, especially if you don't have water running through the hot water heater. Now, if it's not an electric water heater, Probably gas or oil. Now, if it's gas, have the guest check and see if you are out of gas. I'm going to throw a photo up here onto YouTube so that you can see a display for a propane tank. Now, this is actually at a house where our recently ran out of gas. ⁓ they had no dryer, no hot water, no heat in the house. Everything was propane. So ⁓ running out of gas in that situation was actually kind of a big deal. But a lot of gas ⁓ tanks, they have a remote on them. Telling the utility company when it's time to refill. this is all very useful information that you should have as a host while you are remote. You want to know who the gas service is and also how to read that tank. ⁓ Out here, we've got a service like Hellers, and they have an online portal that you can go into and you can see what your tank level is. And that's because of that sensor that goes on the tank. So the guest can check that. ⁓ ⁓ another way that's easy for the guests to check if you have gas is if you have other gas appliances in the house besides the water heater, if you have a gas ⁓ stove or if your heating system is gas, you can have them test both of those by turning them on. The stove is the easy one. Just have them run a burner on the stovetop for a little while to make sure that you have enough pressure and things are actually working. So that will tell you that you're not actually out of gas. If it's an on demand unit, ⁓ when they run the water, you should hear something. There should be a fan going. There should be electric service to the water heater. An on-demand water heater has a fan that circulates air through for combustion. That's what those white pipes are. So ⁓ those pipes take intake and they have exhaust. So if you don't hear anything running when the water is on, then that would indicate that you might not have any power to your water heater. And then they can just look at where it's plugged in. It could have a GFCI. That GFCI could be tripped, they might just have to test and reset, and that would fix the problem. If it's a GFCI, I actually touch on this later, you have to look for every GFCI in the house because a lot of times these circuits are attached to other things. One time the lights in my house were not working, and I couldn't figure out why. And it turned out that it was just because the ⁓ bathroom outlet that I ever use was tripped. So I just hit the reset and now the lights worked again. So sometimes it's just GFCIs. But nevertheless, if it's a if it's a gas water heater, ⁓ like on-demand system, ⁓ and got gas, then it could also be the electric. If one of these things fixes your problem, fantastic. You're still gonna want this checked out later. Now, if it's an oil system, again, check and see if you're out of oil. ⁓ usually there's a tank. Usually the tank is inside, usually there's a gauge on the tank. That doesn't always happen. Sometimes it's an underground tank. You've got to know how to test this and whether you can ask your guests to check it or not. Usually you just have a a little gauge on the top. You ask them to send you a photo of the gauge. Now, the second thing is these systems sometimes need electricity. Sometimes they don't have the electricity because they have a pilot. It's okay. ⁓ The oil systems are just a little more complicated. So you also have to check if there's electricity to the furnace. And that can be operated with a little switch. Usually there's a safety switch on the side of the furnace. It's got to be within sight of that oil furnace. Now, if it's not a furnace, it could be an oil tank, a tank water heater ⁓ that's oil. As long as you're not out of oil, it could be that the pilot went out. That could just be because of regular maintenance. Remember, if you have oil burning appliances, they need to be serviced at least once a year. Now ⁓ basically with gas and oil, you're more likely needing a plumber. ⁓ but it's important to make sure that you're not out of fuel first. So always troubleshoot with the guest to make sure that you're not out of fuel. Next, hot tub issues. ⁓ guests might say, hey, there's some jets that are not working. Well, there's knobs on the side of the hot tub. Sometimes those jets are just focused on one area. You can turn that knob halfway, and now all the jets go on. You can turn the knob the Entire way and now only the other half are on. So you can actually focus the pressure of the jets to one or two seats based on that. So that's the thing to check on. The second one is sometimes there's more than one pump. had a guest recently that was complaining about the hot tub not working correctly, and it's just because half the jets weren't working and it's because they didn't press the aux button. The way that hot tub was set up, you have to press aux in order to get the second pump to go on. The first one goes on with the jets button, but the second one goes on with aux A-U-X. ⁓ guests complaining that the water is cloudy. Well, water might be cloudy. But one of the questions to ask him is: Have you used the hot tub yet? Yes. Okay. approximately how many minutes were you in the hot tub for? ⁓ 120 minutes? That's why the water's cloudy. ⁓ You are making water There's nothing I can do to make that clear. You could have a scumsucker on site. That's not going to make it clear right away. You could have chemicals on site. I saw one host who bagged up like portions of pH up, alkalinity, like all these different products for the hot tub, labeled them all and left them in a bin in a closet. So if the guest has an issue, like they say, hey, it's a little cloudy, host was telling them, okay, you can go into ⁓ closet, get the one that says clarifier, throw that in there and let everything run for about an hour. It should be cleared up after that. If it doesn't clear up, it's just oils. The oils are coming from your body, so don't be alarmed. You can still use the hot tub. one is what John's dealing with now: that there's no electricity. ⁓ so that happens usually because there's a service disconnect The hot tub could have been emptied and refilled. Maybe they didn't finish turning it back on afterwards, which is kind of a red flag for your hot tub service if they didn't turn it back on. But nevertheless, that can happen. The second thing is it could just have tripped. So there's two different types of disconnects. A GFCI breaker is typically what's required for this. So if that hot tub had a fault that caused a ground fault, then the breaker turned off because of that. It doesn't mean that it's not safe. It means that it's working correctly, but you're gonna need to get an electrician or a hot tub repair person out there as soon as this guest leaves because the breaker is working the way it's supposed to, but it could have tripped because of that. It could also be off just because it's off. Like that stuff happens sometimes. People turn it off and forget to turn it back on. Or a guest might have left and thought, well, the hot tub shouldn't be on. It's gonna be wasting electricity. So I'm going to turn this off. Another thing with hot tubs is guests might complain that there's dirt or grass or sand at the bottom of them. in those situations, I would just make sure that there's a skimmer on site so that if it bothers the guests that they can skim those things out of there. ⁓ you could ask your hot tub service to come over with their vacuum. I've actually even seen a host that had a hot tub vacuum on premises. that's very rare. Usually it's like the professionals that have those vacuums, partly because they're expensive and there's plastic parts that can break. But It's possible. ⁓ the dirt, the grass or the sand at the bottom is also a reason for you to think about where your hot tub is placed because you shouldn't have to make your guests walk through sand or grass or dirt in order to get into your hot tub and out of it. Doesn't mean that's not going to happen, but you should have a cleaning service that can vacuum those things up between guests. So last is actually the most common situation. And this is where you've got discolored water. So if it's turning a little green, turning a little orange, turning a little yellow, those are not unusual circumstances. It doesn't mean that the pool or the hot tub is full of urine. It means that there's chemicals that are in there, like bromine or chlorine, that are interacting with other chemicals, meaning like iron and minerals. It's not necessarily unsafe. But it is something to get photographs of, share that with your cleaning service, and make sure that these things can be addressed down the line. It could just be that you need some metal gone. ⁓ sometimes you have guests that are willing to, you know, address that by throwing in some metal gone, giving it a couple of hours to clear up. that's if you've got these products like, you know, pre-packaged and ready to go. So moving on to the next most common issue is ⁓ connection issues. So ⁓ the biggest one is the smart TV disconnected. ⁓ most smart are ⁓ user-friendly enough people can figure out how to reconnect it. Just make sure you've got your Wi-Fi network name and password already available. something that I've seen ⁓ once or twice is the password has some characters that the TV doesn't like. I don't know how to explain this exactly, but I ran into one where the password cannot be accepted by the television because it had like a backslash or something ⁓ in it, ⁓ one of the special characters. So ⁓ like the TV didn't connect, but that was the first connection. It never would connect. ⁓ So you're gonna wanna make sure that the network that your guests have access to is the one that they can connect the TV to. If they can't connect the TV to that network and it has to be a second network, then that should be something that they are made aware of. and it should still be not like a super long, complicated password. It should be something simple enough ⁓ they can get to on the TV. but guests are able to reconnect the TVs. another one is the phone or computer won't connect. And a lot of times that just happens to be with the uppercase, lowercase. And you just have to double check with your guests that they are putting in the first L as an uppercase, the second L is lowercase, or that's an I, not an L, or that's an L, not an I, or that's an O, not a zero. I know it gets complicated. you post these things in case sensitive ways ⁓ on your ⁓ mantle for example, then they should be able to get them, right? I mean, who doesn't connect to Wi-Fi these days? All right, so the next one is breakers. ⁓ sometimes they just turn off. There's too many things connected to one circuit or something like that. So after you ask the guest what all went off, what was plugged into those outlets, what lights were on, what fixtures were on, things like that. Then that'll help you identify if maybe you've overloaded the circuit, which is a conversation that you want to have while there's not a guest there with an electrician that can tell you if you are indeed overloading your circuits or not. Because if you've got a microwave and a refrigerator and a freezer and a bunch of ⁓ chargers connected to one fifteen amp breaker, then you might be overloading your circuit. In which case, because now the refrigerator's only on sometimes, you don't notice it all the time. But when the fridge compressor kicks on, that's when everything goes dark. It all shuts off. So things like that are considerations. this'll This will pop up when, like, hey, the lights in three bedrooms are not working. Well, that's usually because of a breaker. the dishwasher is not going on. Well, that could just be because of the breaker. You know, most dishwashers have a dedicated breaker, a dedicated circuit that they're on. ⁓ hey, the refrigerator light is off, ⁓ refrigerator's getting warm inside. That could also be because of a breaker, because ⁓ refrigerator should be on a dedicated line as well. Or the AC is running, but it's not getting cold. Well, there's multiple breakers connected to an air conditioner. And we could talk about air conditioners all day, but if you've got a whole house cooling system, then there's most likely a breaker that runs the indoor unit and there's a breaker that runs the outdoor unit. could be one breaker that runs them both, but it's more rare. So checking your double pole breakers, that's the ones that are double thick, they take up two spaces. Checking those to see if one of them's tripped, one of them's off is important. Second thing is with the air conditioning, ⁓ there's usually a disconnect. out where the compressing unit is. So the condenser fan, that that big unit that sits outside on the ground, that's the one that you have to check. The wire runs from that through conduit up onto the side of the house usually. You just have to open up that access to inside. Yeah, sometimes it's a breaker, sometimes it's a a disconnect that you pull out. ⁓ I wouldn't ask a guest to pull that out. ⁓ if it's a breaker, I would ask him to check the breaker, press the trip and reset. If it's GFCI, ⁓ turn it off, turn it back on, see if that does anything. if the fan outside is running and things are moving around, then the breaker is on. You've got electricity. Now you do actually have to ⁓ in a service technician. But there are times when outlets aren't working or when the refrigerator light is off, and then it's just a breaker, and they can turn that back on. But if it's like, you know, all the lights and the outlets in one room are off and the breakers are all on, now you need an electrician because there's probably a short somewhere in the outlets. It could be right where that switch is. There might be a loose connection that's overheated and now it's no longer connected. And that would cause everything downline from that to be completely not functional. That sort of stuff does happen. GFCI. that stands for ground fault circuit interrupter. This means that like if you're running a hairdryer, example, and it falls into your sink and there's water in there, then electric current is going to go from your water heater to the pipes, It goes from the pipes back to the electrical panel. so ⁓ circuit now has ⁓ alternate pathway for the electricity to go. So the ground fault circuit interrupter will turn off that circuit, turn off the electricity to it, so that that circuit no longer happens. It means that you're not going to get electrocuted by ⁓ your body in the path of the electricity. ⁓ what a GFCI is for. Now, where do we put these? We put these anywhere where there's water. So they're put on the outside of the house, meaning like your deck, your porch, ⁓ even in sunrooms or four seasons rooms. a lot of times it's where you find them. Another place is bathrooms. Every bathroom by code has one outlet. ⁓ sometimes there's more than one outlet, but they're always GFCI protected. ⁓ kitchens. Anything within five feet of a water source. is supposed to be GFCI protected in a kitchen. And usually there's not any other places where you're going to find GFCI protection. However, if somebody takes electricity from an outlet that's already GFCI protected, like for outdoor lights, then because of a ground fault somewhere else, you've got no lights. So sometimes your electrical issues can trace back to a GFCI. this is something that you can ask the guests to do. Hey, can you check and make sure that the reset button is pressed in? in all kitchen outlets, in bathroom outlets, and on the decks. Sometimes this solves their problem and guests usually prefer to solve their own problem instead of waiting for somebody to show up. Another place that you might not expect to find this is in a garage. A lot of times a garage is considered like an outdoor kind of space. And so you find a GFCI there as well. But what happens in Airbnbs is that people turn their garage into a game room. So if they say, hey, the game room electricity is off, that could just be a breaker or it could be a GFCI. Now the next issue is access, smart locks. If they put in the code and the whole panel is blinking, what does that mean? Low battery probably. Or there's some sort of other error. It could be disconnected from Wi-Fi. It might not be syncing right. I had a guest one time put in the code and I didn't believe that they couldn't get in. I unlocked it remotely. So it's important to have your locks connected to Wi-Fi so that you can unlock them remotely. That solves the problem for the guest. It gets them access into the house. instead of trying to troubleshoot with while they're trying to get inside and put down their bags, what I recommend is you give them access right away through your app, and then you troubleshoot with them later on once they're a little bit more relaxed. Now that they've gotten inside and they can lock up the door, it's easier to figure this out now. One time I actually went over to the house and this was a Kwikset Smart Lock. And it's one of my main problems that I have with Kwiket Smart Locks is like the batteries die quickly. And guests seem to always have trouble figuring them out. ⁓ I also don't like Yale, it's ⁓ really Schlage the only one that I'm comfortable with, but whatever. So the smart lock in this situation, the code was a six-digit code, and they had to press the unlock button afterwards. So I went over to create a little video of how to put in that code ⁓ order to make it work. It didn't work for me either. It wasn't user error. It was legitimately just a problem with the lock. So I asked the property owner to replace the lock. used other codes. Those other codes worked. But the one that I programmed in for guests that had worked for a previous guest didn't work. And when I checked the app, it said that it was connected and synced. So sometimes there's unexplainable things that happen with Kwikset smart locks that don't happen with others. The ones that I don't like are where you've got to like unlock the light, you got to turn on the light because people don't understand how to do that. Like, you know the one where you gotta put your palm on it that lights it up, and now there's three digits, you gotta hit those three digits that are lit up in order to unlock the screen. I don't know why we have to go through that extra step. I'm pretty sure you can turn that off. And for the general public listening to this, if your lock is one that does that, stop it. ⁓ as long as you can turn it off, you should turn it off. Anyway. so besides that, ⁓ my recommendation for smart lock issues is to always have a backup. So you should have a key, a second door that they can get into or something, and an old school regular combination lock. It should be fixed somewhere so that it can't be taken off site and drilled open with tools. It should be something that's within view of your camera, but still hidden enough. We don't want guests going there first. And they're not being given the code for that unless they can't get into the smart lock. you should always have a backup. I know that's not like a troubleshooting thing, but like, you know, sometimes it's impossible to troubleshoot with a guest when they're, you know, in the rain or it's snowing outside or it's five degrees and it's very cold and they don't want to take their gloves off. You to think through all these types of things If you're gonna be a good host. the next one, fire pit issues. I've never actually had a guest report this, but I have seen it on camera. They took a wad of paper towels from the stove inside, burning through the house outside to the fire pit and threw it on the wood. It did not successfully light the wood, but guests will do some weird things when they can't find a lighter, matches. Or some other type of way to ignite the fire. So make sure that you have plenty of these, that they're in a place that's accessible, that if the this lighter stops working, you can get them another lighter easily. Because otherwise, guests will do weird stuff to get a fire going. Second thing is when they can't get the fire going, it somehow turns into property damage. So inside fireplaces, this is very common. They don't know how to stop the smoke. They don't know how to stop it from, you know, smoking up the house. They don't know, they don't know how to start a fire. You know, not everybody's a Boy Scout. Not everybody's a camper. And the ones who are campers are typically not happy campers, right? ⁓ that's just a joke, but they might be dealing with wood that is wet. They might be dealing with ⁓ building a fire without using any kindling. They might not have any fire starters left. There could be a ton of different things going on. So my recommendation as a host is get in front of this, make it easy for them. Have some fat wood, have some fire starters, have a couple of things like that, rolled up newspaper. You can always go through the local grocery store and pick up a couple of those circulars, the ones that are supposed to be selling real estate. Those are great fire starters. It's essentially newsprint. Newspaper, newsprint, balled up, it makes great way to start a fire. But then also using like dead dry wood from sometimes off the ground or or sticks or whatever, that's kindling. It'll burn up quickly, but that's what you need to burn before the larger logs can get started. Not every guest is going to understand this. And I also think it's a good idea to make a video specifically for your house. Now, most hosts already have this covered in the form of writing. Step one, step two, step three, step four. Some hosts even get extra bonus points for putting photos. Open up the damper. This is how you open the damper. This is a picture of the damper. People don't know what a damn damper is. So you have to think through the video. Here's how to do this. Here's how to do this. Specifically for my house, this is how you do it. Otherwise, this damage is going to occur and they're going to be embarrassed and they're not going to tell you about it. So sometimes it's just that the wood is wet because it's not covered. there's no tarp over top of them. They're not in a woodshed. So they're getting wet. And guests have a lot of trouble getting these things to light. So ⁓ I ⁓ just recommend thinking through the fireplace situation ⁓ and fire pit situation. Make sure that you lighters, make sure that you have fire starters, make sure that you have kindling, ⁓ make sure you have paper. Because the worst fire are the ones that people can't use. And it's extremely common in our industry for there to be fire pits that guests just cannot figure out. like I'm talking like you've got a tree that came down last winter ⁓ you cut it up into rounds, logs that are like maybe 15 inches wide, and you stacked those logs near the fire pit. Nobody has an axe that they're going to split that up and then burn it. The second thing is. The tree just came down. It's not seasoned for a year yet. It's not dry enough to burn. So even if they can get it in the middle of a roaring fire, they're not likely to keep it going. The next thing that runs out quickly is lighter fluid, because if they can't start the fire, they're probably going to try using the lighter fluid and their little lighter in order to get this going. Or gasoline. So If they don't have those tools, you're running such a risk that they're going to cause property damage. And the problem is, and I know I'm talking about this in the troubleshooting episode, but the problem is your guests are going to do whatever they can figure out how to do in order to get that fire going. And they're not going to bring this up to you because number one, they're embarrassed. And number two, they feel like, you know, I should know how to start a fire. Me, man. Me. ⁓ Throw in there ⁓ you know, whatever whatever elaboration you wanna do. But ⁓ but yeah, so you want to make sure that you've given them clearer instructions and the right tools to start the fire responsibly. That way it doesn't become a problem. ⁓ just last weekend I had a host who was freaking out because the umbrella from the deck table was put above the fire pit. And he was freaking out because he saw this on video on his cameras, ⁓ he was telling me they're going to burn up my my umbrella. I said, I said, Mark. How much is that gonna cost? If you have to replace it with a new one, he's like, I don't know, $60. I was like, why do we care? Now, no, I don't want to start a forest fire, but in a worst case scenario where it gets fire damage, smoke damage, or something worse, the guest is not going to throw it off into the leaves. They're going to drop it on the fire pit and let it burn in a controlled manner. And they're going to freak out and they're going to feel responsible for it. And we're going to get our $60 claim. We're not talking about an expensive item here. They're not taking an entire like canopy. And I I have seen umbrellas that are like 150 bucks, you know, but any of those things are within the realm of a claim on Airbnb getting approved, especially if you have evidence on camera that this thing got damaged because of a guest. So I did not even address it with a guest. I didn't tell them that they were doing something wrong. They had it above the fire pit for all of like five minutes and then they took it off. They're just, you know, having trouble starting a fire in the rain. And they really wanted a fire for this weekend. So not a whole lot you can do about that. But the guests are not telling you when they can't get a fire started. And I don't know why. I think it's kind of like when somebody's at a party and they clog the toilet. They don't want anyone to know that they clogged the toilet. And I think the guests that stay at our Airbnbs, they don't want anybody to know that they're the reason why the house smells like smoke. They don't want anybody to know that they couldn't start a fire. the next couple of ones, I'm gonna roll through really quickly because we're we're already getting to be over time on this episode. ⁓ heating and air conditioning. ⁓ if you've got mini splits, make sure they're all on the same mode. If they're all on heat and one of them's on AC, a lot of times that's when you've got those errors. ⁓ the next thing with mini splits is sometimes the remotes get moved to different rooms and they're not programmed for those. So it might be a different iteration. If it's not working in this room, try it in a different room, things like that. If you're heating an AC system, is a whole house system. First, make sure there's enough fuel. Second, make sure that the electricity is on to it. ⁓ that can be done with the breakers, ⁓ or you actually go to the unit itself, the air handler, and make sure that you hear the air running through. The thermostat sometimes will be off if the breaker flips for your heating system. I've seen guests say that the thermostat isn't lighting up, sometimes that's just the battery. You'll know based on what kind of thermostat you have. ⁓ ⁓ Nest thermostats oftentimes have a battery in the back. You can take that out, swap it back in with a new one, and you might be good to go. This happened to me recently because I had a Nest thermostat for my air conditioning system. So we asked the guests to take the spare remote from the second bedroom, take the AA A battery out of it, put it into the thermostat, and carefully place the thermostat back on the wall because there's little pins back there that could get bent. They did that, everything was fine for the rest of weekend. So stuff like that happens too. remotes not working. again, just put in new batteries. it's smart for you to have batteries and a battery tester. the place where guests typically don't look in your kitchen ⁓ is the hard-to-reach cabinets. something that's like up high in the back. So have a little basket with a couple of spare batteries, maybe some light bulbs, some of the supplies. I know I've talked about this in another episode, ⁓ but it's good to these things in your house in case. ⁓ the guest runs into these problems. So some batteries, some light bulbs, whatever. So ⁓ having a tester as well would also be helpful. Make sure you have right kinds of batteries for your property. So one of the things that I've seen way too commonly is those coin shaped batteries like the CR2025. Those ones so annoying. But you might have a remote for your LED strip that is only that type of battery and it stops working and the guest doesn't know why. But you have a couple backups. So they say something to you, you tell them where the backup is, and they figure out how to get it fixed. Perfect solution is to have those extra batteries somewhere on site. ⁓ But don't want them like being out in an easily accessible drawer because then ⁓ People are gonna find ⁓ they might end up using it for their the car remote, you know. you don't really just leave those out there for them to take. ⁓ Also, ⁓ you ⁓ these things. that's the reason I say a battery tester, is Because oftentimes what guests will do is they'll put dead batteries back where they found the good batteries instead of putting those dead batteries in the trash. ⁓ I don't know. my parents hate wasting things and they would probably take a battery out of a smoke detector and put it into a remote because they can still get some life out of it. I don't know about you, but I give away all dead batteries free of charge. ⁓ right. ⁓ not enough supplies. This is a common issue. ⁓ with guests and how you troubleshoot it. ⁓ number one, ask them how much they expected because apparently their expectation is not meeting reality. ⁓ we had a guest recently left a four star review and they said they would have liked there to be more towels. They said nothing during their stay. Even when prompted afterwards, we asked them if they had any feedback for us. They didn't say anything. They just left a review. that house has ⁓ two towels per double bed, one per twin. And the guests' feedback was that there were not enough towels. So we said, hey, you know, the the house has 10 towels in it, and your reservation was for seven guests. She said, ⁓ I didn't check the second room because my room was the first room and there's only two towels in there. So finding out what their expectation is, I think, is helpful. And the same thing goes for toilet paper, paper towels, and propane gas. So Sometimes their expectation is just there's always going to be spares. There's always going to be extras. And you can, you can do that for sure. but there's gotta be some number. And you've got to set the expectation so that your guests are not surprised when they get there. running out of soap or shampoo, ⁓ these all kinds of things that your cleaner should be restocking. But the troubleshoot that's with the guest is relatively simple. Is there some or is there not any? And where's the spare? Where's the extra? Propane gas. I always like to have an extra tank somewhere at the property. I like to have it hidden though. So if there's like a staircase that goes up to the deck, I'll sometimes put it underneath the staircase so that it's accessible, but it's not easy for them to find. That way they can tell me when they're out and I know to get that replaced. Otherwise, I'm not lifting up that spare tank to see if it's empty. And what the guests will typically do if they don't tell you about it is they'll just replace it, and now you've got two empty tanks. So ⁓ I think it's good to have it somewhat hidden so that they can't find it easily and they send you a message saying, hey, we're out of gas. ⁓ one of the things I highly recommend to get in front of this issue is these little ⁓ inline propane tank ⁓ like meters. So when the when the tank is on, inline there's a little gauge that shows if you're in the green, the yellow, or the red. And so that shows what the pressure is from the tank before it hits the regulator. Now the regulator ⁓ screws onto that. So it's actually showing you what the pressure is in the tank. And these are really helpful because now your cleaning service can tell you what the level was. They can take photos of it and everything. can disconnect it from that tank and you can put it onto the spare tank if you're ever wondering if that spare tank is full or empty. Now this goes the same for charcoal. If you provide charcoal to your guests, always have backup charcoal somewhere. But the problem with storing charcoal is that it needs to be kept in a place that's dry, like a garage or shed. yeah. So the next issue, ⁓ smoke detector is chirping. This is a dead battery set issue. ⁓ I've seen smoke detectors chirp throughout the house when one of them dies. So that's another reason why the battery tester is important. Because if You're going to ask your guest to check the batteries. ⁓ that's a lot of batteries potentially. So you have to know what type of system you've got. If they're all disconnected and only one of them is chirping, great. Are you comfortable standing on a chair, opening that up, and replacing the battery? If so, here's where the batteries are. Please throw away the old battery. If the guest doesn't want to do that, okay. Well, now you can send pretty much anybody over to the house that's comfortable doing that. You don't have to get like an electrician, the next Snow and ice issues. So I highly recommend having a snow shovel and a bucket full of ice melt with a lid on it from October 15 till April 15. If you're in a winter or ski area, you gotta think about that because if your guests feel like it's unsafe, but they still have to access the property, then they're more likely to sue you if they slip and fall. So make sure that they have the tools to keep their walkway safe between services of another service, like a plow service, Make sure they have those tools. I plowed a driveway one time ⁓ there was Morton salt. Like not even kidding. They took the little like pint sized salt container from inside the kitchen ⁓ they sprinkled that on the driveway. Yeah. And that's also because there's no rock salt at the property, or because they ran out of rock salt in their bucket. So not exactly sure which one it was, but guests will do some weird things. ⁓ another one is kitty litter. I do not recommend using kitty litter, but people use it all the time to try and melt ice. It leaves a clay like it leaves clay in your driveway. And it's very, very challenging to get rid of that. People will end up tracking it all over the yard. It gets stuck to their pants. It gets stuck to their shoes. Don't use kitty litter. ⁓ also notify early of weather-related issues and be flexible with checkout and check-in times. Well, that's not always possible, but if you're watching the weather, then it gives you a better idea of when your guest needs the driveway plowed by. And you can communicate with your plow service about when they're coming. That helps you coordinate with cleaners and everything else to make sure the house gets taken care of between snow and guest check-in, check out. You have to think through all these different types of things. Last winter, I was at my rental property and I was literally shoveling the guest and pushing their car in order to get it out of a ditch. They wanted to check out that day, but because of the snowstorm, we extended them one night. but even with that, they couldn't get out of the ditch. ⁓ even if they were checking out the following day, ⁓ they were out of food. So they had brought enough food with them for that day. But once they extended, they needed more food. So I recommended DoorDash, I recommended Uber Eats, but they wanted to go out themselves, and I knew they were gonna have to get out of their driveway anyway. So I was literally in the snow ⁓ while my was gunning it with their car, ⁓ like a Hyundai or They just didn't have enough clearance to get out of that ditch. And I was able to get them out. And I didn't have to tow them out, which was wonderful. But they so appreciated that they called me an angel in the review. ⁓ and they didn't know that I was the host. They just thought of me as the plow guy all the way up until ⁓ later on, which felt good. Anyhow, ⁓ the last one I'm gonna touch on today is broken furniture. Now, remember this. Everything has a weight limit. You can think that there are not people out there that are heavy enough or rough enough on furniture to break your heavy-duty furniture. It can still happen. So, with that in mind, if everything has a weight limit, then you should advertise that your furniture does have a weight limit. That way they can't blame your rickety furniture. for their embarrassing situation. I don't know if I should tell the story or not, but I had a girlfriend back in high school, and we were at a family get together. we were at my aunt's house for the fourth of July, and she was sitting on a on the pool deck, and that chair broke. ⁓ And not sure if it's just because she was a little bit heavier than any average girl, ⁓ or it was because the chair ⁓ had out in the weather for year after year after season. But nobody else had broken that chair when they sat on it. So her sitting on that chair created a very, very embarrassing situation. When human beings go through an embarrassing situation like this, the number one thing that they will do is look for somebody to blame. And if you, as the host, can be blamed for their embarrassing situation, you better believe they're going to blame you. Now, this is not fair, but here's how you get in front of it. You just tell people that there is a weight limit to this and this and this and this. These chairs are approximately four years old. They were installed in 2008. You can put these things in your guide book, right? You can you can just disclose it somewhere. That way you can shift some of that blame off of yourself and back on to the guests. Now, there's a good chance that they were just rough housing. They were just being a little little too rough with it. ⁓ I'm telling you, guests do some weird things. I had a guest one time that even though there were five Adirondack chairs, plastic Adirondack chairs around the fire pit, they decided that wasn't enough Adirondack chairs. So they went all the way over to the house. We're talking 75 feet, where there was one Adirondack chair sitting that was out of the way. We didn't think any guests were going to use it. And it just had to be picked up the next time that I was there with the pickup truck. The guests went over, picked up the broken Chair, brought it over to the fire pit, and then sat on it and broke it. Broke it more than it was already broken. And then they blamed it on us. Like this stuff happens. what you end up hearing from them is, well, I'm gonna be visiting my chiropractor tomorrow because now my back is thrown out. Well, there's a good chance that anybody who's plus size ⁓ not gonna recover well from a back injury, from falling, even if it was only eight inches. You know, how the Adirondack chairs sit pretty close to the ground already, ⁓ if they didn't fall very far. You wanna avoid this at all measures. Get furniture that's a little heavier duty. I know this is like a troubleshooting kind of episode, but like this stuff happens. This is real. Like, this is the kind of drama that we go through as hosts. Anyhow, Think through what could have happened that had caused it. some photographs. you will reduce your expense for repair if you send your contractors already prepared. So if they get there and they know that they just need a couple of brackets or a couple of screws. Then your costs for that repair go down. So I recommend getting your guests to document everything, to take photos of it. So if there's any other items, just make sure you get photos. It's important to get those pictures because that's going to keep your maintenance expenses low. Because if you can send your contractor over there or your handyman or you can show up with all the right tools, materials, and everything else to get the job done quickly, then it impacts your guests less. And it saves a lot of time and money. So those are ⁓ just know some important things. So these types of things. Are the kind of stuff that people don't really talk about. When you find podcasts on short-term rentals or investing in real estate, nobody really talks about how to troubleshoot with your guests, that their, you know, firewood is too wet or that their furniture just broke. ⁓ specifically the kinds of things that we are well qualified for, You don't need to have a property manager in order to benefit from the experience of a property manager. That's what this show. Is about. But these folks out here are just selling this dream of easy passive income, but they don't talk about exactly the kind of problems that make or break your operation. So if you've got a problem, I've got a solution. If you've got a situation you want to share, then please send me an email, info@galvanizedmanagement.com, and tell me what your question is. as much detail as you can. Your problem might be in the next one that we break down, and chances are you'll help a lot of other hosts in the process too. If this episode helped you, share it with other hosts who are in the trenches. Like and subscribe too, so we can organically reach more people. That's how we make the industry better. I'd also love to see you follow. on TikTok at Galvanized Investments Facebook and YouTube at Galvanized Management. Until next time, stay steady, keep learning, and keep building something real. This is Short Term Rental Problems and Solutions.