The Horrors of Unprotected Rentals: Real Stories & Solutions

podcast Melissa Bernardo
By The Hospitable Team

Running an STR property can be a great source of extra income. Also, renting your home to strangers on Airbnb comes with risks, like damage to your rental space and neighbor complaints when they're frustrated with your guests' behavior.

Ignoring such risks is one of the common Airbnb mistakes that can hurt your success on the platform. So, what can you do to protect your vacation rental and prevent issues from happening?

The special guest of our latest Hospitable Hosts podcast is Melissa Bernardo, the Marketing and Partnerships Lead at Alertify. This company provides an all-in-one noise- and smoke-monitoring device designed to help mitigate common guest-related incidents in short-term rentals.

Chatting with Miles, Melissa shares real-life examples of horrors that can happen if STR properties aren't adequately protected and explains what services Alertify offers to help hosts create a safe and secure environment. She also shares some tips on what you can do to prevent parties and minimize the risk of hosting disruptive guests.

Press Play now to learn about Alertify's comprehensive monitoring solution, which helps hosts protect their properties, prevent complaints and bad reviews, and ensure 100% privacy compliance.

If you prefer to read the highlights, we've got a summary of the key takeaways below.


What Alertify Offers for Hosts

Melissa starts by explaining that she works in the marketing department at Alertify, and her role primarily focuses on helping STR hosts find ways to protect their properties through the company's noise and smoke monitoring devices.

Melissa points out that Alertify provides comprehensive monitoring systems that help hosts keep an eye on critical risks, such as noise levels and indoor smoking. They also help monitor for environmental factors like temperature, humidity, air quality, and mold risk.

Those looking for deeper environmental insights can have AQI+ devices that offer in-depth readings and graphs on the Alertify dashboard and CO2 monitoring. "And Alertify helps hosts address all of these potential problems early on so that they don't result in costly damage and hosts having to keep their properties running smoothly."

Common Issues

Melissa notes that a lot of hosts come to them because they have issues with noise and smoking, and it usually happens when those two issues pop up at the same time because of an unauthorized party.

"It's a bit shocking for the host because many of them come to us, and they're like, well, I never thought this would happen until it happened. Our solution helps hosts with this because it can notify you when the noise has gone over a certain threshold, and smoking is detected. It will send you an SMS and an email. So it notifies you early on before anything becomes blown out of proportion and results in costly damages," Melissa emphasizes.

She also shares real stories about unprotected short-term rentals that resulted in expensive damages, high cleaning costs, and problems with neighbors.

Alertify's monitoring solution can give you peace of mind so you can focus on enhancing the guest experience and growing your STR business. You can scale faster by automating your routine operations using vacation rental software like Hospitable.

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How Alertify Products Work

Melissa explains that Alertify's system measures specific decibel levels over time, so one loud noise won't trigger the device. You can set your threshold relatively high so the device is not triggered by conversation.

"And when it recognizes a certain pattern over that threshold for, say, 5 minutes or 10 minutes, whatever you set it to, it will send you the text message or the email. With smoke, though, obviously, it's smoke. So I'm sure no one wants that to last longer than 5 minutes. So it does notify you quickly and is quite sensitive."

Alertify's Integration with Hospitable

Hospitable users who have installed Alertify devices in their STR properties can integrate their Hospitable accounts with Alertify to monitor noise, smoke, and occupancy. Melissa talks about the benefits of this integration and draws our attention to 2 cool features they've just released this year.   

You can set up automated guest alerts, and the Alertify system will notify your guests via a text message or email when noise or smoking violations are detected, which will be recorded in your Hospitable Inbox.

You can also take advantage of their new verification tool, WelcomeLink, and set up automated guest verification. The tool will then send a screening link to your guests through Hospitable Unified Inbox, directing them to the guest journey portal.

Tune in to the full episode of the Hospitable Hosts podcast to discover how Alertify products work and how hosts using Hospitable and Alertify can benefit from using both platforms together.

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In this e-book, we cover: Decisions to make and things to check before you start. How to prepare your property for short-term rental. Setting the ground to stand out from the crowd. Admin work. Assembling a team. Not putting all eggs in one basket. Your daily operations. Mastering communication with your guests. Getting the 5-Star review after all that hard work.
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