All Forum Posts by: Lauren Kormylo

I've seen other hosts complain about guests burning marks from hot pans on their butcher block countertops, and knife cuts like @John Underwood said. They then had to be completely sanded down and refinished. Besides that cost, that's lost time during which you can't book guests.  Butcher block is probably the most high maintenance countertop you could do, so it's a big no from me.  You should try to make your place as low maintenance as possible, and that means thinking of ways not-so-bright guests can ruin something. 

Only streaming with Roku TVs in Guest Mode.  Simple, no switching back and forth with the input selector, nothing to confuse guests.  I say in my description that's what we have, that they'll have to have their log-ins.  In 3 years, I haven't gotten a call or text about the TVs or how to work anything, and no complaints about the service at all. 

I don't have international guests.  But this absolutely will effect international travel.  I have family and friends in Canada who regularly visit the US, and they've cancelled all trips for the foreseeable future, they are hopping mad.  I don't know how much this will effect guests from other countries, but it is bound to.  I hope since your guests come mainly for the school there, you'll be spared a lot of it.

Short Term Rental insurance is a policy where the insurance company knows you are doing short term rentals, and agrees to cover you. STRs are considered more risky for an insurer than long term rentals. And much more risky than you living in your own house. The reason is that you will have a steady stream of guests who are unfamiliar with your house, and that can lead to more risk for injury and more damage to the property. If you only have your current standard homeowner's policy and an STR guest hurts themselves and sues you, or a guest accidentally starts a kitchen fire and destroys your kitchen or the entire house, your insurance company won't cover you at all. So you MUST have STR insurance.

STR insurance covers what your regular homeowner's policy covers, and then adds extras. If a guest injures themselves on your property and sues you, the insurance will protect you financially. If a guest steals items from your house or breaks or destroys something, insurance may cover that (depending on your policy and deductible). STR insurance may include coverage if you have bedbugs, they may pay for the cost of an exterminator and pay you lost rental income because of that, up to a certain amount. It may cover lost rental income if you have a water leak or fire or other major problem with the house and you can't rent it, up to a certain amount of money.

We can't say what it will cost you, because it varies widely because of the size of your house, the location, whether you have a fireplace or a pool or something else that would increase risk, and many other factors.  You will have to request a quote from different companies. 

Proper Insurance Co. is probably the most expensive, but it also has coverage for things that other companies don't have. Others are Foremost, and CBIZ. Many insurers who write regular homeowner's policies will now add STR insurance to your policy and those companies include Farmers, Allstate, American Family, USAA, and others.

So the first thing you should do is find out if your existing insurance company offers STR insurance. You may be able to add it through them easily and at a reasonable cost.

I use Proper Insurance Co. for my STR. Like @Jeremy Jareckyj suggests, in the case of a major event, I am covered for loss of income for about a year's worth of rent. I also have bedbug coverage.  

It seems like everyone is enthralled with AI, but it is not ready for prime time, it can't be trusted!  And Airbnb is proving it.  Using it to put up a property's worst review first is insane for their business model.  The first reviews shown are absolutely important.  Most people just read what's in front of them, they don't bother to click to put the most recent ones first. 

I have an STR, and use dark gray towels from Sam's Club. The only problems I've had with them is when a guest washed one with a new white beach towel of their own, and the gray one had white lint all over it that I couldn't get off. And I did have a white sheet that had pink dye or was stained pink from some drink or something. But otherwise, I haven't had much trouble with my cleaners getting stains out of my white sheets. At home I use Spray N Wash Max, let it sit for 10-15 min, and wash. For really tough stains (even old stains), I use OxiClean MaxForce gel stick. Rub it in on both sides, let it sit for as long as you can, up to 7 days, then wash. I had a quilt at my STR that looked like a guest had set a paper plate of french fries down on it, and the oil was all over. The cleaners couldn't get it all out. I tried the OxiClean MaxForce on it, let it sit for 5 days, and it all came out.

If you don't have another job, sure you can be the cleaner.  Just remember you have to absolutely clean them as scheduled, no matter if you're sick or you're injured or there's some family obligation or emergency.  My cleaner owns her own small company with a crew of 3 who come and get the entire 4 bedroom house done in 1.5 hours and cover for each other in sickness and for vacations.  Think about planning vacations for your own family, who will clean then?  Do you want to always be tied down to cleaning those 2 houses?  When you have both houses to turnover on the same day, can you get that done in time by yourself?  Professional cleaning is a hard, physical job. 

My cleaners do a great job at primping the house with artistically arranged pillows, linens, towels and TP, and putting everything in its place.  You can train yours to do that too.  Or in some larger markets, there are people who have made a job of inspecting after cleaners, for say $25 a visit, and they will do those final touches for you and make sure the cleaning is up to par. 

If I were you, I'd try to train your cleaners to do the staging.  Have them take photos of what you want, so they can refer back to them until they get the hang of placement.  You inspect it after them for awhile to make sure they get it right.  And then just do that occasionally to make sure they're remembering.  

Quote from @Patricia Andriolo-Bull:

At first, I thought I wasn't impacted - yet.  I viewed all 4 of my listings though my host dashboard but low and behold, I searched using a private browser and indeed, they are rearranged to most relevant (which is consistent with most rating systems, which is hard to determine how they come up with most relevant).  For those of you that said you didn't see it on yours, check it with a private browser.

  I only have 5 star reviews in Airbnb so I can't really tell how they chose the one they did to be first (it was a January 2025 5 star review).  I have newer ones since.  I will say that the newer ones are short and sweet but they aren't at the bottom of the list, they are about 1/3rd of the way down.  From what I can tell, they took one or two reviews per month in chronological order going backward and after 2024, peppered in the shorter newer ones.  That said, I have some lengthier ones that date back to Jan 2024 and prior and they are still lower down.  Maybe they are looking a having some from each month starting with the newest and selecting based on different key words?  FWIW, most of my business came from VRBO until Q2 2024 and then it completely flipped.  

Not sure I care about this honestly as most people know there is a filter to change how things are ranked and use it.  I never use Most Relevant when I'm looking as something.  I always like to say best comments and worst so I usually look at both and don't scroll through whatever search engine believes is relevant to me.

Mine have been reordered too, although they are all 5 stars.

Although some other sites will put "most relevant" reviews first, usually those are ones people "liked" or commented on.  For Airbnb to put any critical reviews higher than all good ones goes against their best interest and ours, for sure. 
For instance, Amazon always shows their "top reviews" first, which are the ones people have clicked the "helpful" button for.  And I always change that to "most recent" when buying something because those are the most relevant reviews to me. 
BTW, I just read that Airbnb has deleted 400k accounts.   https://www.rentalscaleup.com/400000-listings-gone-why-airbn...

 

You'll find that you have to make an STR as dummy-proof as you can, and inflatables are not a good idea.

You should call them and complain.  Do they want guests to book on their platform, or do they want to scare them away with the only bad review you (and others) have?  Most companies put the best reviews as "the most relevant" which is what Airbnb is doing now.