@Inna22 Hi there, thank you so much for putting this together. I'm still mulling it over to see what I can and cannot do. A few comments:
Just like you, we have ALWAYS found evidence and we always take photos immediately, good clear ones. It's amazing how people don't even try to hide it.
Unlike you, we have certain market constraints here. You see, although most people in the US don't smoke, most people in many (most?) other countries do smoke. The thing about NYC tourism (when we're not in a pandemic) is that people come here from literally all over the world. Many of them are totally addicted to smoking, but actually don't mind smoking outside, even prefer that in many cases. We provide an ashtray with guest seating in our front courtyard garden. The way these old NYC brownstone style houses are set up, the door is upstairs, on another level. I've never had a problem with smoke getting inside the house when people smoke outside. However, we would never be able to survive on the reduced bookings if we didn't provide this amenity. The competition for Airbnb guests in NYC is mind blowing. You see, Airbnb over-advertised looking for hosts here some years ago. So, the number of listings is crazy high. BTW, that drives the prices down crazy low. (It's cheaper to rent a BnB in NYC than in the middle of the USA! Did you know that? Strange, right?) So, we need to stay booked most of the time, which we do, in order to make ends meet. Why do people choose our spot instead of other comparably priced spaces? Well, we keep it nice and the photo's reflect that. We have good reviews. We also provide certain amenities that many people require. Outdoor smoking without going onto the sidewalk is one. (A lot of tourists are secretly frightened to be in NYC and they feel safer behind our fence rather than on the sidewalk it seems.) Almost everyone is happy to smoke outside, even in the winter. It's only the party kids who act out and want to smoke inside. It's generally pot because it's not legal here; so people want to do it inside instead of outside. Everybody who smokes tobacco gets it about smoking outside.
So, I do get housekeeping invoices for their extra charges -- and yes, Airbnb reimburses for that. And starting with Covid, we wash everything anyway. Here's the problem: There's always another booking, almost always coming the same day. We have four hours between checkout time and checkin time. And we use all of it. If we were to wash down the walls (excellent idea) and wash the curtains,and go to Home Depot to rent a carpet shampoo machine, we would not have enough time. And no, we're not able to create multiple days of vacancies for cleaning between every booking. If we did that, we'd have to find a different way to make a living. Our market is for short vacation stays of 3-12 days, sometimes 14. We cannot do long term bookings in NYC because anyone who stays 30 days or more is legally entitled to the Tenant Rights laws in NYC which are basically 100% in favor of tenants and intrinsically 100% anti-landlord. (That's why we do Airbnb instead of just renting out to tenants.) So, with short term rentals, we have to get them out and get them in. No time to do more than a bit of extra work. Before the pandemic, I'd say that 40-60% of our bookings were made six months to a year in advance. You can't just tell someone -- oh, please go somewhere else for a night or two because we need to wash the walls.
BTW, as an aside, Airbnb has a total monopoly on bnb's in NYC. Vrbo will no longer show any listings in NYC which are for less than 30 days. The reason is that NYC now requires these companies to give the city our names and addresses. I don't care -- we're legally registered with the City anyway. Thankfully, Airbnb is doing it, but Vrbo didn't want to bother with it, so they just won't list any of us. We got very little business from Vrbo anyway, but now it's really a monopoly.
Back on topic, there are logistics involved in getting housekeepers to come to a residential neighborhood in Brooklyn. I used to live in the Midwest -- everyone had a car, so everyone could go anywhere very quickly. Not so here. You HAVE to schedule housekeepers in advance here. BTW, I am elderly and cannot wash walls myself. No one in my household can do it.
Anyway, I don't expect you to have answers to all my problems LOL. Just sharing that every market has its own peculiarities.
I really appreciate the heads up about the Ozone Machines. I had not known of that before. The housekeeper and I will be speaking about that this week. The ozone fumes are toxic. Even if you wait a certain number of minutes before you come in to open the windows, you're getting exposed to it. Spaces in NYC are very small, the opposite of what I have seen in the rest of the USA. So, a little gas -- eh, I'm just not sure how safe it is for us. Of course, if we could run it and wait a day before coming inside, it would probably be fine. But we almost never have a day to wait.
