Ogden, utah

[Trevor450]

I'm trying to get started with air bnb in ogden utah but the city requires some weird things that puts my home at risk and I need some advise on what to do.  The city requires me to notify my neighbors within 300 feet in all directions that my home will be a short term rental with my contact information.  So basically announce to my neighbors that this house is not occupied come and squat or rob it.  Is there a way to avoid this or am I just being paranoid.

[Dave-and-Deb0]

Hi @Trevor450,

We used to have this where I am located and the city actually notified them as well.  What I did was actually invite my neighbours for an open house BBQ where we served up food and drinks and gave tours of our Airbnb listing.  There were many great benefits to doing this which included bookings from some of them over the years as their family came to visit and they did not have enough room for them to stay.  It also gave me a chance to share contact information with them so they could contact me if they saw anything out of the ordinary or if our guests were being disruptive.  It is much better to have your neighbours contact you than having them contact Airbnb which could have your listing shut down immediately. 

I should actually host another one as some of the neighbours have asked when the next one is.

Happy hosting!

[Trevor450]

So basically think of it as advertising that sounds better.  My biggest concern is I'm not home and I'm out of state all the time so if I'm doing air bnb and something goes missing I know who was the last guest but I don't trust all my neighbors and the current climate where homes are being taken over by squatters and the home owner being unable to get them out is a big concern especially since I'm always out of state.  How do you get rid of squatters if that happens in utah.

[Rebecca]

@Trevor450 I am tagging @Dave-and-Deb0 here for you, so they will receive a notification of your message and can hopefully come back to share more insights!

Quick tip: To tag someone, tap "@" and select the host's username from the dropdown menu 😊

[Emilia42]

@Trevor450 What measures are you going to take to ensure that Airbnb guests don't squat in your home? Apply that same process from preventing neighbors from doing the same.

[Rebecca]

Hi @Trevor450, and welcome to the Community!

@Dave-and-Deb0 Share some great advice already (thank you David ⭐), but I thought I'd tag in @James1442 as well who is hosting in the area, in case they have more insights for you. 

Good luck getting everything set up, and please let us know how you get on!

Rebecca