I am now already in a +10 day discussion with Airbnb on an i...
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I am now already in a +10 day discussion with Airbnb on an issue of blocked days that are being switched to 'active' in the c...
Latest reply
Guys, I need your advice and experience because I am not smart enough to beat the holiday brains.
We are off-site hosts and we rent one apartment divided into 2 smaller apartments in a residential building in the center of the Croatian capital. So it is not a little house on the prairie. A lot of neighbors, workers, postmen, etc... enter our building on a daily bases and all of them pass by our apartment's door.
So, from the building staircase, you have to go through our front door with a digital lock to enter in our apartment's HALL ( with large closets full of our linens, towels, and stuff) and from there you have 2 doors to our 2 smaller apartments.
Basically, our guests have to open and close 2 doors behind them (our front door to the hall and then their apartment's door ) and it's obviously too much.
At first, we had an ordinary old school lock on our front door. Guests had to unlock and lock it with a key.
They often forgot to lock it and just closed the door.
So we invested in smart, a digital lock which locks itself automatically. But of course, the door still has to be closed manually.
Now we have an even bigger problem - guests do not CLOSE the door at all. It happened 3x in 3 months already and my neighbor called me when he saw the door is open for hours.
To prevent it from happened again we:
- check-in our guests personally and tell them at least 3x (three times!) to always close the door behind them. We even show them how to close the door, like they are preschool kids.
- we printed 3 notes in A4 paper format and put them on both sides of the door and on the wall. Notes are written in 5 languages and have a picture of a thief on it. In color! We point the finger on the note and tell them they should close the door.
But no avail 😞
Now all I can think of are two solutions:
- install the door pump to close the door automatically. But it will need an adjustment at least 2x / year depending on the outside temperature. And, of course, if something blocks the door (a small rock, the carpet, etc..) it will not close properly. We have it on the building entrance and it is not reliable at all. So I don't like the idea.
- to install the surveillance camera in our hallway and monitor our door 24/7. Of course, it doesn't help if I am sleeping or if my guests are unreachable have their phones switched off or are out or asleep.
I called my locksmith and he said our door lock doesn't have an alarm and can't send us notifications if the door is left open. The only application available is the one where I can lock the door remotely via WIFI. But of course, I can't close the door from the distance.
Do you have any other solution or advice to offer?
I've caught a video of a bear at the front door - probs not good for business to tell them that 😉
Maybe I should post a sign with pics of all of the animals they could let in 😂 or even the video of the bear at the front door.
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I don't know if that exists, but it would be great to have a system that every time guests leave the door wide open the wifi-signal shuts down. And then it takes an hour to come back.
@Ute42 How about a sprinkler that comes on and drenches them about 5 steps outside the front door if they walk out without closing it? Kinda like spraying a cat with a hose to teach it not to use your garden as a litter box. 😝
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I do have a sprinkler system in my barbeque-cottage.
If guests are getting too loud at midnight, I can turn that on.
Our current guest has not been locking her front door! We have advised her it negates our content insurance and makes a mockery of our steel window and door security screens which are an attraction to most guests. She just replied that she thought our neighbourhood was safe. Replied it is school holidays, between a rail station and large shopping centre, her door is behind our garage in a courtyard and we are not always home. Have already taken measures to stop her parking on sprinklers.