Would you book a rental with security cameras in communal areas?

[Marcus237]

I'm curious to know from people who say they wouldn't rent at a property with security cameras in the common areas (kitchens/living rooms), do you normally book an entire house?

And if you do, would you find cameras in these places to be more reasonable if someone had a 6 bedroom mansion with several full bathrooms, a jacuzzi, and multiple living rooms, where they rented out each of 5 bedrooms separately, and they themselves stayed in the 6th?

I feel like cameras in the common areas in this case provides security, safety, and accountability not only for the homeowner, but also for the other guests who are staying on a property with strangers that they don't know.

I'm considering putting my place on airbnb to do just that, but I don't want to alienate customers. That said, the price to rent the entire property would likely be prohibitive to most people, so I think I'd have more success renting individual private luxury rooms with access to beautiful, high end common areas. But in doing so, having multiple groups of strangers staying in a single place, I'd think having security cameras to provide accountability would be of the utmost importance. Otherwise, if people break things in the common areas or even steal another guest's property, you'd have no idea who would be accountable for it, and guests may even attempt to hold the host responsible.

What are your thoughts, hosts and guests?

[Helen3]

Sorry @Marcus237  but you do come across as both combative and baulking at advice offered by highly experienced hosts.

You cannot compare camera's in hotel lobbies with cameras in communal areas of an airbnb. If I stay in a suite in a US hotel, they do not put camera's in the living area of the suite.

As someone who regularly stays in an STR I would not book one with internal CCTV. It would make me feel highly uncomfortable as  I would not be able to have private conversations or dress how I wanted around the property.

Why come on here and ask for advice and then argue with those who provide it?

By the way what plans have you put in place to keep communal areas clean when you are letting twelve people sharing kitchens, bathrooms, living space and ensure guests don't break house rules.

[Marcus237]

@Helen3 Ok, let's break this down.

First, disagreeing with someone isn't being combative. I'm not disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. Instead, I'm pointing out that someone who rents out only a single room in their house to a single guest at a time isn't at all in the same situation as renting out 6 rooms to 6 different parties.

There are significant security concerns in the latter. What if one guest broke into the room of another guest and raped them in the middle of the night, but the victim didn't see their face? I might be held legally liable for NOT having cameras in the common areas to determine which room the perpetrator came from.

Further, a PRIVATE living room in a suite is completely different from a SHARED living room in a house where multiple different parties are renting multiple private rooms with shared living room/kitchen access. They are not comparable. I'm not suggesting putting cameras in private areas. I've suggested putting cameras in SHARED public areas.

And I wasn't seeking a specific person's "advice". I was seeking multiple people's thoughts on what they themselves would choose to do as a customer. Since there are multiple viewpoints on this, not listening to 1 potential customer doesn't mean I'm being combative. There are other opinions, and thus, I can't listen to EVERYONE's advice. Not possible.

So, I'm qualifying advice. That's why I asked questions about whether they would rent a room in the property if the cameras WERE NOT there. Because it seems like there is a correlation between people who wouldn't rent a private room(but only a "whole home" instead), and people who'd have the most problems with a camera in common areas. If they wouldn't rent the private room with shared communal areas to begin with, then their opinion of whether or not cameras in the shared spaces "feels creepy" is irrelevant. In many of these cases, having a shared space with all of these other people has the same "creepy" feel to it for those people. I've seen people post that they find the idea of renting a room in an owner-occupied home to be "creepy". There are several posts about just that on here. Those people are obviously not the target demographic, because they're not going to rent a room from me to begin with.

As for cleaning, my intention was to run it like a full-time business, if I could get enough interest. And as a full-time business, cleaning would occur daily. Since I would also be on site, taking care of cleaning and other problems that might arise shouldn't prove terribly difficult.

[Sarah977]

@Marcus237  No, not at all rare. My listing is a private room /bath in the home where I live. I only host one guest at a time, as it's a small room and I actually prefer solo travelers-they seem to be more self-sufficient, adaptable, friendlier and tend not to complain about silly stuff. At least the guests I get.

The way my house is built, guests actually have a private entrance to their room/bath on the second floor- my room is up there as well, but also has a private entrance, as both rooms open onto a balcony.

I share the kitchen, downstairs with my guests- some use it a fair amount, some hardly at all. 

Certainly if your prospective guests book private rooms in your home with use of common spaces, there couldn't be any expectations of privacy in the common spaces, but sharing the couch with someone while you both watch the news or the game or using the kitchen at the same time, or eating at the table together isn't the same as having cameras trained on you.

BTW, private room listings appear to work better as far as serious issues with guests (altho private room listings can also get their share of weirdos, complainers and the entitled). Pretty hard to throw a party with a cast of 200 of your closest "friends" and trash the place when the host lives there, too.

Lots of "Entire Home" hosts say they could never handle renting a room in their home, and don't know how private room hosts do it. I feel the opposite- it would stress me out way too much to have to deal with an entire home listing, making sure they got and understood how to work the door code, making sure they didn't sneak in extra guests or pets or were throwing a party, having to deal with Airbnb for damage claims, etc.

[Inna22]

@Marcus237  it sounds like you really would like us to agree with you and unfortunately the majority is not doing that. I hope you’re prepared for that turn of events :-). I personally would have no use for any of the luxury amenities if others are roaming around. There is some freedom of space about a hotel. The house just feels confined.  While I would have no problem using the hot tub by a pool in the hotel, I would not do it in the house. Actually, I would not even rent a shared house in the first place. So maybe I’m the wrong person to comment.

As for the software, Airbnb does offer linked listings which I use with success. However, if you’re renting multiple rooms in the house, the likelihood of them blocking the majority of your calendar is very high so you probably rarely if ever have enough availability to rent out the whole house. 

 If I did decided to rent your house and saw a Camera disclosure, I would probably pass. If I pay a lot of money to stay somewhere, I want it to be on my terms. Having cameras would mean  that I cannot talk about work (both my husband and I are spies- oops, I wasn’t supposed to say it!) , would be uncomfortable  about any private moments with my husband, even in the bedroom as I just would not know where else the camera may be or where this sounds will Travel. I would also be extremely concerned where the footage will up and whom the owner would choose to show this footage to. Just all in all creepy as somebody pointed out. 

[Marcus237]

It's not about agreeing. I'm just trying to get different viewpoints, so I appreciate all of your responses! Let's call it market research! 😄

However, I spent about 8 hours today reading up on prior threads regarding security cameras, and there are lots of other opinions out there. Many hosts have security cameras both outside and in common areas. But in all the threads I read, no one really focused on a large home that was renting out multiple rooms. Most were either a home with a single live-in owner renting a single room, or someone who rented out the entire property. Since my situation wasn't really applicable to either of those, I was curious to know if the fact that 3-4 other "couples" were renting simultaneously in the house would make a difference to the portion of people who said they'd never rent a place with a camera disclosure.

But, to me at least, it seems like all of those same people who wouldn't rent a place with a camera disclosure also wouldn't rent a private room in a house that had multiple other private rooms for rent.

So, my objective was to determine if anyone inside my target audience would actually be turned off by this. So far, pretty much everyone who has stated a distaste for common room cameras basically has a distaste for "common rooms" to begin with. They don't want to share the space. So, they're generally not my target audience with regard to the security camera question.

In my local research, looking at homes and rooms for rent in the area, there was only really 1 home anywhere near the size of mine, and the nightly rent was pretty high, but when I looked at their booking availability, it was wide open for the next 6 months, with a sporadic weekend or week booked here and there, pretty far out. Nothing booked in the near term at all. On the other hand, when I looked at private rooms for rent in my area, at about 20-25% of the price of the whole home my size, they were completely booked a month out.

So, I'm just looking to find the sweet spot between security, desirability, and economic viability here.

If my place was on the beach in Florida, I'm sure I could just rent the entire place out without getting problems booking. But my place is in Columbus, Ohio. Not exactly a major tourist destination. So, getting large families who'd want to rent a large, luxurious house would be a problem on a regular basis. But if I rent individual private rooms at $50/night, it's cheaper than even bad hotels, in an upscale, safe neighborhood, and is competitively priced with the private rooms in much smaller, less luxurious homes that only offer 1 room, while still being economically viable for me to pocket some profit.

So, my thought is simple. I can run a total of 6 listings. 1 for each of the 5 available rooms with a camera disclosure on the listing, and 1 for the whole house sans the attached guest house, which I will be staying in. In the whole house listing, I can just decline to have an internal camera disclosure, and if anyone rents the whole house, I'll remove the cameras before check-in. There are only 4 internal cameras. 1 in the kitchen, 1 in each of the 2 living rooms, and 1 in the foyer/dining room. It would take me about 15 minutes to take them all down. Since they would seem to be the most disliked by those who wouldn't rent in a shared home anyhow, I can just make it a non-issue for people wanting to rent the entire home.

[Inna22]

@Marcus237 How much trouble would it be for you to try this for a month and see what happens?

[Marcus237]

Not much at all, really.

@Inna22Actually, I just looked at one of your listings, and it's pretty amazing that you get $299/night for that wicker park two level with what appears to be pretty solid booking numbers. What is your booking rate on that property if you don't mind my asking?

Honestly, the 1 house that was available in my area that was as big as my house was a farmhouse significantly further away from attractions, so the pricing and level of interest might be greater in my home, and maybe I'm underestimating the level of interest in renting the entire place. I could always try it.

Currently, while I have 5 available bedrooms, each room only has 1 bed in it. Do you think I'd get better interest if I put 2 beds in each room? That'd bump it up to 10 beds, so maybe 20 potential guests at a time. And I have a huge deck and private back yard that would be good for hosting family reunions and such.

[Emily145]

Yes - I think you'd be more likely to be able to rent out the whole house with 10 beds. I would even set your max guests slightly little higher than 20. I've done cabin trips with large groups of 20+ before (a friend's 30th birthday, a bachelorette retreat, 2 college club reunions) and there are really very few options to choose from once you get that big of a group. Like sure, we'd have all loved to have a private room but there aren't many cabins with 15-20 bedrooms, so we book the biggest one we can find which has 10 bedrooms, a max occupancy of 30 people even though most of the rooms just have one queen-size bed, and people share beds (one bedroom has 2 twin size bunk beds, so 4 people can sleep in single beds), and a few people bring air mattresses or cots and sleep in the living room. We've booked that lodge multiple times because it's one of the only places within a few hours drive of that location that will even allow up to 30 people.

[Inna22]

@Marcus237 that listing is actually fairly new so there is not enough data (opened August 1 and probably got that initial boost). I do special in large homes so take a look at my other listings. My summers are full with odd days here in there and then it slows down into Fall and dies in January/Feb. I am actually now thinking of following your lead and opening the free days during the week and in the winter as nightly rentals. What are your thoughts on handling the keys for whole house vs nightly and how often are you thinking of cleaning common areas?

[Marcus237]

@Inna22My thoughts on cleaning in general were that I'd either personally clean or pay someone to clean each day that I had someone check out of a room to clean that room and prepare it for a new guest. When preparing any individual room for a new guest, I'd have the common areas cleaned as well. If I was able to get my occupancy up to where I was regularly renting out 4 rooms, this would be easily financially manageable.

But again, my initial thought process was to run it like an actual bed and breakfast, where I rent out 3-5 private rooms as often as possible, provide attractive amenities and common areas, and offer things like complementary breakfast bagels and fruit for guests. My intention was to run it very much like a hosted hotel, with on-site staff(me) available daily to address guest concerns.

It's possible that the demand simply wouldn't be there, however. Getting an idea of how other people do things is why I'm here asking questions.

As for key handling, all of the bedrooms in my home already have individual key locks, so guests would be able to have a private key to their own room. I'd just give them their key when they arrive and have a drop box for the key when they check out. They can either turn the key back in to me directly, or put their key in the dropbox when they check out.

Your situation is different, since you manage several properties and don't live on site, so you'd probably need a far different system for managing keys and cleaning than I would.

[Susan151]

@Inna22  There are a number of listings near me that rent out multiple rooms, each with their own private bathroom. The one in particular that I know about, since we seem to share guests regularly, hires a crew or person who comes in every day from 11am-1pm and cleans all the common areas and the one shared half baths and does any turnovers. The "host" has a number of listings and doesn't seem to live at any of them.

They are about the same price as me, but they are in a better location. I am rented out sooner than they are. Their cleanliness scores are excellent. The guests that we have shared have been incredibly clean and neat; and very respectful.

[Sarah977]

@Marcus237  I have no distaste for common rooms at all. I'm quite happy to have a private room to retreat to and yet hang out with others in a common space. I've never been an Airbnb guest, but I've certainly  stayed in situations like that and enjoyed it. But I wouldn't appreciate having "big brother" up there in the corner watching me.

[Marcus238]

Personally, it seems to me - based on your demeanor and language - that you have privacy concerns that have originated and will continue to exist outside of Airbnb. 

"Connected Homes" are commonplace and swiftly gaining traction . Respectfully, technology has outpaced you, which - based on the nature of Airbnb - is disappointing. 

There can be compromise and harmony between privacy, safety, and surveillance if meaningful discussions (like this one) happen. 

[Dimitar27]

Cameras inside the house will have a huge negative impact on your bookings.

Common rooms are OK, if your house is in a very busy area.

[Alice595]

@Marcus237  I have a three bedroom house. I list each bedroom and entire house with linked calendar. So far it works in my case pretty well. The entire house booking normally is at weekend while individual rooms are at week days. My house is near downtown area. Weekday booking are normally those people work in the area. Weekend bookings are usually those come for sightseeing or visiting families nearby.

I had an indoor camera in the living room before. For the entire house booking guests, they hated the indoor cameras. I had to turn it off after they suggested a few times. It is under stable when an entire family booked the entire house they want to be more relaxed. One time a father of a four year old son told me that the little boy could be naked and ran around in the house. They did not want the indoor camera to be on.

For individual room booking guests, they cared less. Eventually I removed indoor camera and just have a video door bell at front door.

Hopefully my experience could provide you with some information to make your mind.