How Can I Effectively Store Personal Belongings and Prepare My Home for Renting?

[Deirdre162]

Any tips on storing personal belongings or getting my own home ready to rent out and ensuring there is storage space for guests and personal belongings are safe.. Thanks

[Title updated by Community Manager for relevancy]

[Henry714]

This lock on Amazon is great for securing a room or closet in your house.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09TDHN1CD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

[Rose2245]

Henry's reply is great. Good luck finding the perfect option and good move.

[Sonya81 · Accepted solution]

Hi Deirdre,

My space is a small one, so I use a closet to store supplies with a  deadbolt combination lock like this one: Schlage BE375 CAM 619 Touch Camelot Deadbolt, Electronic Keyless Entry Lock, Satin Nickel https://a.co/d/5Wn0G3c. (My guests have drawers and hooks/hangers available, but rarely use them.)

I have seen whole-house spaces that have combination locks on EVERY bedroom/bath door (so that, if only 1 bedroom is needed, guests have access to ONLY the linens provided for THEM, and they leave the other 2 or 3 bedrooms alone... In my mind this would save hosts a LOT of laundry and cleaning, supplies, and such, and the savings would pay for the locks in a hurry.

I have asked people who clean the houses, and you would be surprised at how many people, even it they only require ONE bed, have to use EVERY bed in the house.

Blessings and best of luck!

Sonya

[Jesus808]

We recently started the AIRBNB journey and we used some of the closets to store spare blankets and cleaning supplies. 
Because we already had it at the property, a storage building was very convenient to store our lawn equipment and tools for minor repairs when needed. 
Both are locked with a keyed device.  The options presented by others are great and are so many options for keyless locks, i.e. combination locks and digital deadbolts.  We personally use the “smart lock RZ06” which has worked great.  Great price, look, and quality.  

Good luck!

[James3777]

If you can pick a closet to use, then put a special lock on it, I find that to be the best.

[Allen340]

One thing about hosting is that you have to reassess all your personal belongings in the room. Get rid of unnecessary clutter and space occupying unusable items. You can put the remainder of your belongings in the closet which is secured with lock and key.Learn some space saving techniques so you can store more. If its worth it you can keep some stuff with a friend or a relative momentarily.  Hope this helps🙂

[Jenna416]

All of these are great responses and we have done the same. We added a lock to one of our spare closets where we keep our personal belongings along with extra cleaning supplies and items such as trash bags, toilet paper, paper towels and dishwasher pods. We only leave out a sufficient amount for a stay. We found that leaving a surplus of these allows for people to overuse or simply take extra home with them. 

[Claudia3536]

I agree with the designated closet or rooms with a lock. I believe it will also help motivate us to purge unnecessary belongings and reduce clutter. 

[Sg7]

Good morning!

we have flat in different locations in Abu Dhabi and each flat has own store , we built shelves on the wall so we keep washed items there like towels, bedding etc and ground area we use for vacuum, laundry collection, mopping trolley etc