We’re getting summer ready with our safety captain, Justin Ford. He's an international safety expert who works at Breezeway and he has an undying passion to make short-term rentals safer, which is good for you, the owner, the guest and our industry. 

After 13 years in the vacation rental industry as a Property Manager, 15 years as a firefighter and four years in the US Coast Guard, Justin combined his experiences to create a niche within the short-term rental industry that did not exist in 2013; short-term rental safety. In 2014, Justin created the first vacation rental safety checklist for the vacation rental industry, and in 2017 Justin created Dwell Safe®, a certification program devoted to the safety of vacation rentals, which he sold to Breezeway® in 2019.

In this episode we talk about some recent accidents in rental properties that remind us of how important it is to be legally up to code in all properties, and have the right equipment, technology and instructions to keep our guests safe. We’re talking fire safety for grills and firepits, legal egress for windows, gas leaks, pool and hot tub safety and more. Justin shares common mistakes he sees in short term rental properties, offers quick and inexpensive solutions, and his spring cleaning checklist you can use today to make sure your property is up to date and ready for summer fun.

Here is our amazon shop to find all the items Justin recommends in this episode:

https://www.amazon.com/shop/thanksforvisiting_

Resources:

• Website: Justin Ford
• LinkedIn: Justin Ford
• Blog: Breezeway Blog
• Facebook: Short Term Rental Safety
• #STRShareSunday: @Chalets_Hygge
• Gas leak detectors: First Alert
• Grill: Blackstone
• Previous episodes with Justin:
• 120. Make Deck Safety a Priority with Justin Ford
• 159. Back to Basics: Fire Alarm 101 with Justin Ford

Thanks for Visiting is produced by Crate Media.

Mentioned in this episode:

Hosting Business Mastery Method | Join us for our live, free, host masterclass and learn how to OWN your digital real estate!

HBMM | Sign up today at hostmasterclass.com.

Minoan | Minoan helps short-term rentals and boutique hotels enhance their appeal with their customizable, curated retail platform.

Visit MinoanExperience.com and tell them TFV sent you!

Breezeway | Go to breezeway.io/tfv to claim your free implementation when you start a Breezeway account.

Welcome back from the great week.

My name is Sarah Karakaian.

I am Annette Grant, and together we are--

Thanks for Visiting

Let's kick off this episode like we do every week and that is sharing one

of you, our amazing listeners and viewers who is using our hashtag #STRShareSunday.

We'll share you here in the podcast, on our Instagram, all over the place.

You get a shot on our email.

Annette, who are we sharing this week?

This week we are sharing @chalets_hygge.

Good job.

You guys probably listen to Google Translate a bunch.

There's so many STR shares I haven't done because I'm embarrassed to

try to pronounce Hygge, H-Y-G-G-E.

And I know other people pronounce it differently.

But I'm here.

I'm going to take one for the team.

I'm out here with pronuncing things.

All right.

And if you're listening, Chalets_Hygge, we want you to be on the show.

We want to be friends with you.

Carrie and Felipe, they are ex corporate executives turned hospitality gurus.

They're in Canada and they buy old ski chalets, and they rehab them themselves

along with their two fur babies.

Their places are top notch.

You can tell they put the utmost care into the construction and the

redesign, and they really have their guest at the forefront of everything

that they do, and just the home itself when they're purchasing it.

But please, check them out.

I mean, you are going to want to go stay at their places, all of their photography

in there Instagram account is great.

You can see there's so many guest photos in there, and so you really

can picture yourself at the property.

I know a lot of times we get really heavy sometimes with just interior

photos, but not really seeing the way that the property is used.

And I think if you can show humans in your space the way that you

would envision it being used is a great way to invite guests in.

But wonderful job.

Check them out.

Please get some inspiration not only from their pivot and job change

that they did and just pivoted their entire life, but the amazing work

that they do on their properties.

All right, Sarah, who do we have today?

He is no stranger.

I was going to say, he's a complete stranger.

We've never met him.

No.

We have the most highly repeated guest on the show, goes to, of course,

our safety captain Justin Ford.

He's an international safety expert.

He works at Breezeway and he has an undying passion to make short-term rentals

safer, which is good for you, the owner.

It is great for the guest.

It is great for our industry.

Justin, and welcome back to the show.

It's awesome to be here.

I do safety work all around the world, but my favorite thing is when

I bump into people and are like, I've heard you on Thanks for Visiting.

I hear from your guests more than any other, and I love that.

It's so awesome when, I mean, they send me pictures and this is what we've done--

They stop you in airports, right?

I've been stopped in airports.

You're Justin Ford.

My neighbor doesn't even say hi to I [Inaudible] like that.

All right.

Thanks, listeners, for treating Justin like an old friend.

The most hospitable of listeners for sure.

Well, Justin, we talk about a lot of things on the show.

We will link back to some of your other episodes in the show notes, so

if you want to get more of Justin.

But if you think for one moment that safety isn't a topic you should

listen to right now, listener, do not press stop or pause.

Do not put this episode off.

Listen to it right now because Justin gives you really wonderful tactical

advice, you can go out and do this week, and it's going to make your

place safer, in which it means your rental will be around longer so you can

continue to make money and build wealth.

So Justin, today we're going to talk about preparing for summer and

summer safety, and all the things that-- some things we can learn from.

Some accidents have happened.

Some products our listeners and viewers can purchase to help make their rentals

safer and just get us ready for summer.

Absolutely.

And the disclosure we always have, our intent is not to scare you out of hosting.

Safety is actually the one thing you can solve and attend

to in your rental property that will keep you out of trouble.

So again, none of this is to ever scare you out of doing this.

This is to help prepare you so something like this doesn't ever occur to you.

And the thing that I love about these episodes also, listeners,

is that you might be like, oh, summer safety, I don't have a pool.

I probably don't need to listen to this episode.

The cool thing is everything that Justin teaches not only can be used in your

own short-term rentals but your own properties and your friends' and family's.

So that's what I love about this is it's something that has this ripple

effect that you can also use in your primary residence also, which is great.

So let's dig in.

Well, the one thing I want to do before we start talking about

summer, we've got some things that have happened around North America where

most of your listeners are that we need to pay attention to and learn from,

um, that happened over the winter.

They're going to move us forward into summer and help us recognize

where we're missing things and things that are so easily overlooked.

I wanted to start with the Chattahoochee Hills Airbnb fire.

I don't know how familiar you are with that fire but this happened

in February, late February.

Three couples just outside of Atlanta.

If you're not familiar with Chattahoochee Hills, it's an easy destination

market for people who live in Atlanta.

And Atlanta is a big strong market where people like to drive one

or two hours either up into the Smokies, up into Northern Georgia.

And they like to just get out and stay.

It's not necessarily a market where you're going to the beach or

skiing or hiking, but you're just going to have a really nice time.

And these three couples went and stayed in the property.

It had a fireplace under the deck.

And we don't know how, but somehow that fire started outside of the property.

And around 8 o'clock in the morning, the three couples staying

there, two of them were awakened to the fire or were already up.

They quickly escaped the house.

And one of the couples that was on the third floor, in a third floor bedroom,

unfortunately didn't have enough time.

They didn't have enough notification so they couldn't go

down the main stairs to get out.

And they were forced to jump out of a window.

Um, and when they jumped out of that bathroom window from over 20 feet

high, both of them broke their back.

Thank God they survived, but they did break their backs and were

injured as a result of that fire.

So really, I see several learning opportunities here.

Were you two familiar with this one?

You told us about this, Justin.

Yeah.

Of course.

No, I know, and it just makes me so sad every time.

It's a tough one.

So the things that we can learn from this opportunity, and that's the

important thing here, is that the couple that was on the third floor, why

by the time they woke up weren't they able to just walk out of the house?

Well, were the smoke alarms interconnected?

This is a really big point, for interconnected smoke alarms, and we've

talked about that in previous episodes.

85 decibels.

No matter where a fire starts in your rental property, everybody

should be able to hear it.

So the fact that they couldn't walk down the stairs tells us that they didn't get

enough early notification to get out.

Number two is when they were forced to get out of the property,

how come they had to jump?

Why from over 20 feet did they have to jump?

Well, they didn't have an escape ladder, and we've talked about

that on previous episodes.

It's 50 bucks for an escape ladder, sign on the door, be able to throw that out.

And someone, uh, actually one of your listeners was talking to

me about this incident not long ago, and they're like, why didn't

they tie the bedsheets together?

Um, which is a logical thought.

Rapunzel, let's climb down out of the window.

You don't have that time.

These new modern houses.

This was a new home.

It was a roughly 2-million-dollar home.

New construction.

There's a lot of chemicals, things that burn really quickly in there.

You don't have time, so you need to think about how do my renters get out?

How do they get out quickly?

Yeah.

Justin, can we go back to the fire though that actually started it?

So the fire was outside?

Okay.

Are there some things that, um, we could put to help extinguish fires if

they're a fire pit or what can we do?

What can we supply guests with to help them actually make sure that

the fire's extinguished outside?

Yeah.

And that's a great point, and we'll talk about, uh, too on

the summer prep checklist.

You've got to make sure renters can put out a fire easily.

And if it's an outdoor fireplace, you've got to have some extinguishing tool.

And I'm not talking a fire extinguisher.

You don't want to put out the fire that you're enjoying sitting around in

the evening with a fire extinguisher.

That's a huge waste of the fire extinguisher.

You should be able to put it out with a bucket.

I was just in a rental property recently where you could see they're putting

all the ashes in a bucket next to the fireplace and there was no information

to tell the renters, don't do that.

Hot ashes coming out of a fireplace, coming out of a fire pit.

They need to be doused and you need to have instructions there.

You can't assume that the renters know how to put out a fire, whether

it's in a fireplace or in a fire pit, but they need to extinguish it.

We don't know who they are.

We don't know what they've been drinking.

We've talked about that in previous episodes.

We know three quarters of our renters are drinking alcohol, had

some wine, they've gone to bed.

We've got to have good, clear information instructions.

This isn't something that goes in the digital guidebook.

How do you put out the fire?

How do you make sure it's out before you retire and leave that area?

That's great.

Got it.

So another one, grills.

At Christmas we had a fire in Panama City Beach.

Two things highlighted from this one.

This unfortunately was a deadly one.

But this was in broad daylight, during the daytime, 4, 5 o'clock in the afternoon.

And so you think, well, how did someone perish in a fire during the day?

They weren't sleep.

Two things were going wrong here.

One, the grill was being used too close to the rental property.

In this case, because it was in Florida, um, and we see this

in a lot of coastal locations.

It was an elevated house.

It's up on post.

The renters were able to grill underneath.

Fire got out of control.

Highlights, how important it is that grill stay away from the

house and that they have at least a nine-foot vertical clearance.

But then even when the house caught on fire, four of the, uh,

occupants escaped, the fifth one didn't as she was overweight.

She was unfortunately not in a position where she could escape easily.

And it's a reminder to us that our renters aren't you and me.

They're not two healthy ladies, 5'3.

I think you're 5'3.

Maybe you're a little shorter, Sarah.

Um, they're not a healthy guy like me, 6'5.

You may have a 350-pound renter who's staying with you.

You may have an elderly grandmother who's 85 years old, who moves very slowly.

You may have a two-year-old.

We've got to think about guests of all ages and all sizes occupying our

properties and make sure that they can all escape timely if they need to,

or the stairs is easy to come and go.

Can they easily open the windows?

Can they easily get out?

Justin, I know that we've talked about this a lot, but I want

to go back to this really quick, because my eyes, I see it everywhere

now, grills, either up against a home or underneath a deck or patio.

How can we as host make sure that our grill is not moving?

We might put it in the correct spot but guests can, oh, it's raining.

I want to move this underneath the deck.

How can we stop the grill, once we know it's in a safe

clearance from the property, how can we keep it in that place?

One of these days we're going to have the Thanks for

Visiting Breezeway safety kit.

I know it's going to happen and one thing that's going to be

in is going to be a bike lock.

You need to have bicycle lock cables.

They're so useful for so many different things, and one of them

is for putting the grill in place.

Lock that grill either to a dog tie out, and on the dog tie outs that I'm

talking about are those stakes that are two feet long that you screw into

the ground so that the dog can't run.

You can actually use a bicycle lock and secure the grill right to that.

Then the renters can't easily move it.

I hate having them on a deck, but if you've got a safe place on a deck and it's

away from combustibles, you can secure it in that corner in a section of a deck

with a bicycle lock, and now the grill is not getting pulled in from underneath

the deck or pulled in, uh, in inclement weather, put where they want to put it.

So two very inexpensive solutions to solve a very big problem.

Right.

And listeners, if think the guest isn't going to move the

grill, they will move the grill.

Justin had one of the-- we were doing some safety videos and he had the best

scenario of why people move the grill.

He was like, hey.

Obviously, it's their vacation, but they went to the local butcher.

They spent a lot of money on stakes, big money.

And it just so happens to start raining.

And the guest is like, hey, I spent a lot of money on these steaks.

I am not going to let this rain ruin my steak dinner.

And they move the grill.

So don't think that they're just going to say, oh, I'll make these the next day.

It might be the last day of their trip.

They splurge, spend all the money.

They're going to do whatever it takes to grill those steaks.

We know people get passionate about grilling, so don't think that your

guests won't do what they need to do to move the grill and get that dinner

on the grill for their last night.

So these are the scenarios.

You might think that they'll just-- why would they want to be

outside grilling if it's raining?

Those are the things.

They might have spent a lot of money, or it might be their last night there,

and they want to make sure they're doing exactly what they said they

were going to do on their vacation.

Absolutely.

To your point, three nights, first nights can be grilling and they've already

got a dinner reservation for the second night, so they don't have a choice.

They got to cook that steak.

Yeah, exactly.

And then Justin, we should also have a fire extinguisher

near the grill outside, correct?

Yeah.

And you have to check those.

I've been doing a lot of, uh, safety training on the road this past winter.

I can't tell you how many times we're going up and the host or the

manager's like, check it out, Justin.

I've listened to you on Thanks for Visiting.

And look, I've got a fire extinguisher.

And I'm like, that's great, but it's empty.

And they're like, what?

And look, I mean, people are using these and the renters

aren't going to call you up there.

Sometimes they're embarrassed or they think you're going to charge them.

So it's like, oh my gosh, the renters actually had to put out a

fire and we never know they did.

And we're so happy we had an extinguisher.

It didn't dawn on us we got to check it every time.

Our inspectors check before every arrival to make sure

it's charged and ready to go.

Because you never know.

Exactly.

Within 30 feet is a smart location.

Speaking of, before we got on this episode, I was talking about our

podcast producer loves Justin Ford because he's learned a ton from him because

he is listened to all the episodes.

And Justin was at our live event, but our podcast producer had this exact

scenario happen where the grill fire-- him or his friend, I'm not sure.

They weren't used to the grill and they had this scenario happen.

And they're like, they felt like they were pretty veteran

grillers, but the grill caught fire because they weren't used to it.

And he obviously was referencing a Justin Ford episode.

But this happens and this happens to people you know.

And like you said, you might not even know that this happened to your guests because

they want to put it out and move on.

They don't want to tell the host, hey, we started a fire at your house.

They want their five-star review also.

Right.

One of the biggest topics that I've been talking about, um, a

lot lately is what's been referred to as the Montreal Airbnb fire.

I don't think necessarily Airbnb deserves the rap in here,

but that's how it shows up.

I was on Canadian National Radio getting interviewed on this

one, um, a couple of weeks ago.

And Montreal has taken a huge push on this.

This was an arbitrage situation.

This was an example of someone who's rented out long-term rental units.

They were doing it in an area of Montreal, Old Montreal, where you're not allowed

to, um, rent out property short-term.

And in many cases, the windows were glued shut.

Or in many cases, the rooms didn't even have windows.

There was no legal egress.

All other Canadian provinces, but Quebec actually have egress regulations.

Montreal did not have these.

And um, unfortunately, three or four Americans died.

Three Canadians died.

This is something we don't talk about a lot because we're

always talking to you as hosts.

We don't usually talk to you about it as guests.

And this is a really important thing to take up because I think you'll

agree many of your hosts and your listeners actually stay in Airbnbs too.

I stay in Airbnbs.

I'm trying to book one in Los Angeles right now.

So it's really important to think about your own safety when you come into these.

If there's no egress, you're not staying there.

You need to speak up.

And even in some of the reviews, if someone had just read the review

from a guest in February earlier that said, this is not a safe place.

There are no windows in my unit.

And thought, we need to elevate this.

No one did.

I wish they had.

This tragedy wouldn't have happened.

So, um, really, again, highlights the importance.

When you're staying at a property, if you see something that's not safe, you've

got to bring it to people's attention.

Airbnb has over a 1,000 people dedicated to trust and safety.

Um, in fact, their trust and safety office, one of

their offices is in Montreal.

And if they know that there's something not safe at the property, they'll

shut it down immediately for bookings until they have adequate proof

to know that it's been addressed.

And they're more focused on that now than ever before because there's

been so many incidents lately.

Wow.

We have a lot of listeners I know that do transform, let's

say, closets into bedrooms.

Oh, no.

I mean, I'm just-- I know that happens, especially in homes that have

really large primary bedrooms and closets.

Can they make those safe at all?

Is it possible to make those safe?

Yeah, they can.

And we see sleeping areas all the time.

I call them-- they're sleeping areas.

They're not bedrooms.

That's what I was going to say.

Not bedroom, a sleeping area.

Okay.

O

Not a bedroom.

Or a loft.

I see so many lofts.

Ooh, yeah.

Let's talk about that.

Those are very common sleeping areas and lofts.

Go into those, close the door.

Cover your eyes and imagine yourself escaping from those first and foremost.

Or in a loft.

I mean, where's the heat and smoke go first?

It goes to the loft, in a closet.

I was just at a rental where you had to go through the bathroom and

they converted a walk-in closet.

So now not only was there no window, but you have to go through

a bathroom to get out to a hallway to get out to a bedroom to escape.

I mean, it's a coffin.

And so if you're going to do that, it's the law, Canada, US, you can't do that.

But if you're going to break it for heads and beds, you got to make

sure the renters have the earliest best possible notification with

smoke alarm so they can get out.

You shouldn't do that, but if you're going to do it, at least make sure

you've got 20 interconnected smoke alarms there so they know how to get out.

But it's not expensive.

Do the math.

Yeah.

If you're doing the heads and beds thing and adding beds to these

nooks and crannies and you know it's illegal, what happens then, Justin?

I don't know if your friends at Proper have given you any insight.

What happens if someone does get hurt or does die because they're in a

place where there wasn't legal egress?

Are these owners held liable?

Oh, absolutely.

Um, not only is your insurance going to deny the claim, we see that more

and more now, um, where the insurance companies are going, wait a minute, this

wasn't up the building code standards.

We're not covering that claim.

You filled out your application, you said you were good, so we're

not covering it, number one.

And then number two, it's called negligent homicide.

You should know.

You should now know that if you're offering a house for rent or a space for

rent, you need to know building codes.

And that's why I'm here.

That's why you're here.

We're delivering that message.

We give you access to all this information.

So it's really easy to learn all this stuff, but you need to know it.

And it doesn't take long to learn it.

Hopefully you appreciate this, Justin, but listeners, I took Justin's

advice to heart so much that for a few-- I was co-hosting some properties.

I did not have legal egress.

And the ones that could have legal egress, there are windows, but you

couldn't open them all the way and have enough square footage to get out.

The ones that didn't have legal egress and wouldn't remove

the beds, I offboarded them.

I'm not working with them anymore.

And the other ones that did, we replaced the windows, so they are legal.

And then on top of that, we have escape ladders and cute

baskets right by the window.

We don't cover them up.

You can see them, but they're in a cute basket.

But that's how much it mattered to me too, as an operator.

Because then that's what hits the news stands and what have you.

And then as an industry, we're unsafe.

We're not professional.

And we don't take safety seriously.

And so people are going to be afraid to stay with us.

So I also give you permission if you're co-hosting, that

you don't have to do that.

There are plenty of properties out there for you to work with, partner with,

make money with, and doesn't have to keep you up at night like it was me.

It's a quick math equation and I like to tell people this whole the time.

How much is your property renting a night?

How many weeks a year?

You look over 10 years you're going to generate a million dollars in revenue,

four grand to put in an egress window and make it legal, even if it's eight

grand, I mean, that's 0.015% of the income that the property's going

to generate over the next 10 years.

And you've just made an investment, a very small investment to ensure that

people are going to survive when, I say this, it's not if, it's when an accident

or incident happens at the property.

AD MARKER

How about the High Springs gas explosion?

What happened there?

Yeah, that just happened in Florida.

Um, and that's going to lead into the spring checklist as well.

A squirrel chewed through a gas line and when it chewed-- yeah, this

is one of these really tough ones.

So in Mexico where we're seeing a lot of gas explosions and incidents,

they don't require sleeved gas lines.

And what that means is the copper gas line that leads into the property has a plastic

sleeve around it so that it's protected, doesn't get crushed, all that stuff.

So they do get crushed.

They explode.

Big problem.

But here in the US, we're having a ton of trouble because squirrels and

mice like to chew on the plastic.

So their teeth then get through.

Now they're chewing into the gas line.

You've got to check your gas lines every year.

Thank goodness this traveling nurse who was staying in this tiny home

in High Springs, Florida, where this happened a couple of weeks ago, she

had first and second-degree burns.

She's going to survive first and second-degree, are certainly not minor,

but she's going to get through it.

Thank God she didn't perish.

But it just highlights so many things that we have to do on an annual basis.

You just can't assume that everything's going smooth.

Um, a lot of your listeners are in areas where we've had

heavy snow this winter, Tahoe.

We never even have talked about structural and roofs holding up heavy

snow loads and all the different things that drove-- animals underground.

They're burrowing.

They're living under the snow in the winter.

They're chewing through things.

They're hungry.

So more so than ever, we need to take a really good look at all the systems

around the property to make sure that everything got through the winter okay.

Um, the red squirrels didn't chew something up.

A raccoon hasn't done something.

Mice didn't do something, didn't die in your dryer vent, all that stuff.

Yeah.

Can you explain?

I'm not familiar with the gas explosion, so what happened there?

Just for our listeners to know.

So because the squirrel chewed through the gas line as it went in

underneath, gas was leaking into the unit.

Now, a lot of states are starting to push having, um, these explosive

gas alarms in the rental units.

There wasn't one there.

And so it doesn't take long for enough gas to come in there and whether or

not it's turning on the pilot to the stove or a furnace is igniting, all

of a sudden you have an explosion, um, because gas is leaked in there.

So that highlights one of my favorite products from first alert,

which is only in the $40 range.

You've got to have carbon monoxide alarms throwing the gas detector.

My home state in Maine now requires that in short-term rentals, and I know

several other states are looking at it.

It's only a matter of time before all 50 states are going to start

requiring these explosive gas meters.

They're inexpensive.

Do you only need one now or does it need to be in every level of the house?

In my house, they're in every place where it could happen.

So I have a gas cooking range.

I have one plugged into the counter, just about three feet

to the left of the gas stove.

In my house, I also have a gas furnace.

Downstairs in the basement, in the boiler room where that gas furnace is, I have

an explosive gas alarm there as well.

And it's going to attack either propane or natural gas, methane,

any type of gases that could lead to combustion and alert you.

And it's a different alarm sound, so your renters might even call and go,

wow, the alarm's doing something crazy.

I was going to ask, so it doesn't sound like a smoke alarm?

It's a different type of--

Well, it's a beep, but it's a different pattern.

And so you need to be familiar with that.

On the back of the alarm, it actually tells you what this pattern means.

So if a renter's calling you, oh, it's doing this weird sos

type beat, that's head out.

Okay.

Can you use that outside next to a grill, Justin?

Like a gas grill or a propane grill?

You can't, but that's a really good point.

That's one of the other things you need to do as part of your spring

cleaning checklist is the grill.

Um, grills get gas leaks.

They do.

They get cross set.

Um, you've got to use-- if you don't want to go to Home Depot or Lowe's

or True Value or any of those type of hardware stores for six or seven

bucks they sell gas leak detector, you can ask your gas company.

But around your own grill, even some soapy water, you just put it around all

the connections, turn the gas on, and if you see bubbling, um, you've got a

problem and you need to get it fixed.

Thank you.

All right, so what's up next on our journey through getting safe for summer?

Well, so all of this is leading into regulations.

And this is something I really want to quickly touch on.

We've just listed a bunch of incidents.

That's just not even touching how many we've had, unfortunately, but we're

seeing now a lot of markets that are starting to come after it with safety.

And some of your listeners have even been calling me saying, hey,

Justin, I live here in New Jersey.

I listen to you on Thanks for Visiting.

My city's now looking at putting safety regulations in place.

What can I do?

And so I want to make sure people understand this is coming.

In three years, I think we're going to be there where everybody's

starting to see safety regulations.

So it's more important than ever now that you're getting ahead of it.

Yes, new construction, if you're thinking about building your own new brand Airbnb,

please put in a fire sprinkler system.

I don't think it's necessary to convert to it.

It's very inexpensive now.

A friend of mine just had built his new home.

It's $6,000 added onto the price tag of a $400,000 construction job

to add a fire sprinkler system.

So smart.

But if you don't have that, now is the time to embrace it, put it together.

And when you're going to these city and town meetings where the fire

chief's saying, hey, we're going to put these in place, say I already have.

Raise your hand.

Be an advocate that that wasn't that hard to do.

And it isn't that hard to do.

Safety regulations, I believe, are good, and they weed everything else out.

So, um, as we lead into spring and you're starting to see these meetings

pop up, make sure you embrace safety.

Safety regulations are good for your community.

Perfect.

Annette and I, nerdy, if we drive anywhere, she's

pointing out safety issues.

The sprinkler system, that's a really-- I will say, that's the

first time I've thought about that.

If you were doing a new construction, if it's that minimal of a cost, why not?

Even for your own safety.

I mean, it's just an interesting thing that I hadn't thought about before.

A lot of hosts in Vermont, Vermont's been doing a

lot of stuff with regulations.

I talked to a host in Killington recently who listens to your episode and they

just put a sprinkler system into their-- and they're using PEX tubing now.

It's inexpensive to retrofit a vacation rental that they had.

It was $12,000.

That may sound like a lot.

To him, he actually verbalized it.

Three weeks of rental.

And it dropped his insurance rates in the long-term.

Oh, that's-- I like that you're putting the investment of the egress or

the sprinkler system into that long-term.

I mean, it's an amenity for yourself, but there's the repercussions of, a, like you

said, the insurance coming down, peace of mind, which is priceless, over the length

of you owning the home and hosting guests.

It becomes pennies on the dollar than for each nightly reservation if

you're going to make the investment.

And I was going to say too, if, and when you sell that property, like

my owner who did put in the egress windows, she did make that investment.

I mean, that's just going to make it that much more attractive

to a potential buyer too.

So you can think of it that way.

I mean, I know, Justin, you've mentioned it can be marketing for the listing, but

I'm also thinking on that exit strategy.

Um, hey, we have these third-floor apartments and they've got egress windows.

They are legal.

So you won't have any issues should regulations change and they really

crack down on those sorts of things.

What are the challenges that you see facing-- are hosts getting more hip, I

don't know what word I want to use, to safety and implementing these changes?

Or what is the vibe you're getting?

Because I know this is what you do day in and day out.

They are.

People are definitely tuning in and I'm really impressed.

I was talking with someone who's out in Oregon recently, and she changed

the narrative in her community.

The narrative was, we don't want short-term rentals.

We don't have enough long-term apartment rentals here now.

The short-term rentals have taken that over.

There's parking issues.

There's trash issues.

She went in and changed the narrative to safety, and it was awesome to

see that happen because that's not what these communities are doing.

And when you do that, if you don't have a host or a homeowner who's committed

to safety and making sure people aren't injured or dying in their rental property,

they probably don't care about trash.

They probably don't care about parties.

They probably don't care about anything else that's out there.

So you're going to weed things out.

If you've got these properties that can't meet the safety standards as a short-term

rental, they're not going to meet it as a long-term either, but at least

now the homeowner's going, all right, I guess I should switch back to long-term.

And now you've added some long-term into a market.

It's good from a competitive reason.

Now there's less inventory in your market, but you're the star because,

hey, come stay at my property.

I've done all the safety regulations, which means I care about this community.

So change the narrative.

Change it away from we'll get rid of your parking and trash issues as soon

as we get your rental property safe.

Let's do that first.

Yeah.

Love that.

You've got to send this Oregon host our way.

She sounds like a real star.

All right, Justin.

So spring checklist.

I know our are going to be excited to check things off their list.

Listeners, maybe we can even put this into some, um, download for you.

I think I can do that.

Yeah, we'll put together a sheet.

So based on everything we just heard, everything that happened this winter,

first and foremost, get those windows.

If you can't open those windows easy, the renters can't.

Especially you've got the older homes, they've swelled up, you've painted them

shut over the winter, whatever it may be.

Get the windows open.

Make sure that all the blinds are working.

That is the way out.

Should be the first thing you do.

Open the windows up.

Let that spring air in, fresh air.

Clean the property out.

Windows are all working, everything's working great.

And then of course, next, we can't have anybody die on the property, so let's make

sure all our smoke alarms, CO alarms, if you didn't do it when the time changed,

if you had a really busy winter season, now is the time to get in there and

make sure all your alarms are working.

It's the most important thing.

People can't stay in your property until you know all the smoke, all the CO, all

the heat detectors, remember, you got to have heat detectors in your garage or

attic spaces, that they're all working.

And then I know you do this, um, Annette, because you have so much

long-- I see so many different clothes on you every time I see you.

I know you're cranking your dryer, so I know that you clean that dryer

vent out because it's probably full.

Um, especially if it had a lot of snow around it this winter, I think you had

some-- did you guys get snow in Columbus?

It was actually a light winter, but regardless, we'll still check it.

You got to get in there and clean out the dryer vent.

On Amazon, they make these brushes on a cord.

It's a four-inch.

Your dryer vent duct is typically four inches.

Anybody can do this.

You pull the dryer out because you got to clean behind there once a year.

You got to check and make sure your vent's still connected and

make sure your vent's to code.

If it's not semi rigid or rigid, you need to replace it.

Really easy to do that.

But now's the time where you put that brush in and make sure it goes

all the way through to the outside.

Um, I had somebody reach out to me last week that said, oh my God, we

found a whole mouse mess in there.

They do.

They come in there because it's cold.

Birds are making a mess in there.

Anything that restricts that flow, it's time to clean out the dryer vents.

And a lot of markets, um, they have companies that do this too.

So you can hire, um, somebody that will come in and clean your dryer vent for you.

So I highly recommend you get right on that.

That's what I do.

I just hire them to come in, sign off.

What's that look like?

How much?

Think it's 125 bucks.

Oddly specific.

Nothing.

Peace of mind.

In Columbus, Ohio.

Mm-hmm.

That's [Inaudible] fee for some people.

Mm-hmm.

Extension cords.

Time to get rid of them.

If you haven't already, now's the time.

Extension cords are dangerous.

They're a temporary solution, but if they're still there and people could

use them for air conditioning, you're putting air conditioning units in windows,

putting fans in, I'm seeing a lot of people-- it's going to be a hot summer.

I mean, I'm in Maine, it's April, and we're already

going to see 70-degree temps.

It's global warming, whatever.

Whatever your political feel.

It's getting warmer.

So if you're putting fans in all those different things, look to see if an

electrician can install an outlet that's closer to the fan so you're

not having to use an extension cord.

They're a huge fire hazard.

And they're, again, a temporary solution.

But if you have to, inspect them, make sure that they're

not going under a carpet.

They haven't worn out.

There's not cracks in them, everything's good to go there.

Awesome.

Grills, we already talked about.

Grills need to be thoroughly clean, degreased.

I'm a huge believer that if it's time to change out the grill and

even close to it, switch over.

If you have a gas grill, switch over to the open flame grill

type where the burger's get in direct contact with the flame.

It's time to switch to the griddle type.

I have a Weber Grill.

I actually just went on their website this morning and purchased a griddle to

now retrofit onto my Spirit 310 Grill.

So it's easy to do that.

A lot of companies are selling that now.

That's the new wave for safety, is to get rid of the open flame, go to griddle.

There are companies, Blackstone, that make them.

I'm seeing those everywhere.

You want to go to closing in that flame as best you can, and then the grill

has to work as it was manufactured.

You can't be giving renters a match stick to light it.

If the igniter doesn't work, get a new igniter.

You can't make that work?

Then get a new grill.

If we were in the market for a new grill, so you're suggesting

to buy the closed flame griddle.

Okay.

Closed flame grill.

Still can be propane or natural gas, but get rid of that open flame.

And, um, a lot of the professional management companies are doing that now.

Um, I've been to three or four companies now where if you want

to list with that company, you have to have a closed flame grill.

Interesting.

Blackstone is one of the ones that they-- some of the companies I see

are using, but it's such a strong wave.

Like I said, Weber is now making conversions.

You can go to the Weber website.

I've seen them on Amazon, there's some knockoffs.

But that's the trend now we're seeing is to go to griddle.

And it's nice because then the renters can cook bacon and eggs outside.

It improves the functionality of being able to get outside at the

rental property, which is great.

Right.

All right.

And then fire pits.

We touched on that, making sure there is a-- we made one together,

Justin, at the vacation rental.

We have a-- it was a black bucket, we stenciled on the words "fire

extinguisher" and our inspectors would put water in it before every

guest arrival, so it was very clear.

Right next to the fire pit.

Well, not right next, but right next to where all the seats were, and they could

see it, and then they could put it out.

Yeah.

Or have a hose nearby and a sign that's on the hose that says, "Please use

this hose to extinguish the fire pit."

And of course, if it's a gas fire pit, you've got to have instructions there.

Those are causing more incidents than the flame producing ones.

People think, oh, I'm just going to put this little gas fire pit on my deck.

Be very careful with that.

One, if it's movable, they'll move it.

And two, you want to have notices up there that this is not to be left unattended.

You've got to watch kids.

It's the kids that are roasting marshmallows that fall into them.

You shouldn't be allowing anybody to cook or do any type of marshmallow

roasting on a gas fireplace on a deck.

They're not designed for that.

The instructions say, don't do that.

You certainly don't want renters doing that either.

It's for ambiance.

Be safe about it.

Get some signs in.

And while we're on the deck, furniture.

Furniture at rental properties is a huge cause of incidents.

Not just the tip over incidents.

If you haven't secured your furniture inside the house, you've

got to do that, but outside too.

If you've got the type of deck furniture that you need to take an Allen wrench

to it, two or three times a season to tighten, it might be time to now upgrade

and get some stuff that doesn't need that.

Anything that involves an Allen wrench or having to tighten all the

time is not great quality anyway.

It shouldn't be used at a rental property in my belief.

But if you are going to continue to do it, you've got to get

out there and tighten it up.

And they make, um, threadlocker.

You can go to any auto parts store or hardware store.

It's a little blue glue that you just wrap around the screws, take them

out, tighten them back in, get them locked in so that when your renters

are sitting on that nice patio chair or the stool that's outside around the

nice little bar area, tiki bar you've made, that they're not going to fall.

Which, uh, listeners, I'll attest to this.

You know that-- I don't know who makes it and I don't want to throw them

under the bus, but there's this very specific wood chair that everyone

on Instagram has been putting around their fire pits or around their pools.

I know that chair.

Impossible to get it in and out of.

It is not comfortable, and popping in and out of.

But people are leaving them out all winter because people want to

sit out by the fire pit during the wintertime, at least here in Ohio.

And then these chairs are getting worn, and they're a good quality

but we had a couple guests, yeah, break them because they shouldn't

have been left out all winter.

So even if it's a good quality, they're not meant to take all that weather abuse.

Make sure you have the right piece of furniture if you want them to be

out during the elements and whatnot.

If you don't remember and never heard episode one the first time

I was on with you, the whole reason I got started in this was because of an

incident that happened to me personally at a property I had with a hammock.

You've got to make sure those s hooks are really tight and secure.

Any of these swings and hammocks and all these different types of

outside chairs, sit on it and have your friends sit on it with you.

Really do a good load test.

Make sure that they're going to be safe for your renters

to use this summer season.

Right.

How about First Alert, Justin?

So First Alert.

I was with you guys in Columbus a few weeks ago.

I've become a massive fan of First Alert, that's all it's in my property.

I don't have any-- there's no code.

I'm not getting anything for this.

I need to talk to them.

I'm going to be at the NFPA conference with them in, uh, Las Vegas in June,

and I'm going to try and get something.

But anyway, in the meantime, the cool thing I like about First

Alert is they haven't had a single recall on their product since 2006.

And no one else in our industry who makes safety products can say that.

Kidde can't say that.

Nest Google, whatever.

Smoke Armor.

I hate those, you know that.

They don't score very well.

I wish hosts would stop using those.

First Alert continually, and sometimes they're marketed under the name, um, BRK.

BRK actually owns first alert, but those are the products

you need to have in there.

So First Alert makes the three best smoke alarms, the dual sensor, interconnected,

dual sensor, battery operated, and now they do a 10-year dual sensor one as well.

So those are the ones that I really like the most because

they're such good quality.

They also make the combination, explosive gas and carbon monoxide alarm.

And I'll make sure I'll send links for all those.

So if you're shopping for new products for safety, they also make a great fire

extinguisher, the PRO5 or 50, referencing a five pound fire extinguisher to have.

So highly recommend them.

Awesome.

And then last but not least, on this spring safety checklist,

we've got hot tub and pool safety.

Yeah.

So again, last year, another record year for pool drownings.

If you've got a pool or a hot tub, you've got to secure it.

For 20 bucks, 30 bucks, you can make a locking cable that secures your hot

tub cover so the renters can't get in.

The gates have got a latch and closed over the wintertime.

Um, they may have come out of shape.

If you're in Florida, it's state law.

The gates have to self-close on their own.

There's a lot of local markets, outer banks, where they have to self-close.

Because of that, you need to do that everywhere.

I don't care if you're on Nantucket where they don't

require that you need to do that.

You owe it to make sure.

Um, you have to put a water watcher program in place if you have pools.

It's inexpensive.

You can start a water watcher program for a dollar.

You just take a card, punch a hole in it, and put a piece of string through

it and say, wrap this around your wrist.

You're in charge of watching the pool.

Make sure you have those on your kitchen counter when the guests arrive.

So really important.

And lastly are chemicals.

We saw a big incident over the winter in Florida where a British couple

got Legionnaire disease in a hot tub.

And that really highlights that you need to properly maintain the chemical

balance in your hot tub or pool.

And you can't just figure it out.

You can't read the instructions, you can't do it because

you've always done it at home.

If you don't have a professional maintaining your hot tub or

pool chemicals, then you need to get certified yourself.

There's some different programs online to do that.

But don't just be pouring chlorine in or asking your cleaner to do that.

You're asking for trouble for that.

And I know that might be a big change for a lot of you, but there's too

much litigation out there now that shows that we can't just do this on

our own based on a YouTube video.

All right, Justin.

We've got some work to do before, um--

Got some work to do.

Before this week's guests arrive.

So anything else you want to leave our listeners with when it comes

to getting ready for summer fun?

It's the one thing you can do, check it off first.

You're going to feel really good.

It's going to help you get into all that other stuff.

Shopping for new mattresses, upgrading the TV, raising your

price, um, all the other things.

But when you do the safety stuff, there's a certain level of closure

that you get from that, and a certain level of satisfaction.

And that buzz that you're going to get from that is going to help you move

through everything else you have to do.

So I encourage you to get the safety stuff out of the way.

Feel good about yourself, that your guests can trust you, because they already do.

And now you're living up to that trust that they have in you.

And then as you move forward through everything else you have to do to get your

rental ready, you're going to feel good.

And how about this?

This will be semi selfish but also awesome.

Share this episode with one of your hosting friends.

Maybe they don't listen to Thanks for Visiting yet.

Maybe they don't listen all the time.

Share this episode.

It'll get the Thanks for Visiting word out, of course, and also share

Justin's name with someone else.

But also it'll just get another host thinking about the safety elements

they can touch up for this summer.

Justin, we have a lot of work to do.

We got a bunch of links to get into this show and make sure our

listeners have all the resources they need so they can heed your advice.

With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I am Annette Grant, and together we are--

Thanks for Visiting.