The right guests make hosting effortless. The wrong ones can cost you thousands of dollars, a string of bad reviews, and weeks of stress. The good news: most bad guest situations are preventable. Not with luck, but with a system.
This is ours. Everything here is something we actually do across our properties in the North Georgia mountains. None of it is theory.
The first thing a bad guest looks for is how to get back in after checkout, or how to let in people you never approved. A physical key solves neither problem. A Schlage Encode smart deadbolt does.
Generate a unique code for each booking and expire it automatically at checkout. No key copies, no locksmith calls, no wondering who still has access. You control entry from your phone. We cover the exact model we use and how we set it up in our STR supplies post.
One important note: the Schlage Encode is sometimes marketed as Airbnb compatible, meaning you can grant Airbnb permission to manage your lock. Do not do this. Your lock controls who enters your property. Keep that control with you, not with a platform.
Still keep a lockbox on the property. You will need it when the batteries die or a guest cannot figure out the keypad.
Install at least two cameras per entrance, one solar and one plug-in, mounted from different directions covering the same entry point. Here is why both matter:
The specific camera models and mounting strategy we use are covered in our STR supplies post. Most importantly: point each camera at another camera. We recently had guests attempt to turn off every single camera on the property. We caught the whole thing because each camera was watching the one they just disabled. They could not get them all.
Your listing settings and house rules are your first line of defense. Most hosts underuse both.
Do not write vague rules. Write rules with teeth. Here is the language we use and recommend:
Document the condition of your property after every turnover, before the next guest arrives. Enable the date and time watermark in your phone camera settings. This takes 30 seconds to set up and gives you ironclad documentation if a guest disputes damage or claims something was already broken.
Without timestamped photos, it is your word against theirs. With them, it is not.
Before you accept any booking request, require the guest to confirm in writing the total number of humans who will be on the property — adults, children, and infants included. Do not rely on what Airbnb shows you. The platform does not surface the full picture.
Include an explanation in your message: “While you may have already provided some of this information to Airbnb, Airbnb does not share all of it with us as your hosts. Therefore, we require guests to message it directly to us.” This tells the guest why you are asking without making them feel accused, and it puts the platform’s information gap on the record before you accept.
Do not accept a request until you have that answer in writing on the platform. If they do not respond, you do not accept. The headcount in writing is your documentation if they show up with more people than they declared. Without it, you have nothing to stand on.
AirReview is a free Chrome extension by Rankbreeze that lets you read the reviews a guest has left for prior hosts directly on their Airbnb profile. Install it on your desktop browser. It takes two minutes.
This is information Airbnb does not surface prominently. AirReview puts it front and center.
A guest who left a prior host less than five stars is a guest you should decline. Full stop. It does not matter what the prior host wrote about them in their review. If the guest thought that stay deserved less than five stars, they will find a reason to give you less than five stars too.
Look at how many trips the guest has taken and what their average star rating from prior hosts is. If their average is less than five stars, decline. Even if every prior host wrote something positive, the star rating is the honest signal. Prior hosts who gave glowing written reviews but fewer than five stars were being polite. Trust the number.
Require every guest to provide a government-issued ID with their current address as part of the booking process. State this clearly in your house rules. Guests who are unwilling to verify their identity before accessing your property are guests worth declining.
We help other hosts launch and protect their short-term rentals. From listing setup to smart home configuration, we have done it and can help you do it right.
Get in TouchThis post is part of STR Host Guide: Scout. Setup. Stay. Stream. — coming soon on Amazon.