Protect People And Your Property with STR Safety Expert Justin Ford

In this episode, I’m joined by Justin Ford—former firefighter, Coast Guard captain, and one of the only people on the planet who’s made short-term rental safety his full-time mission. He’s seen it all, and let me tell you, once you hear what he knows about outdated smoke alarms, trip hazards, and record keeping, you’ll never look at your rental the same way again.

We dive into why safety is actually part of good hospitality, how a few overlooked details can cost you big time, and the easy upgrades that could protect your guests, your property, and your peace of mind.

So whether you’ve got ten Airbnbs or you’re just kicking tires on your first investment, this episode is packed with the kind of wisdom that’ll help you sleep better at night—and maybe even save a life. Here are the top takeaways:

1. Safety Is the Ultimate Hospitality Standard
As empowered investors, we strive for more than just pretty interiors, we create peace of mind. Justin reminds us that true hospitality means anticipating all guest needs, including emergencies. Safety isn’t optional; it’s part of the guest experience.

2. The #1 Overlooked Safety Feature
With modern furnishings made of synthetic materials, you now have less than three minutes to escape a fire. Yet most homes still rely on outdated or subpar alarms. Justin urges all hosts to upgrade to dual-detection smoke alarms—and hardwire them whenever possible.

3. Documentation Can Be Your Legal Lifeline
Whether you're self-managing or co-hosting, documentation is protection. Using task management software like Breezeway to track maintenance and safety tasks can mean the difference between winning a claim—or losing everything.

4. Don’t Assume Your Guests Know What to Do
Justin emphasizes that renters—especially vacationers—aren’t prepared for emergencies. Simple signage with address, emergency instructions, and access info can save lives. His pro tip? Post it on the fridge. Visibility matters.

5. Protecting Your Property Means Saying No (to Wine, Baby Gear & Bath Mats)
From avoiding alcohol gifts to skipping baby items, hosts must recognize that well-meaning extras can become liabilities. Keeping things minimal and professional (think white linens, clear walkways, no bath mats on arrival) protects your guests and your business.

You can find Justin on IG @shorttermrentalsafety, check out this blog post on Before you Buy - https://www.breezeway.io/blog/before-you-buy-an-airbnb-property

And for the Free Breezeway Acct - https://www.breezeway.io/get-started

Want to learn more about real estate investing? Hop on the waitlist for the Soulful Investor Society, a community membership for real estate investors and those who'd like to get in the game. Once on the waitlist, you'll be the first to know when the doors open AND you'll get lots of amazing freebies, including a FREE 1:1 coaching session with me, where we'll map out your plan from start to finish, so you can finally buy that investment property and scale your portfolio. 

You can also find me on IG @annreedandco where I share daily musings on real estate, mindfulness, being an almost empty nester, and more.

Transcript

 Welcome to A Few Good Doors, a podcast created to show you just how possible investing in real estate is for most Americans and how it can be an incredibly powerful tool for creating wealth over time. Do you feel like it's too late or you don't have enough money? Listen up. If you can qualify for one mortgage, I can show you how to become a real estate investor.

Once you embrace the how and the why, you can repeat the process. Acquiring four or more properties over the course of 10 to 15 years Can and should have a massive wealth effect. I believe that everyone deserves to live up to their full potential and having good people with money is what will change the world.

I'm your host, Ann Reed, and my mission is to help you make the world a better place with a few good doors of your own.   

When we talk about investing in furnished rentals, everyone loves to obsess over returns, decor, and five star guest reviews. But you know what? Doesn't get enough airtime safety. It's not a sexy topic I know, but it should be because it can literally save lives and your business. In this episode, I'm joined by Justin Ford.

Former firefighter, coast Guard captain, and one of the only people on the planet who's made short-term rental safety, his full-time mission, he's seen it all. And let me tell you, once you hear what he knows about outdated smoke alarms, trip hazards, and record keeping, you'll never look at your rental the same way again.

We dive into why safety is actually part of good hospitality, how a few overlooked details can cost you big time and easy upgrades that could protect your guests, your property, and your peace of mind. So whether you've got 10 Airbnbs or you're just kicking tires on your first investment, this episode is packed with a kind of wisdom that'll help you sleep better at night and maybe even save a life.

I'm so excited to have Justin Ford on the show. He is saving lives, through making short term rentals more safe. And that actually ends up protecting the owner of the property and their business as well as the guest, which I think I'm all about multiple wins across the board.

I will let you jump in and just kind of tell us how you started on this path.   I mean, pretty niched down, right? 

Yeah, it's about as niche as it is. I am unaware of anybody else globally that does what I do. It is, it's a very, very tight niche. I've been in the short term rental industry since 1997.

I think that makes me, pretty. 

You're an og. 

I'm an og. I had my first vacation rental. It was a little place on a, on a little lake up in Midcoast, Maine and 

Oh, nice. 

Yeah, just outside of Camden. So popular vacation destination. And it was this little, a-frame bungalow I bought for 99,000 my very first home.

Wow. 

And I looked over and my neighbor, I had some people in there for a couple weeks and I'm like, who? Who you. I called him, I'm like, who are these people staying here? He is like, oh, I rented it out. I'm like, oh, oh, that's kind of cool. He's like, yeah, it's gonna cover the taxes. And Airbnb hadn't even, not only, hadn't even been thought of yet.

I think Brian Chesky was probably still in grade school. So I mean, this was, yeah, this, you know, rentals have been around for a long time, but this was kind of, just kind of the beginning cusp, the internet was just starting to come out. You could advertise it and I grew that from one rental into managing as many as 600, in what became the largest vacation rental company in the entire northeast, from Pennsylvania all the way to the Canadian border.

Boat rental company, wedding and event properties. Just a lot of, a lot of activity there. I did everything from marrying our guests as a, I'm a US Coast Guard licensed captain, so it marries 

Oh, cool. 

I'd swap out hot water heaters at 2:00 AM and I'd step in and clean when the cleaners didn't show up.

So I did everything. I did that for quite, quite a long time. And, eventually, unfortunately had a safety incident in one of my properties. I was also a volunteer firefighter, so I felt like I should have been on top of safety. I wasn't. And, learned a lesson the hard way and then went, wait a minute, I served in the Coast Guard.

I own one of the largest vacation rental businesses in the industry, and I'm a firefighter and I didn't know this. What else is going on out here I don't know? And, as I started doing research, realized there was nothing that existed to try and, help operators host to make their property safe.

And at the same time, all these insurance companies are going, we're outta here. We're not, you know, when I got started in this industry, you just told somebody, yeah, I'm renting my property. They're like, yeah, sure, we're covered. Now there's less than 20 carriers in the US that will insure a vacation rental. It's become a really big problem. 

Yeah. I'm sure you have some things that you can share with us about making properties safer, but before we get into that, I'm curious if like, does this apply to any furnished rental? Any rental, like long-term rental? I mean, I would think that most of it would, it's obviously there's some nuance between inviting somebody to stay short term in a property, whether it's your own or just one that you own. But I'd love to hear your take on, do these things apply across the board or are there certain things that you have to be like particularly careful with, with short-term rental?

Yeah, I'm glad you asked that because I mean, technically I'm a home safety expert.

Most connotations though, and most focus when you talk about home safety, and especially in the United States, is for the elderly. You know, what can we do to make it so someone as they age can be safe in their home, not slip and fall. And so that's where the focus has been. The United States is horrible when it comes to home safety.

It's the most dangerous place. 54% of all accidents we human beings encounter is in the home. And yet most of us are using our kindergarten education when the came and gave us plastic red helmets, as what we should know. And we're unfortunately relying on Google what's the best smoke alarm, which is the cheapest, you know?

But what I do focus on is more on livability is a word I like to use quite a bit. Home inspectors check a house, they make sure the roof isn't gonna leak. You don't have ozone coming in, you don't have, you know, the deck isn't gonna need to be replaced next year. And the wiring's up to code.

I work after that, after you've put everything in there. 'cause that's where the danger happens. Generally speaking, a roof doesn't collapse on somebody that a home inspector wouldn't catch. But people are tripping on rugs all the time, catching, you know, houses catching on fire from barbecue grills. So I'm working with mainly the components that create and put a living situation together for human beings.

Nice. And so needed. You're right. We don't hear much about those types of things. I, I have a short term rental, so I, I'm curious what I might be doing wrong. I feel like I have, I have bit of background in interior design, so some of that like. Rugs and, you know, things like that. I feel like I'm pretty aware of, but what do you think is the most commonly missed item in a home? If there is one that you'd be like, okay, the first thing you should check is, this, or you, maybe you have several. I don't know. 

Oh, I've got a lot. 

I'm sure 

the most obvious one is, is right to the most important one. It's smoke alarms. Up until the 1970s, we had no way to wake up during a fire except for the fact that the houses that we lived in were built of solid wood.

We had real leather on our couch. We had real, you know, cotton linens. There weren't any synthetics. And now here we are, 2025. You don't have 15 minutes to get out of a house. You don't wake up to smoke and go, we gotta gather everybody and get out. You've got less than three minutes, and hopefully you can hold your breath because all of those chemicals that are making up the particle boards that make up your sofa and the chemicals that are making the faux leather, all of that stuff, is gonna get you really quick.

So a smoke alarm is so critically important and the most overlooked thing is people go in all the time still to the box stores and they shop based on features or price. And neither one of those have anything to do with saving your life. I a smoke alarm that tells you that the power is out is gonna be absolutely useless at 2:00 AM when there's a fire that started, in your house.

So what do you recommend? Do you have a particular brand or. 

Yeah, I mean ultimately, best case scenario, you want to do what your local hospital, school, your community has done in commercial buildings, commercial alarms are the best. You've got monitors. Not everybody can afford that. It, it's expensive, obviously.

So if you're gonna go with consumer brand smoke alarms, first thing I'm gonna tell you is as of yesterday when I was in both of them, I still haven't seen any in the box stores that I like. Home Depot and Lowe's don't sell smoke alarms that I would ever buy. Yes, they sell good brands, BRK, which is first alert or Kidde.

But what I'm not seeing in those stores most of the time are the dual detection alarms, and I don't think people even understand what that is, but just real quick, right now there are two different ways to detect, a fire or smoke in your property. One is through ionization. That's the older type that's using radioactive material that detects smoke particles.

The other is through a photoelectric sensor that detects light and, bounces beam through the smoke to do it. The US Fire Administration has said both of those should be being used by most Americans, yet there's very few smoke alarms out there that do that. So it's very important to have a dual detection.

I think first alert's the best one at that. It's good to have those in your home. 

And where can a consumer buy those, if they're not in the big box stores? Are they online? 

Yeah, you know, Amazon has 'em, I find the smaller hardware store chains have them true value. The, any of those type of national but smaller type brands, I've often seen tho those in those stores.

And you can actually go, right, you know, the first alert store has those as well. So I, it's just mind blowing. I, I just googled just before I came online and I said, what's the best smoke alarms? And it's still recommending two that have actually been recalled as the best. So don't trust the internet when it comes to your safety as far as that goes.

That's good to know. In our short term rental in the city, I'm in Portland, Oregon, and they do require the interconnected. So if one, you know, goes off, is that something you also 

Oh, recommend? 

Absolutely. Absolutely. In spring, spring, the extra three or 4,000 to have an electrician do that, if you haven't, wireless technology is there.

And there are a lot of localities that do allow, or I've even seen some require. If you're, if you're in Oregon and you're traveling to Idaho or upstate Washington, they're places that say interconnected through wireless is okay. The problem is, is those connections drop all the time. I've, I can't tell you at times, I go in and you hit the test button and it's not connected anymore and you've gotta reconnect it. So, right now hardwire is the best way to go. 

What are some other things that you see pretty frequently that people are missing as far as safety in their short-term rental or furnished rentals? 

I think a lot of people don't understand about what happens when there's an emergency at the property.

It's very rare that you've put a landline in your short-term rental. Most people don't even have them in their own home now. So you're relying on somebody who has registered their phone in another location to use that phone as a communication device to broadcast that someone's having a heart attack, that the house is on fire, that there's a burglar, any of that type of stuff.

And. You're not giving them good information, and when they call 9 1 1, you're not even sure that they have, you know, the GPS location services enabled on their phone. Do they know where they are? Is that information clear? Do they have to run around and open some book that you, they've shoved into a drawer to make room for all their groceries when they brought it in?

So I think there's a really big problem, , that's easily fixed with making sure that we help the guests understand where they are, how they can communicate, how first responders find 'em, the address markers, all that type of stuff. 

Do you suggest just posting that somewhere easy to   

i'm a big fan of the fridge.

There are people out there that don't want to have the mark on the fridge. I always ask 'em. I'm like, so are you gonna be renting this out for a while? And they're like, well, yeah. I'm like, all right. So it's gonna leave a mark for the lifetime of the fridge that you're gonna have here, you know? But, if you don't want to do that somewhere close to it.

'cause people, obviously, everyone goes to the fridge and so that's why I like it there, but some sort of central location. And if it's a larger property, it doesn't hurt to put 'em in a five by seven card in a nice little frame. You can pick one up at Staples, just put it beside the bed you are here.

And if there's some little extra piece of information that you gotta go around to the back gate and up a path and that, you know, put that on there so that you can describe that. Because the only person who usually gets that is the guest who booked the property. If they're the ones that are having the heart attack and the other person who's with em's, like, I have no idea where we are.

We're at, you know, cozy Airbnb by the sea, you know, at what, what the heck is that to the 9 1 1 operator? 

Right. That's a ver that's a really good point. And I think you make an excellent point about, if people are in vacation mode or, they're there for usually, not always, but usually it's for some kind of fun or, you know, positive event.

They're not anticipating the worst. And you're absolutely right that when, when that happens, unfortunately it does sometimes that they're not prepared for what you would actually need. 

Yeah, I love that word. You just anticipate that's what you're supposed to do. In the hospitality business, you're supposed to anticipate the needs of your guests.

You anticipate they want a nice pillow, not one with brown stains. You anticipate they want a clean bathroom. You anticipate that when they show up, they want the temperature a certain way.

Well, guess what? They also anticipate you've made the property safe for them. They just assume that when they call 9 1 1, everything's magically gonna happen.

The ambulance is gonna show up, get the stretcher up into the house easily, not having trouble getting in, not having a hard time finding the address. The trees haven't grown over it, they're not looking. You've gotta meet that anticipation. That's what hospitality's all about. 

I love that. And you know, both of these things you've mentioned so far are actually super easy to, to make happen, right? 

Yeah. Everything I talk about, everything I do, I, I, you know, just before you and I started talking, I told you I'm one of the luckiest people in the industry. Even as a designer, it's really hard to, meet everyone's expectation. Your guests will never like the mattress.

Some guests are gonna, it's the best mattress they've ever had. Some are gonna say it's the worst. Some are gonna say the wifi slow. Some are gonna say it's fast. Some are gonna say the view is terrible. Some are gonna say it's the best view they've ever had. You're never gonna meet everybody's expectations.

But the cool thing when it comes to safety is you can make a property safe without turning it into, you know, like a rubber room and people in yeah. Inflatable sumo outfits. They can be safe because you can, you can do that and it, you can be successful with it. 

Yes. So are there things that you would recommend? These are some things that you would put into a property. Are there some like safety, maintenance things that people often, I know in my industry, a lot of people, I'm a realtor by trade and people do a lot of deferred maintenance until they go to sell their home. And then it's like, oh, we should really get the furnace filters cleaned and maybe while we're at it, you know, clean out the dryer vent and stuff like that.

Are there things like that that you feel like get missed a lot? 

Yeah. You said one of 'em right there. I'll come back to it. But the first one I wanna touch on our bathroom exhaust fence. , There's an epidemic of fires happening in short term rentals across the country. You don't have to take my word for it, Google it.

Airbnb, bathroom exhaust fires are massive and it's because, people aren't doing the maintenance on 'em.

When someone, and this applies to the next one and the one you mentioned, it's also dryers. When someone comes into your rental property, they're bringing luggage. It's covered in dust and dirt and things from their travels.

People coming into your home are bringing in more airborne particles, dust and dirt than you do as the person who occupies the home. And so anything in the house that involves filtration, exhausting air from the kitchen, stove to the bathroom, exhaust to the dryer, is going to build up with a lot more things quickly.

And the other thing is, when you're staying at a short-term rental, I do this all the time myself. You're going home with clean laundry. Your laundry facility, your dryer washing machine, you're gonna get used three times as much in a short term rental as they are by you in your own home because people don't care.

They're using your dryer. Yeah. I'll just run it with one towel. And so that dryer, that really builds up much quicker. So you have to anticipate that, there's a lot more use in and that much more need to attend to these things. 

How often, I mean, with short-term rental in particular, but it, I think it still applies with midterm rental or even long-term rental.

You know, with short-term rental, you don't always know, like, you can't always plan ahead for when you'll have an opening, for when guests aren't there, that you could come in and kind of do that stuff. So how do you suggest that short-term rental operators stay on top of their maintenance, things like that?

Well, so, task management is critically important. The company I work for, breezeway is the leading provider of task management software for cleaners and operations in short term rentals. I'm here, not because I'm a software expert, I actually don't know anything. I get in on some of our development meetings and I'm like, what, what was, was that, what was.

That would be me too if I were in your shoes. 

Yeah. I work at Breezeway because I'm an expert and they've put all my checklists into their software to use. So obviously that's the best way to go is using that. It's gonna remind you that you're at the property right now and you're marking down a task that you've just changed the dryer vent, and it's gonna say, Hey, by the way, two weeks from now, you're due to change out the, air conditioning vents as well.

And you go, oh wow. I'm gonna save a trip and catch that now. That type of stuff's really important, but it also becomes really important on the legal side because now you've got documentation. This is where everybody's getting into trouble in this industry, is they get to court or they get in with the insurance with a claim and they're like, so when's the last time you changed your batteries and your smoke alarm?

And they're like. I don't know. I think we did maybe, I don't know when the clock's before. Was it last year? No, it was the year before. I don't know. But when you've got task management software we did on November 12th, and here's an, here's documentation, here's a picture. When the insurance companies and the courts see that, they're like, this guy's not negligent.

He's doing what he's supposed to. She's doing what they're supposed to. So yeah, task management software is very important for that. 

Would you like to talk a little bit more about your software at Breezeway? Yeah. And how that can help. 

Yeah. So, my boss, the founder of Breezeway, actually founded, FlipKey, which sold the TripAdvisor. It was an early version of Airbnb and, and vrbo. And TripAdvisor decided they wanted to get into that, and when he got, after he sold that to them, he kind of came back to the industry again and said, where's the biggest opportunity? What's the one thing. People really need more help with. And it was this, how do I tell my cleaners to clean the property?

How do the cleaners let me know that they're done and that there's problems or that there's things that they need to do? How many sheets do they use? Are there any toilet paper left at the property? So he created this software that's now grown into the world's largest. , I just, after, before I came through with you, I was working with a customer in Australia very late in the night.

And we have stuff in Bombay, India, believe it or not, in Baghdad. Our software is used all over the world now to help do that, and it helps with guest communication. It helps with, the cleaners being able to understand what they're supposed to do in the property. You can have a cleaner who's never been there before, but now they've been assigned the task.

They know what to do, they've got reference photos, they know where to find things and they're not constantly calling you going, well, how do the pillows go? And is there any extra toilet paper for the upstairs bathroom? I can't find any. So all that type of stuff can all be managed through a software. That's what Breezeway does. 

Is it, like a monthly subscription or? 

It's a monthly subscription. , And it's very inexpensive. It pays for itself very quickly. Just my safety checklist. I had somebody the other day going, wait a minute, so if I do your safety checklist and everything goes smoothly, that's it.

And I'm like, yeah. And they unfortunately had a safety incident that. Fortunately, my safety checklist is gonna help them protect. They're like, oh my God, that just saved me from everything. I'm like, yeah, it did, and there's no charger. I was like, no, no. It's included with the software. So, lot of value there.

Is it, an app that you can use? It's an app. Okay.

It's an app and desktop. So you can be at home and, and putting everything together. You can integrate everything into it. Your door lock codes, it's pretty sophisticated if you want it to be. You can, see that your guests have arrived, that they've checked out what they've done.

The, the cleaner's automatically getting a notification based on the door lock code that the customer used through that particular product that they have checked out. Now, the cleaner can go in. Now you're getting a message that the cleaner is done. It can automate everything. You don't have to touch anything.

And then you'll get a, you know, a report at the end that this is what they did, the guest did these things for damage. You can quickly file your claims for your damage protection. And, oh, I'm down to five rolls of toilet paper and one, I need a new set of bed linen. So all of that just funnels right in and it's all fully automated.

That sounds amazing. Yeah, I can see where that would be very helpful for somebody, because one of the big things that keeps people from wanting to invest in a short term rental is the thought of all of the, the headaches, you know, from the management of it and all of these details to, you know, those kind of worst case scenario guest, you know, problems, which I have found really, if you're on top of things and you set things up well, then you attract better guests and you have fewer guest problems. But having something like that to help manage from, you know, from afar potentially, if you wanted to have sort of, we call boots on the ground. In the location of your property, but still have that communication.

I can see where that would be a, a really helpful way for people to get over that hurdle of wanting to invest in that type of property. 

Yeah, I'm thinking of a, a customer that we have that's in Portland, Oregon. I actually got a chance to meet her when I was out there recently and, she's got properties down on the coast, down in, cannon Beach.

And she, you know, she's not driving down there, every day, back and forth, but she's able to manage, the properties and, and limit her visits there by having a, a really good cleaning team down there. And then b, having the software in really good place. She understands where things are at, what she needs to do, when she's gonna have to update things.

So it, it certainly helps her run things very smoothly. 

And does it also help like for short-term rentals? You know, I, I think it's important. I don't always do it myself, but it would be good to have something where you at least take a scan of, pictures or something of the way that things were when the cleaners left, so that you can have evidence if something were to come up with a guest.

And they said, I, I, I've been very, very fortunate, I feel like, but you hear stories of people, having, and there are, we, we have had one sort of scammer guest stay in one of our properties that, they, they checked in and all, like, they started calling out some safety things that we. We've never had any problems with.

Right. It was a home that we lived in and raised our kids in and it's like they were talking about a, like a vent cover and saying their dogs and their kids were falling through and we're just like, wow, we raised three kids there. Nobody ever had any issues. But, that's a little bit of a, a side note, but you know, there are times where guests that I've, I've heard of, you know, start claiming things and you're like, no, it was absolutely not like that when the cleaners left and to have some evidence.

So is that something that can be tracked? 

We had a customer about a month ago. It was an amazing scenario for the cu for our customer who, was a professional manager. They had, a guest that apparently three months earlier. It. If you're in the healthcare business or human resources, you understand where this 90 day point is pretty critical.

But a customer reached out and said, Hey, look, I fell at one of your properties three months ago and it's because the lights didn't work there. And so, I've talked to my insurance company and we we're gonna be filing a claim. I just want get, you know, contact information for your insurance and your lawyer to file this claim.

Well, he called me, he's like, dude, this, this is a tough one. I've never had this happen before. What do I do? I said, well, were the lights working? He's like, I don't know, it's three months ago. I said, yeah, and here we are at three months, which means whatever employment benefits they have or hit that 90 day time points, they're trying to figure out how to extend it and they're trying to come up with something.

And he's like, oh yeah, yeah. I said, well, what about your cleaners? He went. That's a good point. Hang on a minute. And sure enough, we pulled his report in breezeway and one of the tasks for the cleaner is to check, to make sure the outside's light lights work every single time they turn over the property.

Not only they check it, they take a picture of it, so it's geotag that the lights work. It's in the report. So they, they sent that report back to the guests saying, Hey, you know, we're sorry you got hurt, but just so you know, lights worked here. End of story, end of claim. Yeah. Didn't hear from it. And so that type of stuff's really amazing having that type of documentation. And it's easy to do that. That probably took three seconds to document. 

Is that something that you have pre-done sort of checklists or that, the owner or operator can create their own or both? 

Yeah. You can come in and go, look, I just want my cleaner to clean the toilets and vacuum the carpet.

That's all I care about. Or you can come in and say, Hey, I wanna really up my game. I wanna make sure my cleaner's doing what everybody else is doing. What are some recommended checklists that I can be doing? And based on what the property type is, if it's a condo, it's a house. We have a lot of suggested templates and if there's still one thing missing, you know, you, you're down in, in Canon Beach and there's sand that comes in, and we may not have that on a checklist.

You might have that on there just to make sure that there's one extra thing of scooping the sand away from the first step, whatever. Something like that. Right. 

Okay. That sounds really amazing and interesting and super helpful for operators, but I wanna switch gears a little bit. 'Cause we talked in the beginning about how this can be helpful for the, the owner of the property, the operator, if it's a different, person.

What are some things as a guest, I, you know, we're heading into the summer season and I know a lot of people we rent Airbnbs, go on vacation. What are some things that guests can and should be doing be maybe even before they rent a property, but also when they get there to make sure that they're in a safe place? 'Cause you kind of assume you are, but to your point earlier, not everybody's doing the things that they should be. So you might be under a false pretense that this place that you're bringing your beloved family to right is safe. 

You're asking about my secret list. My friends and family all have it.

Everybody obviously knows what they do. In fact, my mom this past weekend went to a wake in Vermont and stayed at an Airbnb and she, she's called me. She said, Justin does. I, I don't know what to do, but some of the things on your list aren't, aren't adding up. What should, so I had to help her through that situation.

But the first one is, and it's right when you, you might even do it before you book the property, you're fine. You like, this is the one I'm gonna rent. Well reach out to the host, just have this all set up. Just a few quick questions. Safety's important to my family and I Are your smoke alarms newer than 10 years? When's the last time the batteries were changed in 'em and have they been tested? And if you're getting back a response, it's like, dude, I don't know. I have a manager I don't know anything about. If they don't. Come back with a legitimate answer, move on. This is a person who doesn't care or is committed to your safety.

That's the first A one stuff that anybody should know and they can quickly pull a report. Even if they're not using breezeway, they can quickly go. Yep, absolutely. Safety's important. All new smoke alarms. Three years ago, batteries just changed. Your host should know that. Another one, A lot of people like to rent hot tubs.

I always ask, you know, Hey, when's the last time the water was changed in your hot tub? And do you have a professional that's maintaining it? A lot of people don't think to ask that. When you show up at a hot tub, the water's supposed to be clear. You should be able to like drink out of it if you wanted to.

If you're showing up and it's cloudy, milky, if it's bubbles, I keep seeing, by the way, these listing photos I pass when you have in your listing photo on VRBO and Airbnb. Bubbles in your hot tub water. I am not renting from you. That is often using dirty water as an advertising photo. So, but that, that's a clear indicator to me right off.

Especially with that being an important amenity, if they come back and say, oh yeah, no, we're gonna have you just put a couple scoops in when you leave. I'm passing on. I, you should have someone who's certified, who's professional, who's maintaining that water quality. Legionnaires disease is huge right now.

It was the last big notice that the CDC put out, in January before they kind of got muffled a little bit, was, Hey folks, Legionnaires is big. It happens from hot tubs, chlorine burns, bromine burns. We see a lot of those type of things. You, you just wanna check those couple of things out and get some good answers back and feel good about it to get started.

That is such a good point. I know people either love or hate hot tubs, the idea of using somebody, you know, not their own hot tub. So that's, I love that you have that. And what about when, like upon arrival, are there things that you should do? Like a quick check? Yeah. Before you get too settled?

Absolutely. There was a study that came out two years ago that said 75% of people in North America will get intoxicated at least once while they're on vacation. And of those people half don't do it in their own homes. We have to recognize that yes, from time to time you may have a glass of wine at home.

But generally most Americans who are in the performing range of vacationing aren't getting liquored up at home. So now you're gonna go into someone else's house and probably have a couple drinks. You're not necessarily gonna have your wits about you. You need to know how to get out in a fire. And you need to make sure you're gonna get notified.

So look around, make sure there's smoke alarms, and then make sure you have egress. Remember you got less than three minutes to get out. You're not familiar with the property. If you are in a sleeping area or or bedroom that you can't open the windows to get out. 'Cause they're blocked by an air conditioning unit, furnishings.

Maybe you've put your mother-in-law in this one particular room, she's got a bad back, she's never gonna open that window. You need to make sure you address that. You owe it to yourself that you're gonna have very little time, you're gonna be very unfamiliar and potentially you might have a buzz going on.

And so if there's an issue, make sure you can get out quickly. 

Not to be like too over the top. My kids are older, but for somebody that has, you know, maybe like grade school through high school kids, would you do like a little safety? 

Yeah. 

Yeah, I would, I do. My daughter's 15. Anybody who knows me knows this happens.

I test the smoke alarm sometimes an arm. I've always been curious because kids two to 12 supposedly don't wake up to smoke alarms. I can tell you. That's true. My daughter's 15. She still doesn't wake up when I go in and hit the test button. The most recent time I did it four months ago, she's like, dad, did you come in and do that thing with the alarm?

I think I heard that you did something. I'm like, yeah. 

Wow. 

People recognize they don't wake up to it. They're, they're sound sleepers. A lot of 'em have headphones, ear pods, all that baloney in their ears now, and they're going to sleep. So I think it's important to try and get their attention just for a minute.

Just if they even pick up on the slightest little hint of it, it's important. But this might, this probably won't surprise you. My daughter doesn't get to sleep over at someone's house. Until I go check and make sure that everything's okay. Yeah. And it's so funny 'cause I had a parent who gave me a hard time about it one day, and I'm like, oh, all right.

So do you just let your kid ride with anybody in a car? No, I, they're not allowed to ride with someone unless they're over 21 and I know who they are. I'm like, all right, so your daughter's much more likely to die in a house than in a car. Oh, I didn't even think about it. So people just aren't aware and don't think about these things, but I'd like to know that my daughter's sleeping over at someone's house that has working smoke alarms.

Yeah, I think that's totally fair and, and probably is uncommon. I don't, I've never asked and I should, you know, I love that you, I actually love that you do that. Is there something with your daughter, like, have you. Done some things with her, as far as preparing her, that would be helpful for people that maybe aren't, you know, I think, I think there's a tendency in our society, we don't wanna think about worst case scenario because it's scary, but then we end up having, if something comes up, we aren't prepared.

And it's like, well, it, it's worse now because you're not prepared. But are there things that you do for or have. I guess a checklist for different gauges that they can keep themselves safe. 

Yeah, I mean, my daughter definitely checks to make sure she has egress, she knows how to use a fire extinguisher.

She knows what past means. She knows pull, aim, and, you know, take care of putting out a fire. I just watched, there's a, there's a video going viral on Instagram right now where there's like five employees in a Dunking Donuts and none of them know how to put out the fire. And a customer had to grab a fire extinguisher.

And I'm thinking all these kids today don't know how to do that. They didn't know what to do. And so we need to know how to do that because that might create, you know, create a path for us to exit. We need to understand that fire blankets aren't always the best solution in the us There's a huge push for those lately, but people, I, I just saw a complaint where these, these people escaped from a house fire in Florida and they filed the complaint with Airbnb that there weren't enough fire blankets for everybody.

They thought they were wrap around each other. When they went outside, it's like, well. You could potentially do that, but in this case, one fire blanket's what you need. So most Americans don't understand that stuff. So I've made sure she understands the basics and we've taken that time to, to go through the house and talk about all those things.

You mentioned this a little earlier, and I am curious, I, I personally, have an aversion to synthetic materials, like both in clothing and, you know, furniture, home goods, but it, it is more expensive and sometimes, you know, less easy, to clean. But would you, suggest to short-term rental operators, like if at all possible, use more natural materials in the way that you decorate.

I, I'd like us to get there. Absolutely. But a bigger problem that we have when it comes to furniture are tip overs. The number one cause for pediatric entry of children right now, under the age of 10 are, you know, couches, dressers, bunk beds, things that are falling over, TVs not mounted to the wall. So, we haven't solved that problem yet.

I think we've gotta solve that. But I, I totally agree with you. I'd like to see more clean, natural cleaning products used. I sometimes go into houses where I see people cleaning these properties and they're, you know, going through a whole roll of toilet paper to clean a bathroom. It's like, that is a huge waste of paper.

There's other, you know, and there's better chemicals you could be using than, yeah. Than a half a gallon of Clorox spray in there. I get it. I'm gonna eat off the floor. Yeah. But there's another way to clean this. It's much more natural and better for the environment. 

Yeah, I, I agree with that. What else would you, do you have any other tips and suggestions for people that keep them safe?

Yeah. Well, for as far as keeping them safe, absolutely. There's, there's so much you need to do to create that awareness. If you're gonna rent these properties, you've gotta understand, I mean, I'm guessing you're probably like me and probably most of your listeners, if your mom comes to visit your good friend, you're coming to the door.

Hey, come on up. Oh, Mike hasn't, Mike left the hose out in the driveway? Just be careful. You know, Tom's gotta put a new light in. Sarah's, you know, she's doing some landscaping there. Just careful your step. We've gotta recognize that 83% of all injuries happen from slips, trips, and falls. And when we care about people and we're around them, we point those things out.

And now we're bringing them into homes where they're not familiar with 'em. So even you, you have to recognize that it only takes a thickness of a nickel to create a trip hazard, a a board, you know, if you've got four steps and they're all seven inches, and then that last is six, that's a trip hazard because of your, your judgment's off.

So you really need to be aware when you're coming into a new environment in a commercial setting. When you walk into a Marriott, it's all up to federal. Hotel standards set forth in 1990, they can't be off a quarter of an inch. They can't have the thickness of a nickel as a trip hazard. They can't have bath mats on the floor in the bathrooms.

There's a lot of different things that are, that are put in place here and you trust that. But you don't and you shouldn't trust that everything's gonna be all set when you walk into someone else's home. So take a few extra minutes and really evaluate what you have. If they had the lights come on for you, 'cause you arrived after dark the first night, make sure they're gonna come on again if you go out to dinner the second night, 'cause then you're coming back going, oh my gosh, the lights aren't on and how do I find my way in? All these type of things are really important. 

That's such a good point. You mentioned that bath mat and I've heard that like we always roll ours up and hang, like ours are not on the floor when guests arrive, it's up to them to put it on the floor.

Yes. 

Is that what you recommend doing? 

Absolutely let the guests create their own trip hazard. In the bathroom. The floor should have nothing on it. And the same thing applies too for like baby gear. I know we talked about older kids, but don't put one piece of baby gear in your property because then the guests will assume that you've done other things to protect them.

I show up all the time and I see where they've put a childproof latch under the sink so they can't get into chemicals, which by the way, that's one of the top phone calls from a short-term rental is to poison control kids finding things they're not used to. But as soon as you've done that, then the parents are like, oh, then I guess everything else is okay.

It should be up to the guest. And you as the guest, as a parent coming into a property with young children, it should be up to you to go through and baby proof the house to the standard that you want it to be. That should never be up to the host or operator. And if they do, even start to do that, they're putting themselves at a huge liability.

That's so interesting. That's something we used to have a short-term rental operator and she, she was like, she actually set us up that way. I don't know that I would've known that otherwise.  Sometimes people will book the Airbnb and we just happen to notice that they have an infant and then we even go so far as to message them and just say, you're welcome to bring your infant, but just understand, exactly what you said, we have no baby gear and it's not childproof.

So any of that will be up to you. And I've always felt like that in, hopefully in some way is at least some documentation that we made them aware before they arrived. But it was up to them. 

I would rather if a guest is calling you saying, do you have a pack and play? First off, you should say, no, I don't have one.

We don't provide those. I mean, there's, I think there's nine that have been recalled this year alone. Baby gear is like the top most recalled thing by the US Consumer Product Safety Council. You don't want that stuff around. But so number one, you, you're gonna say no. Number two, if they say, well, how do we get one?

Hopefully you've got a baby gear rental company you can refer 'em to. If you're in a popular destination, seaside, Canon Beach, Seattle, Portland, you're gonna find a, a reputable company, you know that can do that. But if you run into step three, which is there's no opportunity, and the only way they're gonna book this property, then send them an $80 gift card for Amazon.

It's worth it. And let them ship, buy and ship their own pack and play to the property or their own highchair. Receive it form, deliver it, but it's theirs now. And when they leave. If they don't take it with 'em, donate it to the local Salvation Army thrift store and take the tax write off. So it, it's a win all the way around, but it's not worth the risk of you providing that, that type of equipment.

Yeah, definitely. Something I'm also curious, I don't know if how, I guess one of these questions is definitely safety related. I'm curious what your thoughts are about, and I've seen like a wide range of hosts that supply spices and different kinds of foods and you know, some people will leave a bottle of wine as a welcome gift.

I've always felt that's a risk, to leave that stuff. So we have like the bare minimum, we have like salt, pepper, olive oil, vinegar, and coffee and tea and sugar packet, like that's it. We don't provide anything else. What are your thoughts on that from a safety? 

I, I couldn't agree more. You know, when my vacation rental business in New England first started getting going in 2006, and to this day, I know the, the person who operates that company today, and they still say they follow it, other people follow it.

The only thing that you should have in your property are the dry ingredients, minus the chocolate chips to make chocolate chip cookies, no butter, no eggs, but the dry ingredients. You can offer some flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, that type of stuff. Some vanilla if you want, but beyond that nothing should be in the property because anytime you have any open packages, you're opening yourself up to risk. I, I go into houses sometimes and I see they've left behind some cans of soup. Okay, that's fine. They're there for an emergency. If you're in an area where there's gonna be a tsunami maybe, or a big storm, sure, that's fine, but you shouldn't have a half open box of rice.

And you shouldn't have, you know, like a, a quarter jug of orange juice. I see that sometimes. Right. Or we just say, we have a section on our refrigerator door that's just for us. And it's like, no, get rid of that stuff. You shouldn't have anything that's perishable maple syrup. Obviously it's an, a perishable but shouldn't have, you know, unopened.

Yeah. Or bottles in there. 

And then this is another, this is a personal preference of mine and I don't know if there's, I think it's a common discussion point amongst short-term rental hosts. And I'm curious if you have any thoughts on it from like a health and safety standpoint. So I've always felt like we, we use all white linens and towels and sheets, and my thought has always been I wanna be able to see the anything that's left behind.

Yeah. So we can address it. Yeah. Yeah. I know other people feel differently. They're like, no, we use, you know, color or pattern or whatever to make it less noticeable, which to me feels gross. But I'm curious if you have any thoughts on that, if that's just a personal preference or a health the safety.

White, white, white, white is professional. If you're in this business, you want to establish that you're a professional. White is professionalism. My vacation management company that I owned, all of our linens were white and we had a special tank that things went into. If they got stains on 'em, suntan, lotion, all those crazy things that you'd get on your linens, they went into a tank.

It was part of the business. Anytime you go to conferences where they talk about this with professionals, you should expect a linen loss rate. The LLR, believe it or not, it's real thing. Yeah. You should expect about 30% of your linens are lost during a year due to stains or damaged. So, oh, 

that's good to know.

Yeah. That's what the industry expects and you just write that into what you're doing as, as a business operation. But yeah, if I show up at your short term rental, unless it's, you know, a quaint little cottage up in, Northern Minnesota that's rented out five times a year, I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna stand for the flowers on my sheets.

I want white. Yeah.

I'm not, but by the way, real quick, you did ask and I didn't touch on it. No alcohol. Back at the previous question, you don't start 'em out, and I just checked into a rental, doing some work down in Orlando when I showed up, they had a package of Oreos. I gotta tell you, I was excited.

Something as simple as that will go a lot longer than a ta, a bottle of wine. That might not be their thing. 

Yeah. I've just always felt like, you know, you, you also don't know, like somebody might be struggling with alcoholism or, you know, something like that. And you don't wanna be the reason they, 

the kids find, they find, we've had instances of that.

The leading insurer in this industry, has all kinds of stories. The kids came in, they got intoxicated, the parents are taking 'em to the hospital. What's going on? You know, they found a bottle of rose that was on the table before the parents did. We've also seen where there's been OUIs that have led to fatalities.

Trust me, they trace it back. Where was your first drink? Well, they gave it to me at an Airbnb. Oh, so the host gave that to you? They always go for whoever supplied it. Right. That is a risk is not worth taking water, don't I, I don't care if you're in it next to a brewery or if you're in the Willamette Valley right next to the world's best winery.

If they're there because of the winery, trust me, your free bottle isn't gonna be the excitement for 'em. It's gonna be going over and getting tasting next door. 

Excellent. I have another quick question and then I'll let you kind of, let us know. Anything else we should know? Have you had any experience with there is a new-ish platform called Swim Plea for renting out swimming pools in the same way.

Sort of similar to an Airbnb. What, do you have any thoughts on that in general and also from, you know, specifically a safety perspective? 

You know, regardless of Airbnb or not. I'm in feeds Just as a quick prelim, VA vacation, rental pool drownings are the number one cause of death at a vacation rental.

It's the leading cause of death. Not fires, not trips and falls. Pool drownings. We have an epidemic in our country every day. There are pool drownings. And I, they're also preventable. I'm watching, you know, this, this horrific one that happened the other day where. A toddler was drowning and the mother didn't know how to swim and she drowned trying to rescue her toddler.

If they'd had a pool safety hook there, the mother could have used the pool safety hook and a pool safety hook, to me is more important than a life ring. I always ask, life ring is what you want on the Titanic to throw to somebody who fell overboard. If they're in a pool in front of you, you're generally gonna jump in and save them.

But if you can't jump in, if you're elderly, disabled, don't know how to swim, you need a pool safety hook. That's why you see them at all the hotels. So, I, at Swimly, any of this different type of stuff, you've gotta set your pool up. Fully for safety. I'm a huge believer in pool fences, pool alarms, gates, the right material and the cheapest.

And the best thing that you can do is introduce a water watcher card. You can get 'em for free from the government, you can order 'em on Amazon, you can sit your kids down and have them color and make 'em and laminate 'em and tie a piece of yarn to it. But the Water Watcher program, should be a part of any experience involving a swimming pool, designated, not gonna the bathroom, not drinking alcohol.

Your job is to watch that pool until someone takes that cart away from you to assume those duties. 

That is excellent. When you were speaking about hot tubs, you were talking about a professional cleaning company. Would you say the same thing with a pool? 

Absolutely. I I'm not using your pool if it's not certified.

And I'd even like to see the report of what they did last time. There's just been too many incidents with that. Too many different type of things. You, you don't want to jump into the pool and find out that the chlorine, parts per million are too high and it was a windy day, so it was blowing down wind and all of a sudden you've got rashes all over your body.

It happens. I don't do expert witness in this, work in this industry. I'm committed to safety, in, I don't know if this is, something people will see me, but I'm wearing a white hat, not a black hat. I don't have a problem if that's what, how you wanna make your income, but I get calls constantly.

There are so many lawsuits related to pool drownings and pool issues and hot tub issues. And they want an expert to testify and say, that shouldn't happen. I would do that if I did that kind of work. I'd say absolutely, yeah, there should be someone who's certified taking care of it. 

That's very helpful.

And then lastly, when, when we first started talking, we talked about protecting the homeowner. We talked about protecting the guest or the whoever's using the property. What about, I mean, I, I guess in a way the, the homeowner is likely the, business operator, but not always. Yeah. Is there anything that you would add to what we've already discussed about how these things tie into protecting your business? And you as a person when you are entering into this type of rental business?

Insurance for a short term rental should be the same as when you're shopping for a car. We all know those insurance companies out there that if you getting a car wreck it, you got liability. Maybe they had comprehensive collision, but you're not getting a new car.

You, you get what you pay for. And I see a lot of people skimp on that. They'll go for the lower end policy and then, oh my gosh, we weren't covered for dog bites. We don't allow dogs. Oh, they brought a dog anyway and didn't tell us. You've gotta have all that type of insurance protection place.

LLCs are extremely important. If you're a professional and you're helping co-host or you're helping someone else manage a property, you want to be additional insured on their insurance coverage. All those type of protections that you can have, are critically important as a business operator.

Excellent. Then I just thought of one more thing 'cause I do have a lot of realtors that listened to the show. If they were representing a buyer that was thinking of buying a short term rental property, are there things that the realtor can do to help properly advise the potential new homeowner when they're making that purchase?

Things to look for a above and beyond the obvious, like home inspections and stuff. 

So I love that you asked that. About nine months ago, I was invited to a retreat for a bunch of STR investors and I was listening to the questions asked, and obviously I'm there as a safety guy. I was asked to come present and I started bringing up topics.

They're like, we've never thought of this. No one's ever told us any of this. And it's been on my list. And I finally did it. With the help of the marketing team at Breezeway, I got the date, so the 18th, which I think is Thursday or Friday, this past week, we actually just put out, and hopefully you can put a link to it in your show notes, what to look for before you buy an Airbnb property pre-purchase safety checklist.

To my knowledge, it's the first one that's ever been produced. And we go into a lot of things. I'm hopeful that this will be a great tool for a lot of real estate brokers to use, covering, egress, I see it all the time. People going like, oh, we can turn this really big closet into a bunk room for kids.

Yeah, but there's no egress window. Decks, exterior lighting, grills, fire pits, that type of stuff. So we have this resource guide, it's free, and I'll make sure that, you have that link so that people can have access to it. 

That would be amazing. We will definitely, if you send that to me, we'll definitely include it in the show notes.

I think that that sounds like it would be helpful not just for the, the realtors, but also you know, anybody that is considering a short-term rental to have that, that checklist. So. Awesome. 

Yeah. My favorite part of it is something I, not many people, everyone always uses that term grandfathering and, so I, I definitely open up the, the door and the, the mind to the idea of what grandfathering is when it comes to safety in the short terminal industry.

And I think that that'll be surprising for a lot of people. 

I can only imagine, actually the minute you said that, it's like, yeah, it was, it's called grandfathering because we did. Determined it is no longer safe, right? 

That's right. That's right. 

Well thank you so much. Any parting words or, or words of wisdom that you would love to leave us with?

I wanna emphasize what I, I said at the beginning, 'cause I think it's critically important. We don't do enough. To address our own care and our safety. There's so many things that we do in life. We're careful not to book an airline that met, had just had an incident. I remember that, a little over a year ago, there was the ship that hit the bridge in Baltimore and tolls on Bridges dropped 60% for two weeks.

Americans were scared to drive across the bridge even though the likelihood of that happening is so rare. 54% of the bad things that happen to us in our life happen to us at home. The home is the most dangerous place. Take some time to address that. There were 53 million, incidents that happened in the home that sent Americans to emergency rooms and urgent care last year.

And it's because our knives are dull. We've got trip hazards, lights don't work. All these things take some time to make sure that we absorb and address that. Yeah, I get it. You might need some new tires on your car 'cause you might hydroplane, but trust me, you're gonna trip walking out to your car before that happens.

Make sure your home is safe first. 

That is fabulous advice. I appreciate that. Where can people that want to know more about what you do and about breezeway, where can they find you to get more information, get connected, purchase subscription to Breezeway where, yeah. What's the best way for them to find it?

There's a lot of cool things. If you just have one property and you want to try out breezeway, we do have a freemium account. And so you could reach out to us, you can in like, in two seconds, link it to your Airbnb account, and, and start trying out some of the features of Breezeway. So, we do have that.

I'm easy to find, short term rental safety. Everywhere you go, that's me. Vacation Rental Safety. So if you go vacation rental safety.com. On Instagram, short-term rental safety on Facebook, short-term rental safety, and also on LinkedIn. And I post all kinds of tips on Instagram all the time, sharing different things.

LinkedIn is a more professional outlet where I do some deeper dives. June is National Safety Month, so I've been doing a lot of, helpful things there. And Facebook is where I share a lot of the incidents that happen in our industry. There's unfortunately never a shortage of incidents. And we can learn from those as they happen.

Thank you so much. I, I learned a lot. I'm sure the listeners will. I so appreciate you taking the time. I'm sure you're extremely busy keeping us safe. But I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down and talk with me and, share your knowledge with, my listeners. 

I'm happy to be here and I'm confident of one thing and it's kind of cool to think about.

Someone's gonna take some action here that listened to us. It's gonna save life. It happens. I hear about it all the time. So, pay attention. You could be the one. 

Awesome.

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