Parteee! - How to prevent an Airbnb House Party

Our top tips to prevent an out-of-control Airbnb party.

An out-of-control party is every host’s nightmare. Imagine you have a booking for 4 individuals; however, 24 hours later, you find out that over 200 people were in your property, and it is now trashed. The damage can range from minor scuffs to the home needing thousands in repair. In addition, many bookings are canceled while you repair the property. Sure, if you rent via Airbnb, there is AirCover, but AirCover is the topic of another article.

YouTube is filled with small clips from news articles from large parties in Airbnbs, such as these:

Reddit and other forums are also full of similar examples. One of my favorites was a post from a couple of years ago during the pandemic.

The host lived on the other side of the country and the neighbors emailed him to ask if they were setting up for a graduation or birthday party.

“After calling back, they mentioned how a large truck had backed up on the driveway. After a minute, two young guys opened the back and began unloading a lot of stuff quickly: chairs, tables, more chairs, and cases and cases of alcohol. They even had beer kegs. I did not know all that stuff could fit in the backyard. ”

And you can guess what was about to happen. Parteeeee.

Airbnb doesn’t allow parties and tries to crack down on them but they still happen.

Even if a guest is verified, there is no guarantee that a fake ID was not used. In fact, the Internet has plenty of information on how to book an Airbnb anonymously for your next Parrrrrrty! Some comments even suggested how to pick the perfect place. The comments do mention skipping if the listing mentions multiple cameras or the owner lives nearby.

Let’s make sure your Airbnb is NOT this perfect place.

So what can you do?

There is plenty you can do to drastically decrease your changes of having having your place trashed.

Here are our tips.

Location

You can not change the location of your Airbnb, but there are certain locations that are much more prone to a party than others. If your Airbnb is in the middle of nowhere, in the woods off a long dirt road, the chances of your place being the perfect party spot are very very low.

A condo on the second floor, with cameras on the entrance, elevator, and hallway, is also not a very good location for a party.

Likewise, if your place is in a big city and has a very nice backyard with an extra-long pool, it could be a target.

So, our first tip is simply to be aware of whether your place could potentially fit the criteria for a good party house.

Cameras

Cameras are a must if you have an Airbnb. Only have the cameras outside, per Airbnb policy and also per being a good host etiquette. Make sure that not only you have a Ring doorbell camera but also cameras that capture your driveway and sides of the house.

In some of our properties, a Ring doorbell and a camera over the driveway are good enough. In other properties, we have cameras on the sides, too. The goal is to capture all of the front areas so you can see anyone and everything going into your property.

In regards to pool areas, we do not have or recommend cameras in pool areas. Guests do expect a bit of privacy in the pool.

You can use another brand of cameras; we recommend Ring as they are easy to set up, can work wired or with solar, and seem very reliable.

There is no need to hide your cameras. In fact, you want to make them visible, as they are also a deterrent. Make sure your listing is very very clear that you have multiple cameras outside. Be specific on the location.

Minimum Stay

This one is our most important tip. If you have a property that could be a good fit for a party, do not allow less than a 3-night stay.

We have properties that allow a minimum of two-night stays, but the ones with a pool and large backyards, and in a big city, we require a minimum of three nights.

We never allow a single-night stay. Guests staying for a single night will see your Airbnb much more like a hotel and will probably not treat it as nice.

We had one property that we tried allowing a single night to fill in gaps. These were the guests that we had small issues with: dragged mud into the condo, left without locking the door, didn’t follow any of the checkout instructions, etc.

One of the TikToks we saw a while back was about throwing the perfect party in an Airbnb. One of the items it mentioned was booking for only one night so you can have extra funds for alcohol.

Airbnb does not share party-related statistics, but we wonder how many parties are thrown in a booking that is 3 days or longer? We can guess very few.

Instant Booking

Instant booking can help you climb the Airbnb rankings. However, two settings are also necessary to protect your property.

• Only allow instant booking for guests with verified IDs. If you do not have this option, you might as well rent to an anonymous guest named John Doe.

• Only allow instant bookings for well-reviewed guests, which means guests with at least one positive review.

In our opinion, the above two options are a must with instant bookings.

If the potential guest does not have a verified ID, we simply ask them to verify with Airbnb. We never had a guest say no.

If the potential guest has NO past history and is a new account, then you will want to ask them a couple of questions - why are they visiting? and kindly remind them of the house rules. This is where you need to use your instincts.

Trust Your Instincts

Luckily we have never had to deal with a bad party. We have had guests who broke the rules and had a kid’s birthday party. This created a tremendous amount of garbage that could fill 3 garbage bins, but no real damage to the property was done.

We also had guests who decided to sing Karaoke late at night after a night out in the town. They did not trash the house but pissed off our neighbors and they called the cops. This was before we had an active noise monitor.

Our closest incident was on a new listing—it was the third or fourth booking. While setting up the pricing rules and minimum stay, we made a mistake and allowed a two-night booking. In addition, instant booking was enabled with no ID required and no well-established guest required.

The booking came in from a recently created account (1 month ago), no id verification, and 8 guests (our max occupancy in this property). The image on the profile looked like a very young kid with no about us and nothing else. There was no message on why they booked.

In addition, they were from the same state. All the potential warning bells were there.

• New account with no reviews

• Account not verified

• Max occupancy

• Instant booking used

• Guest was from nearby

• Guest did not communicate much

Now, it is possible they were going there for a Bible study club or perhaps a Robotics competition, so we messaged and texted the guest, asking a few questions about why they booked our place. After not receiving a reply for over 24 hours, we canceled the booking.

It is possible we totally overreacted, but all the signs of a potential issue were there.

Trust your instincts.

Noise and Crow Detector

One of our properties is very close to our neighbors. In addition, our neighbors did not exactly throw a welcome reception when we told them we were going to rent the house via Airbnb. One of the items that made them feel just a little more comfortable was that we would be monitoring the property with ring cameras and a noise/crowd monitor. The noise decibel monitor was going to be both inside the house and outside the house.

The gadget we installed inside and outside the house is a noise and crow detector. This is a really neat device as it simply measures the decibel level at all times and does not record any voice just the ‘loudness level’. We can specify the threshold. If it goes over for more than 5 minutes, it can automatically notify the guest. It does this twice, then notifies you via email, or text or app pop-up.

In addition, it can detect the number of individuals inside the house. So, for a maximum of 8, we set the limit to 10 or 11.

This is a great way of being proactively notified if the noise level is high OR the number of people inside the house increases past your limit. Unlike a Ring camera, which is passive—you need to look at the video—this is active and near real-time.

For $180/year per property, this is a no-brainer is certain properties.

You can get one sensor for free and you can save an additional $15 by using This Link

The only issue we have had with this is that the outside unit is battery-operated, and often, the battery only lasts 3-4 months. We now swap this on a regular basis.

If you set up one of these devices, be sure to also mention it in the description. This is another good deterrent.

Additional Verification

Third-party systems provide additional verification and checks on potential guests. We will soon write about one of them that we are testing.

Final Thoughts

There are many parties and out-of-control crows in Airbnbs every night. However, the number is relatively small compared to the ‘good guests’.

In addition, following these tips can drastically decrease the chances of your Airbnb being one of them. These tips are very easy to implement. Make sure YOUR Airbnb is not a good candidate for an out-of-control party.

Thanks for reading!!

P.S. Wondering if cohosting is right for your property? Let’s talk it through — reach us at info@AdventuresInAirbnbs.com