How to prevent your guests from smoking in your Airbnb’s (Ep578)

During a conversation with Mark Young and Dora Du, we discussed a product called Wynd Sentry, which is a smoke and noise monitoring device specifically designed for short-term rental properties. The device helps hosts maintain a safe and pleasant environment for guests and prevents potential damages caused by smoking and excessive noise.

Dora explained that Wynd Sentry was developed by the company Wynd, initially focusing on air quality monitoring. However, they observed many hosts using their general air quality monitors to address smoking issues in their rental spaces. Recognizing this need, Wynd developed the Wynd Sentry, a specialized product to address smoke detection accurately.

The device utilizes a proprietary technology called AirID, which classifies different particle types to identify specific smoke sources, such as cigarettes, marijuana, or vape. This enables hosts to receive real-time alerts and provides them with evidence to resolve any smoking-related issues with guests or with Airbnb. The reporting feature generates detailed reports, which can be submitted to insurance companies in case of damages caused by smoking.

Furthermore, Wynd Sentry includes noise monitoring capabilities, helping hosts address noise complaints and maintain a peaceful environment for both guests and neighbors. The device measures decibels and provides hosts with the ability to address noise issues proactively, preventing potential disputes with guests.

Dora emphasized that Wynd Sentry is designed to be tamper-proof. If a guest attempts to tamper with the device, an alert is triggered, ensuring the host is aware of any tampering and can take appropriate action.

If you're interested in learning more about Wynd Sentry, you can visit the Wynd website at hellowynd.com. They are offering a discount of $10 off for listeners of the podcast using the code PAD. This device can be a valuable tool for hosts to maintain a smoke-free and peaceful rental environment.

Sign-up for Wynd and get a $10 discount: https://getpaidforyourpad.com/wynd
(Use coupon code PAD)

Jasper Ribbers:
What's up everybody. Welcome back to Get Paid for Your Pad. Today I have two guests on the show. We're gonna talk about how can we keep our Airbnb safe with noise monitoring and smoke monitoring, and we'll have some really interesting stories that we're gonna share on this podcast. I wanna introduce my guests. We have Mark Young. He's a very, very early Airbnb adopter. He started hosting in 2010. He was really one of the first people to be on the platform. So that's really awesome to have him on the show today. And we have Dora Do and she is the head of marketing at Wind, which is a device that you can use actually to monitor noise and smoke. All right, so let's dive into it. Guys, welcome to the show. I wanna give both of you a minute here to introduce yourself. Mark, let's start out with you.

Mark Young:
Hey Jasper, thanks a lot for bringing us together. My name's Mark. I've been an Airbnb host since 2010. Very early adopter, always loved being in the intersection of technology and real estate. I always enjoyed Airbnb because at that time, it was doing something very, very interesting that was different than what VRBO was doing at that time. VRBO at that time kind of operated Almost like a Craigslist where you would connect directly to the renter and the owner, and then you would have to do the documentation separately offline and was sort of like, kind of like almost like paying for ad space kind of thing. Whereas Airbnb, they're like, no, we're going to cover the entire transaction. And we're also going to make this a seamless platform. We could go out and discover great places and build this really strong. like host community. And I was always super fascinated by that. Especially like, you know, I was hosting in San Francisco, I had some places here and also was one of the first hosts in Lake Tahoe. So I listed my place there was only one of 10 hosts on Tahoe and that was kind of where I got into the whole like, trying to build the community around the scalable concept of being able to host while you're not. presence in the city and I learned a lot from that process. It was really great to be part of that early air baby community.

Jasper Ribbers:
Awesome. And yeah, I'm excited to hear some of your stories. And we have a few that are really interesting from the early days. Dora, give us a quick introduction.

Dora Du:
Hi Jasper, thanks for having me on the show. I'm Dora, I lead the marketing team for WIND Technologies. Little bit about me, I've worked in the air quality space for quite a while now. I've been with WIND for over five years and grew up a lot around short-term rental space. So my family is in the real estate space. So that's kind of where both air quality and environmental monitoring. and real estate kind of intersect for me.

Jasper Ribbers:
Awesome. Yeah, we'll learn more about Wynn during this podcast. It kind of goes hand in hand with some of the stories that Mark will be sharing. So it's going to be very interesting. Mark, before we dive into it, I'd love to hear from you. What was it like to be an Airbnb host in 2010? I mean, I remember in the early days, you know, like I would meet Brian Chesky and like he would, you know, he would listen to my podcast and everything. It was so small. Um, but that was, I got into it a few years after you. So I I'm really curious, like, what was it like in 2010 when you joined MVB?

Mark Young:
So they had a very interesting story, like the founders, I'm sure like everybody's familiar with this story, how the original concept of Airbnb was actually born from the tenant experience. So it came from like the fact that, you know, there were no affordable options for people to stay in when they were like in town for like busy events, like conventions and stuff like that. So in order to try to make… rent every month in San Francisco, like Brian and his friends from design school, they basically set up an airbag in their living room to host for a convention. And then I think someone had traveled all the way from India or something like that. And then that was their first guest. And so they actually were right there making sure. that the guest was happy, he kind of took him on a tour of San Francisco when he was in town for this convention. And it was a way that you could meet in real life someone that would have been a complete stranger but then you were sort of, there was a transaction of course, but there was also sort of a real community, a real social network, right? Because at that time social networks were really exploding. But as we know even up until today, like… eventually social networks and AI and all these types of things. It's like, how real is this? And I think hosting from a community, a real community perspective is something that is kind of at the core fundamental heart of what Airbnb is. And that is like the ethos. They used to throw a lot of community events. They used to have ice cream socials for like 15 people with some of the founders were there. It was really like special time. I think some of this is also stems from the challenges. that Brian and Joe originally had when they were trying to fundraise for the company. They're out there trying to convince people like, yeah, we're going to create this network of people that are staying in other people's couches and sleeping on air beds. I think a lot of investors, they didn't get it or they just saw the downside and they didn't believe in it. I think that the real passion that Brian and Joe brought to this company… is a lot of like what really allowed it to succeed in the end. Cause they really built like a very strong, both guest and host culture. And that to even to this day as Airbnb is scaled to millions of homes, that's still super apparent. So every year they would grow, they would grow faster. They go into new markets. You know, they would have conventions. They did the first one in San Francisco, then they did another one, I think in France. And so it's just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. And ultimately the company's evolved, and they're not just doing short-term rentals now. They're doing experiences, they're doing longer-term stays. This has become an overall sort of like, a new hospitality company for the modern traveler.

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah, you know, that's what's really funny is there's a tool called webarchive.org. What I always love doing is going back to looking up the Airbnb website and then going back to 2009 and 2010 and seeing how that website evolved. And yeah, if you look at the site back then, it was still called Airbed and Breakfast. And

Mark Young:
Hey.

Jasper Ribbers:
it just looks… completely different than what it looks like now.

Mark Young:
And I think Brian had to, in some period, he actually lived in different Airbnbs at that time and they were scattered around different cities. He started in New York and then he moved on to other cities. And then what was really funny was originally, he took all the photos. So he would take the photo, he would like, basically like the photographer who's the founder of the company, the CEO, and he's like staying. you know, on your couch and he's like taking the listing photos for you and like helping you build, you know, your listing. Cause I remember like a lot of those days was like even like teaching people how to list your home on, on Airbnb and how to describe it and like what photos you want to take and all these types of things. And it was all very new. Um, but it was exciting because it was, it was like, you know, this, this is like a very new way. I think, you know, especially like in a market, like like Tahoe, people have been traveling and booking homes, you know, to stay in so that multi-generations of families can go up there and enjoy a ski cabin for the season. Those types of things have been happening for like a very long time. So in this particular case, like, you know, I felt like Tahoe was just like sort of like a natural extension for the company at that time. But what we had to kind of iterate was the fact that unlike in San Francisco where you're doing a shared space, there was someone staying on your couch or maybe you go out for vacation, someone stays in your place for a week, like in Toronto, you're generally not there. You're generally doing it remotely. You have to have a maid service, you have to have a check-in, check-out type of process. You have to have all of your- maintenance for a home needs to be completed remotely. You have to have, you know, potential monitoring systems or like snow removal in the winter, you know, driveway resealing in the summer, hot tub maintenance, all these types of things that you would have to do remotely. And I think these are the types of challenges that they had to overcome as a company to allow them to scale, not just, you know, for like, you're staying on my couch and I'm here in front of you, but like a host that can kind of monitor and manage a property, both the front end and the back end from a remote location. And then once Airbnb solved that whole nother level of that kind of thing where like, you know, now it's very common. You have like companies that like manage, you know, properties on behalf of hosts. You have hosts that manage their own properties, but all around the world and not necessarily like, in that original situation where it started, where it was just like, you know, hosting guests in the same flat together.

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah, I mean, it's been a pretty interesting journey for the last like 13, what is it? Airbnb was founded in 2007 or 2008, I think it was. It's a very interesting story, very inspiring as well. One of the lessons that I always take away from Airbnb story is how important the team is versus the idea, right? Because… the, you know, as you mentioned, like they were having so much problem, like, uh, trying to raise money for the company. And looking back now, we can clearly say that it was a great idea like Airbnb, but I really like, if you would have given that idea to like 200 teams, there's probably only like one or two teams that would have, you know, actually like, uh, brought it to execute it on the, on the idea because it was so challenging, right? It's so difficult. So

Mark Young:
I think

Jasper Ribbers:
it's very inspiring.

Mark Young:
one of the highlights of the early days of Airbnb in my memory was the fact that Airbnb really promoted well the uniqueness of individual homes that you could rent for these kinds of experiences that would be entirely different than staying in a cookie cutter hotel. you know, that type of thing. Like, you know, staying in a chain of Hilton's or something like that, whereas at an Airbnb, you can get a home that is very specific to that particular place that you're going from provides a kind of experience that is very unique. Um, my home in Tahoe, we were pretty honored to be featured as one of the top 50 Airbnbs around the world. They did this thing at that time. where they had the top 50 Airbnbs around the world and they built like physical birdhouses to replicate all of these different homes. And so it was really awesome to see someone build my actual home, like a model

Dora Du:
Thank you.

Mark Young:
of it in the Airbnb office. And they used it to shoot a commercial where they called, it was like the birdhouse campaign. So they actually had like a little bird inside a model of my house. That was… in a television commercial, which was super cool because I was like watching it and I saw this little bird like fly in was like a small version of my couch and the coffee table that I have in my tower place and the birds kind of like looking around like looking at home and then actually had lay up we did like a tour of the office and actually saw the model of it I took a picture of the model of the house and then there was like a whole campaign that they did where I got to see all the other beautiful so like you know like one of the most magic uh that was on there, obviously it's like a mushroom house and all these other like famous homes that everyone, you know, I think it's the mirror house, the mirror house is also another, famous iconic properties that are on Airbnb. It's really cool to be part of that.

Jasper Ribbers:
That's amazing. That's amazing. I love that. So you've been on Airbnb for like 13 years. So tell us your most interesting story of what you experienced as a host.

Mark Young:
So I would say that, you know, hosting, it hasn't been completely a smooth ride. I mean, I've hosted thousands of guests, right? So it's kind of a percentage game at that point. You host a thousand guests, even if you have like 10 bad guests or something like that, that's actually still a pretty good ratio

Jasper Ribbers:
Thanks for watching!

Mark Young:
to have like, you know, a few, but the problem guests can be, you have to make sure that you manage those incidences correctly. And I think that's a lot of the nuance of being a super host, right? It's being able to prevent problems before they become problems. I think one of the main problems that we encountered with remote hosting was complaints by neighbors of things that are happening on your property. So basically, here's the situation. It's like, yeah, if you're in the original kind of situation that explained, which was like, you know, Brian's hosting. someone from India who's sleeping on his couch, that person is sort of like not going to be a problem, right? But in the event that you're hosting your house in Lake Tahoe for a group that's coming in, that says they're coming in under some pretext, but then you end up getting complaints from your neighbors that they're throwing parties or they're being too loud or they're like smoking marijuana or doing all these types of things that are in violation of your house rules. First of all, how do you prevent that from happening? And secondly, if something does happen, then how do you deal with it? And I think a lot of this is trying to create something where

Dora Du:
Thank

Mark Young:
you can

Dora Du:
you.

Mark Young:
become a good neighbor. Because what a neighbor would do in that situation is, they would call the host, and if the host doesn't pick up the phone, you know what the next call is gonna be? It's gonna be to the police,

Jasper Ribbers:
Mm-hmm.

Mark Young:
and, or it's gonna be to the Homeowners Association. So this is the type of situation where like every Airbnb doesn't want this to happen because it's sort of like these edge cases can end up spiraling out of control. And then there'll be like those scenarios where there are really bad headlines from the company of like terrible things happening on site, you know, people getting injured or worse. Right. So part of this was sort of. Trying to understand that if you're not there, how do you how do you manage a property to make it? that is good for the guest but also good for the neighborhood. And by being good for the neighborhood, being good for the host, and by being good for the host, being good for the platform, being good for Airbnb. So there was an incident that happened where I, first of all, I will accept responsibility for this because it was a last minute booking and it was in a property that I had in San Francisco where I was staying upstairs and then I had a unit downstairs that I rented out. sort of like on a medium term basis for like 30 days. Someone came in with a really last minute booking. I was like probably doing something else at the time. Didn't spend the proper time that I should have to double check the guest's background, make sure that they had positive reviews, sometimes speak to the guests before like, accepting the instant booking. So I think in a lot of these cases, just overall it pays. dividends to be very, to use strong filtering with your guest to make sure you're comfortable with the guest that's going to be staying in the guest the right questions. In this particular case, I didn't do it. Sometimes you can get away with it. Sometimes you can't. So in this particular case, the guest checked in immediately started experiencing some issues, particularly involving the smell of like heavy smoke, but not it didn't really smell. like, it didn't smell like tobacco, I'll just say that. And I couldn't really figure out

Jasper Ribbers:
I'm gonna

Mark Young:
what it

Jasper Ribbers:
go to

Mark Young:
was.

Jasper Ribbers:
bed.

Mark Young:
And I had already purchased a device from Doris Company, the Wind Halo for my Lake Tahoe properties, but mainly because I wanted to do remote monitoring of forest fires. So when the forest fires would, so the Wind Halo is kind of a device, it just kind of measures the level of the quality of the air. in the immediate surrounding area and then it gives you push notifications. So like if I'm not in Tahoe and then there's a forest fire, but it's really far away and the air is still good, then I'm okay. But the moment that the air starts to change and get worse, I would get that push notification. And I would like that being a remote, a remote host. So that was like an early product that Wynn had that I really liked for its sensor technology. So, um, I also had one in my unit upstairs in San Francisco and going back to this case where I had this guest checking and that's kind of a problem. I started talking to them on the phone and I was like, hey, you know, like I can smell something. Can you stop doing whatever it is that you're doing? You're kind of violating the house rules. Their response

Jasper Ribbers:
The

Mark Young:
was,

Jasper Ribbers:
response was,

Mark Young:
I'm not doing

Jasper Ribbers:
I'm not doing

Mark Young:
anything.

Jasper Ribbers:
anything.

Mark Young:
So it's sort of

Jasper Ribbers:
So

Mark Young:
like,

Jasper Ribbers:
it was sort of like,

Mark Young:
what do I do at

Jasper Ribbers:
what

Mark Young:
that

Jasper Ribbers:
do I

Mark Young:
point?

Jasper Ribbers:
do

Mark Young:
Because

Jasper Ribbers:
at this

Mark Young:
now

Jasper Ribbers:
point?

Mark Young:
it's sort of

Jasper Ribbers:
Now

Mark Young:
like,

Jasper Ribbers:
it's sort of like,

Mark Young:
I can't prove

Jasper Ribbers:
I guess through

Mark Young:
what they're doing

Jasper Ribbers:
what they're

Mark Young:
because

Jasper Ribbers:
doing,

Mark Young:
they're denying

Jasper Ribbers:
they're denying

Mark Young:
it. This

Jasper Ribbers:
it.

Mark Young:
is kind

Jasper Ribbers:
And

Mark Young:
of a

Jasper Ribbers:
so,

Mark Young:
situation that I had before in Tahoe where a guest causes damage. Maybe it's smoke damage or maybe it's something related to partying, but you don't catch it at the right moment. It's not time stamped with the description. You find out later from the next guest, but then maybe you accuse the next guest of causing the damage. Then the next guest is upset because you like already violated that trust. So these are the types of things that you have to, it's very critical how you manage the situations because they can affect your reputation as a host. So at that point, I started calling Airbnb, and then Airbnb, the customer service, they would reach out to the customer service, like, I'm not smoking, or like I'm not doing anything they say. So what do I do at that point? So kind of came up with this creative solution where I actually had the wind halo in my unit, and I started taking pictures of it as the color changed from green to yellow to orange to red. and red is like bad, it was like very poor air quality. And every time that the guest would be doing something, it would literally be coming up into my unit. It was affecting my sleep. I started waking up in the middle of the night, just like with really big headaches and stuff like that. So ultimately I was able to use the photos that I took of the

Jasper Ribbers:
look

Mark Young:
Wind

Jasper Ribbers:
up the

Mark Young:
Helo

Jasper Ribbers:
weird

Mark Young:
device.

Jasper Ribbers:
yellow device

Mark Young:
to Airbnb

Jasper Ribbers:
to

Mark Young:
and say,

Jasper Ribbers:
Airbnb

Mark Young:
look, it's

Jasper Ribbers:
and say, look,

Mark Young:
844.

Jasper Ribbers:
if 844

Mark Young:
It's like,

Jasper Ribbers:
is like

Mark Young:
you know,

Jasper Ribbers:
green,

Mark Young:
green,

Jasper Ribbers:
845

Mark Young:
845. It's yellow, 846.

Jasper Ribbers:
is yellow, 846

Mark Young:
It's orange, 847.

Jasper Ribbers:
is orange, 847

Mark Young:
It's red.

Jasper Ribbers:
is red,

Mark Young:
And they sent to Airbnb.

Jasper Ribbers:
and they sent

Mark Young:
And then

Jasper Ribbers:
to

Mark Young:
ultimately

Jasper Ribbers:
Airbnb, and they

Mark Young:
they

Jasper Ribbers:
ultimately

Mark Young:
proved,

Jasper Ribbers:
they proved,

Mark Young:
I was able to prove

Jasper Ribbers:
I was

Mark Young:
that

Jasper Ribbers:
able

Mark Young:
the guest

Jasper Ribbers:
to prove

Mark Young:
was

Jasper Ribbers:
that the

Mark Young:
actually

Jasper Ribbers:
gap

Mark Young:
smoking

Jasper Ribbers:
was actually broken

Mark Young:
in my property.

Jasper Ribbers:
in my coverage.

Mark Young:
So they reached out to the guest and they said, you're smoking, we've proven it. Now we're gonna cancel the booking that you have with this host. Once they did that, then I was on my own to try to get this guest on my property because they were actually actively trying to squat there. And what I had to do at that point is very interesting. I had to hire a private investigator to look up the name of this guest. I actually found that they had a criminal record and there was an outstanding warrant for their arrest. So that was the key that I used to be able to. have the police come to my property, have the guest come out, and then they actually arrested the guest. When they arrested the guest, once that had happened, then we were able to basically kind of physically recover the space back and then get, you know, whoever knew the guest to come back and remove all of their belongings. When the police went into my property, they actually noticed something very disturbing, which was that the guest was smoking marijuana, but they were lacing it with other very, very hard drugs. Could have been PCP, could have been much worse. But that was why when the fume started to filter up into my space upstairs, I was getting these terrible headaches at night. And it was sort of like, it was felt like something I'd never experienced before. So these are the types of situations if you can imagine that I wasn't the host, what if I was the neighbor and this was happening? These are the kinds of situations where like if Airbnb can't control these types of situations, this can really affect the reputation of the platform. So I'm really grateful to wind at that time for like, kind of like having this sensor product. And I think, you know, maybe Dora can tell a little more, but I felt like, what this case study of what happens first of all, very interesting story that could happen to anybody. But secondly, I felt like when kind of like took this case study and kind of took it to the next level by coming up with a solution that could kind of help all hosts like myself that were in this type of edge case situation.

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah, and I always think that if you're planning on hosting for a long time, the question is not really like, is something like this going to happen? It's more like when is it going to happen, right? Because

Mark Young:
Right.

Jasper Ribbers:
eventually you're going to run into a situation like this. And the reason why I was very interested to talk to you guys is because I've known for noise monitoring devices for a while. We've talked about that on the podcast, how you can monitor noise and the same thing. It's like you can use it as proof. to send to Airbnb to say, hey, listen, this is 120 decibels that I'm be measuring on my device at 3 AM in the morning. This is clear evidence that the guests were making way too much noise. But I'm not familiar with the smoke monitoring devices yet. So that's why I love to hear from you, Dora, like a little bit more about the product, because I think that's very powerful to have in a unit.

Dora Du:
Yeah, definitely. I mean, we started in the air quality space, actually. So, you know, the founders, Jason and Ray, they actually developed a proprietary air quality sensor because the ones on the market were either too expensive or quite inaccurate. So we started in general air quality monitoring and remediation for residential and commercial. And on the consumer side, we found, you know, there were customers like Mark who actually would use our monitors for their short-term rental space. They would use it to either prevent any types of situations where cigarette smoke was happening, or they would use it for evidence to be able to speak to the guests or speak with Airbnb. So as we… saw more customers using it for that purpose, we dived in a little bit deeper and actually developed a specific product to address this need. So the product that we launched less than a year ago actually is called WindSentry. And what it can do is it identifies specifically for cigarette, marijuana, smoke, as well as noise. And right now there's nothing that does it as accurately in the market as we do. But it's the idea of the product is, you know, to be able to ensure that the hosts can keep their properties safe. They keep the communities and their neighbors happy, but also any future incoming guests have peace of mind knowing that the property that they go into has been, you know, taken care of. and there hasn't been any previous smokers or partiers or even like edge case events.

Jasper Ribbers:
Hmm.

Dora Du:
So it really addresses what Mark had talked about earlier, but this he said, she said, where with things like cigarette smoke, you can't really see it, right? And a lot of the time what we've heard from our customers is that they'll raise a claim or… or they'll talk about the issue, but they have no evidence. So this really solves for that because you have that reporting.

Mark Young:
Yeah, the

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah,

Mark Young:
reporting

Jasper Ribbers:
I've definitely

Mark Young:
feature

Jasper Ribbers:
been in it.

Mark Young:
is really great. Really great. The reporting feature is great because what it does is it creates a report that I could actually submit to my insurance company. In this particular case, when the guest that was in my place, they caused over $5,000 worth of smoke damage. I had to have the entire floor painted. over and you know drapes, curtains, place, all the furniture was ruined. So I think these are the kinds of instances that you will take that report and then you will file it with your insurance company and then it will be all timestamped and all that with the incident attached to it. And I think that's the kind of thing where like that's the peace of mind where like look it can detect when things happen but when things go actually you know do happen that thing that where it's basically I press a button and then boom, it like, you know, create something that I can use when I submit that to my insurance company or else like I'm worried like I might get denied on this claim. And then that would be, you know, even more expense for me as, as a host.

Jasper Ribbers:
Mm-hmm.

Dora Du:
Yeah, just to kind of build on that a little bit, you know, even before the damage happens, the idea is really that, you know, hopefully you can deter any unwanted guests. A lot of our hosts will put it in their, you know, they'll disclose it in their listing and that'll deter a lot of these unwanted guests. But then, you know, in the event where an incident actually happens, over 90% of them are actually prevented because the monitor will detect it, send an alert. And the host can simply just politely remind the guests that you're not supposed to be smoking or making loud noises. And most of the time, you actually stop the issue before it even starts.

Mark Young:
So Dora, your noise monitoring, it doesn't record people talking and decipher things that they're saying, right? It just basically measures decibels, right?

Dora Du:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So there's no recording, it's privacy safe. That was intentionally designed that way.

Jasper Ribbers:
So one question that comes to mind is, so the device can detect smoke. It can also give you, it shows you a graph as well, because it shows a level of micro or mini grams, or I don't know exactly what it is per cubic meter of air. And then it gives you a probability of what's the chance that somebody's actually smoking in there. Can you explain a little bit more about how that works?

Dora Du:
Yeah, so the way that it's able to identify for different smokes types is using a technology called AirID, which is proprietary. And the way that it works is essentially, it'll classify the different particle types. So for example, cigarette smoke has a different signature than candle smoke or cooking smoke. And essentially using AI and using… the algorithms that we have in our technology, it'll be able to take images of these different particle types, analyze it in the cloud, and then essentially be able to tell you the probability of this particle type is such and such.

Jasper Ribbers:
Interesting. And so it can also, I was going to ask that actually, like it can also distinguish obviously from like the smoke that comes from candles and stuff. But even like the difference between like cigarettes and marijuana, it will be able to tell the difference.

Dora Du:
So right now within the app, it'll classify it as recreational smoke. So cigarette, marijuana, vape all sit under this recreational

Jasper Ribbers:
Mm.

Dora Du:
smoke alert.

Jasper Ribbers:
Got it. Okay. Yeah, I mean, we've definitely had this issue where we were suspecting that people were smoking because, you know, like, all our guests were saying, hey, there's a weird smoky smell coming out of the other unit. And then, you know, you'd ask the guests and they're like, no, we're not smoking. And then it's like, okay, you know, what do you do? Right. And then after the fact, like, yeah, you could find like cigarette butts or you could… find some ash somewhere and then kind of use that as evidence. But you much rather prevent these things than being able to get damages paid for, right? So I love the idea of putting that in the description of, hey, for your safety, we have a device that that tracks the air quality, to make sure that air quality is perfect during your stay. So just so you know that we have that device there, we'll probably prevent a lot of people from actually lighting up a cigarette. Right?

Dora Du:
Yeah, and you know, the damages aren't just as simple as, you know, for breezing the room. The smoke stays in the walls, it stays in the paint, in the linens, the carpets. So it is really expensive to actually clean out all of those odors. And it can also impact the guests that are coming in after, right? Because you have to

Jasper Ribbers:
Mm-hmm.

Dora Du:
do a longer deep clean, you could potentially lose the following guest or risk your best business reputation by getting a negative review.

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah, that's a good point too of like, yeah, you can charge for like a deep clean. But then like you said, like the smoke kind of goes into everything, right? Like all your furniture and like beds and everything. And you can't really, I mean, you can't really, if one guest is smoking, you can't really say, okay, well, that's, I'm going to claim $200,000 to completely refurnish my entire home and like repaint the walls and everything. But over time, if a lot of people smoke, it is going to affect that.

Mark Young:
It's very hard. Smoke is inherently very difficult to measure damage up because I think Airbnb, it really built its business on what we're talking about, like photos. So a lot of this is like what you see. Whereas we're talking about with this device, we're talking about issues that are prevalent in short-term rental business, but it's also not just what you see, but what you smell and what you hear. And I think those are two senses that are not fully covered right now through this whole platform of remote hosting. And that's where these tools really come into play. Like even just for myself, like I just came back from a trip to the East Coast. I rented a car in New York City. And then when I went into the car, I was like about to drive it off. And then it kind of like smelled something. And it was just kind of in the back of my mind, but it was like, I realized that after I'd been driving for a bit, that someone had been smoking marijuana in this car that I had rented. And I rolled down the windows and it was still there. Then finally I was looking at someone had put, I guess it's called like a roach. It's like the last part of a joint that still had some stuff in it. And it was like stuck in the gear shift. But it was like, you know, it's like, these are the kinds of instances like, you know, it's like, do I ever want to go back to this rental car company again, you know what I mean? Because it's like the fact that they, they couldn't spot this, it's terrible, right? So these are the types of things. And then, you know, it's very strong, like this smoke, it really does permeate, you know, the, and it can ruin the experience and look, and like, I didn't have a small child or a toddler with me, but I can imagine, you know, like your young parents and stuff, like you'd be really upset that this happened, you know?

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah, and those will make you feel like, okay, well, what else is in this car? Like if they miss that, you know. By the way, one question that comes to mind, Dora, is so if let's say we have a sentry device in our unit, right? And guests come in and they want to smoke and they see the device, like, can they like kind of mess with it somehow so that it's not going to detect the smoke, like turn it off or put some put a plastic bag around it? Or is there anything they… they could do to mess with it.

Dora Du:
Yeah, I mean, that's a really good question. So we've designed it to be tamper-proof. And essentially, if it is tampered with, there is an alert. Let's say if someone tries to disconnect it. There's also battery life that will make sure that the device continues to record or continues, not sorry, record, but to monitor. So let's say a guest tries to disconnect it. you'll still be able to receive alerts and receive reporting on if anybody tries to smoke or makes loud noise.

Mark Young:
So you'll get

Jasper Ribbers:
Okay.

Mark Young:
the notification that someone did try to tamper with it, right? And that's an alert in and of itself, is that how it works? Okay.

Dora Du:
Exactly. Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers:
So then again, if they then smoke and you have that alert, then you can use that as proof of valve, saying, hey, look, the guest tampered with our device, which is a breach of the house rules in the first place, because you're not allowed to do that. Very cool. Is there anything that we haven't talked about yet that you think is important to share?

Dora Du:
I think you've covered a lot of the basis. We're seeing in the short-term rental space anyways that there's a lot more noise ordinances, regulatory requirements around having short-term rentals and having a device like Sentry hopefully can help combat that and make sure that short-term rentals are operated in a safer manner that encourages… happier communities.

Jasper Ribbers:
I imagine, and I don't know if you notice, but for your clients that are managing properties for other people, I imagine that it could also be almost like a selling point. If you talk to an owner of a home and you say, hey, I'll manage your home and I have these devices to make sure that people can smoke and they can disturb the neighbors with the noise. That's a good point, I think, to bring up in those kind of… those talks as well. If you have any experience with that.

Dora Du:
Yeah, definitely. So we have a large subset of our customers that are property managers. And they'll actually, you know, they'll use Sentry as an additional service or a differentiated service by saying they have, you know, cigarette or recreational smoke monitoring, as well as noise monitoring that'll prevent, you know, really big damages that could happen to your home.

Jasper Ribbers:
Right. Because I can imagine that could be a big concern for owners of homes before they start doing Airbnb, especially if they don't have any experience with Airbnb because you know how like people don't have experience with Airbnb, they immediately go to well, what if the guest destroy my home and they're really, their mind is immediately to like what could go wrong, right? So I imagine being able to say like, hey, we're going to make sure that nobody can smoke in the home because we have this device is definitely a… you know, will make the owner feel more comfortable.

Dora Du:
Yeah, yeah, it's definitely that extra layer of protection and it really the idea is to really be able to provide that peace of mind.

Jasper Ribbers:
Awesome. So can you let the listeners know how can they if people are interested in getting the these devices, the wind sentry devices, like how can they get a hold of them?

Dora Du:
Yeah, so you can find us at hellowind.com. That's H-E-L-L-O-W-Y-N-D.com. And we've actually provided a discount to listeners to your podcast.

Jasper Ribbers:
Sweet. Tell us about it.

Dora Du:
Yeah, so there is a code, which I believe will be in the notes.

Jasper Ribbers:
It's, it's pad. It's always pad P

Dora Du:
Yeah,

Jasper Ribbers:
a D.

Dora Du:
yeah. So there's a there's a pat discount.

Mark Young:
There's a, there's a map, yeah.

Dora Du:
It's 10% off for all of your listeners.

Jasper Ribbers:
Nice, awesome. So if you're interested in getting one of the devices, hellowind.com and wind is with a Y and not with an I. Hellowind.com

Dora Du:
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers:
and use code PAD and you'll get, is it 10% or is it $10?

Dora Du:
Sorry, let me double check that.

Jasper Ribbers:
I

Dora Du:
Yeah, yeah.

Jasper Ribbers:
thought it was $10. Either way, you're getting a discount.

Dora Du:
Yes. Sorry, no, that was my fault. Yes, it is. It's $10 off.

Jasper Ribbers:
at all. Awesome, guys. Well, I appreciate you being on the podcast today. Good to get to know you guys. I'm very interested in actually getting the devices in our units because we definitely had some problems with smoking. So we'll talk more offline about that. But yeah, Dora, thank you so much. And Mark, I appreciate you jumping on as well, sharing your story and also how it was of hosting it on Airbnb back in… back in 2010 was really, really interesting to hear. So thank you guys so much.

Mark Young:
Thanks for having us on.

Dora Du:
Thank you.

Jasper Ribbers:
All right. And thanks to the listeners. We'll be back on Friday with another episode. We'll see you then.

Dora Du:
Thank you.