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Mitigate Risk and Keep Your STR Properties Safe (Ep 621)

Ep 621

Vincent Niemeth, a safety expert in the short-term rental field, shares his insights on safety and liability in the industry. He emphasizes the importance of guest screening and provides tips on how to identify potentially risky guests. Vincent also discusses the need for proper maintenance and safety measures for amenities like pools and hot tubs. He highlights the significance of fire safety, including the use of smoke alarms and fire extinguishers. Vincent advises property owners to think proactively and consider potential hazards to ensure the safety of their guests.

Takeaways

Guest screening is crucial for ensuring the safety of your property. Conduct thorough background checks and review social media profiles to identify potential risks.
Maintaining amenities like pools and hot tubs is essential. Regular cleaning and water changes are necessary to prevent health hazards.
Invest in safety measures like GFCI outlets, smoke alarms, and fire extinguishers to mitigate risks and ensure the safety of your guests.
Consider potential hazards and take proactive steps to prevent accidents. This includes securing furniture, using non-slip materials, and installing safety devices.
Always prioritize the safety of children and be aware of the risks associated with drugs and alcohol in your property.

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Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts.

Read The Script Here

Jasper Ribbers (00:00.718)
What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Get Paid for Your Pad. Well, a couple of weeks ago or last week, we spoke with Nick, who had his Airbnb burned to the ground. If you haven't listened to that story, I highly recommend listening to it. And that has inspired me to find a safety expert in the short -term rental field. And so today's guest is Vincent Niemeth.

He is an absolute expert when it comes to safety and liability, focuses on helping people in the short -term rental space, make sure that the properties are safe. He holds a degree in occupational health and safety. He also served as the head of safety for a very large property management company for a long time with over 3 ,000 properties. So there's nobody better to speak to on this topic of safety than Vincent. So Vincent, welcome to the show.

Vincent Nemeth (00:56.099)
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate being on here and was looking forward to it all week.

Jasper Ribbers (01:02.446)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I'm excited to learn. I know you have some interesting stories to share. You have a lot of tips and advice. You also wrote a book, which I have here right in front of me as Vincent was so generous to send me a copy. The book is called Safe Havens, Essential Safety for Short -term Rental and Transient Rental Properties. You've also founded a company called Safe Havens Properties. So…

Definitely a lot going on there. So yeah, why don't you give us a quick background on how did you get involved in safety and then specifically in short rentals?

Vincent Nemeth (01:40.611)
Sure, sure. I guess my entry into this space is sort of unconventional. Not that anybody really has a conventional entry into this type of market, but my background is actually really in music. I grew up and my father was in construction and commercial development. And I think he kind of wanted me to follow the sort of a path where maybe I entered the trades, became an electrician or something, to work in that type of construction.

industry, but I, my passions were with music and I wanted to just have the creative juices flowing and sort of, um, follow that path. I owned a music store in Western Pennsylvania. I'm from Pittsburgh, uh, for a while and mostly focused on lessons, music education for students and, um, had a nice business there. And, but I always was sort of coming back to sort of the construction and real estate and, and.

Um, as I sort of transitioned out of owning that business, I actually became a realtor. I became an agent and new agent. And, you know, as, as you start to go into that industry, you kind of figure out what your niche is. And I started to work with a lot of investors and, uh, home flippers, people who were looking for certain properties to invest in rental properties, and then worked along with them.

started to, because I had some knowledge of construction, I started getting into inspection, was working for some insurance companies, met someone in the insurance industry that was underwriting a lot of large, high value homes, wanted someone to sort of inspect and because these homes are very large and complicated, some have a lot of amenities, they're hard to underwrite insurance policies for, so I started doing a lot of.

risk loss type evaluation of these properties. It just keeps evolving into just constantly evaluating properties. Started to pursue a master's in occupational safety and health. And safety is again, like all was really just becoming very passionate about this as well. COVID happened. I was working for a luxury home builder.

Vincent Nemeth (04:04.611)
down in Florida Lakewood Ranch area, again, evaluating their properties, working with the new owners of these properties, make sure that they were comfortable and happy with their home. And then ended up taking a position that just sort of fell into it with a large host type company at 1500 properties at that time, were just rapidly growing, just grabbing up as many properties they could and expanding and all.

kinds of area in every area across the country was evaluating their properties, making sure they were meeting, meeting jurisdictional compliance. Uh, they were acquiring, uh, existing short -term rental properties. They were starting their own brand new ones from scratch, you know, buying homes and going through the whole process of onboarding the property for, you know, decor and design, and then eventually safety. Um, just loved, loved the short -term rental space, just.

you know, saw all of its, you know, all the potential there. It's why I love your podcast Jasper, because it's so revenue focused and you know, it's always about, you know, maximizing as much as you can out of the property, whether it's getting more occupancy, you know, choosing the right area. So I just really gravitated towards that space and having a background in safety and construction. I kind of realized there were some limitations here. Like everything was, you know,

As we were chatting before, like hospitality, you know, STRs is always associated with hospitality, but it was sort of, you know, hospitality, you always thought of hotels and motels. And then with the rise of Airbnb, it really just forked off and branched in this whole segment of Airbnb's where it just was becoming so rapidly growing and becoming its own animal in the hospitality industry.

As I was looking through the history of it, safety wasn't really evolving for these properties. You know, it was like, people were making anything they could in Airbnb, like yurts. Everybody was thrown around the term yurts. It's like, that's a, that's a tent. That's like probably one of the most unsafe conditions you can put against it. So, um, I really just focused on safety, having this background in property evaluation. I just said, what can I do to really get out there and work with owners and managers?

Vincent Nemeth (06:29.731)
to make sure they're just maximizing their guest experience by putting a real safe property, showing real responsible operations and mitigating risk and really help enhancing that guest experience. So that's where I am today. And I put the book together earlier this year, more or less, you know, as a tool for even new, I love to work with new owners and potential investors in the STR space and just say, Hey,

This isn't out here to scare you. These are things that you really want to look for. Build a plan around and use this to put a safe and habitable and great experience out there for your guests.

Jasper Ribbers (07:11.95)
So you mentioned you've reviewed like thousands of properties. You've been in the safety space, I guess, for over 10 years. You mentioned you had some interesting funny stories. I would love to start with the funny stories and then we can go into some learning lessons and some tips and advice for short -term rental operators out there. What are some of the most important things to look at and to be aware of? So let's start with some stories.

Vincent Nemeth (07:18.083)
Sure.

Vincent Nemeth (07:28.419)
Hahaha.

Vincent Nemeth (07:40.611)
Sure, sure. I mean, obviously, you know, guests, I always tell people like, it always has to start with good guest screening. So a lot of people, especially like in the luxury STR space, they could, we're going to get a better client in here. It's a higher value property. You know, no riff raff is going to rent this, but you would be surprised that you, if you're in a 13, 15 higher occupancy property, a lot of college kids or young guys are going to get enough together, enough money.

to fork out whatever $10 ,000 or $11 ,000 a week for rent that place and they're going to get in there and their one goal is to party. And, you know, so we had a property, you know, the owner, it was, it was in the Tahoe region and, you know, the owner comes by and he's like, I think there's a party going on there. And, you know, so obviously we did use some things as we'll talk about later as I can bring up is, you know,

party squasher, device counter. We can see there's a lot of active devices on the property. So the field person gets out there and they're like, everybody's gone. There's a couple of people passed out. She's walking through the property. There's a person passed out in this room. There's another person passed out in the other room, but she's like, there's a lot of furniture missing. And now this particular property is, we were managing this property, the owners.

in that area had spent a lot of money on this custom log furniture. It was, you know, just made by an artist. It was in a very attractive design, fit with the decor, you know, Tahoe, a lot of that rustic, lodgy type feel. Well, you know, there's, at that point, there's an incredible bonfire going in the backyard. And the field person, she's like, I don't know where this furniture is.

She's like, I'm looking at a lot of it is gone. A lot of it is gone. She's like, they're going to be really upset. And I said, she goes out back. Well, we found out where the furniture was. It was literally the fuel for the bonfire in the back. So again, I always say like screening your tenants is really important. In my book, I have a little section on trust and safety, which is important. And part of that is the rise of the social media influencer and you know, the.

Vincent Nemeth (10:02.627)
As we discussed before, there are two types of social media influencers. The one that's really going to promote and, you know, bring a lot of attention to your property. And then there's the destructive social media influencer who's going to go in there and do basically criminal destructive activity to garner likes or, or follows on, on social media. But as I always tell a lot of owners, you have to be, you're always on the defensive. Another funny story is.

One of my first days I was working for this company, they said, we have a safety incident. Take a look at somebody had jumped up, you know, big property, large Island. Somebody jumped up and tried to swing from the chandelier over the Island. Well, obviously the chandelier came out of the ceiling. They fell. They hit their head off the Island. Immediately. We're facing litigation complaints, bad reviews, everything, the whole works. And they, you know, they said, we're going to sue us. And.

I'm like, under what grounds do you have to bring anything against us? So what has happened? This was clearly just, you know, just reckless behavior, you know, and he said, well, the light should have been secured into the ceiling better. So it's like, okay, you jumped up, you slumped on the chandelier, you fell, you hurt yourself. Now the, we're on the defensive because we didn't have a properly secured light. So, you see a lot of things. It's, I always tell,

I don't care whether you have a like $150 a night or $3 ,000 a night property, you're gonna be facing some of the same behavior and situations sometimes.

Jasper Ribbers (11:43.854)
Right. So let's, let's backtrack a little bit. Let's, let's go back to that first story. So you, you mentioned like the destructive influencer, like was, was this a case of a destructive influencer who wanted basically get more follows by lining up someone's furniture in the backyard or?

Vincent Nemeth (11:57.411)
Yeah.

So it's hard to tell when you don't really know that this is happening till their device counter is going off, you have a hundred devices on site, everybody's descended on the property, people are filming, it's gonna end up on social media somewhere. So it's always hard to tell whether that person was doing it for themselves or there were other people there doing it. It just turned into a really bad situation.

What did we do on that? I mean, it was really hard that the owners are obviously upset. They had this furniture custom made and you know, for their property, it was a big part of the aesthetic nature of the property. And now it is just a pile of ashes in the backyard. And, and what do you really, how do you really explain that to them? You know?

Jasper Ribbers (12:46.99)
Did you guys end up getting the furniture refunded by the guests or through insurance or what?

Vincent Nemeth (12:50.755)
Yeah, we ended up, it became just, we ended up having to replace it basically, not with the same, but through either giving them some money for the value of the furniture and also putting new decor in the house.

Jasper Ribbers (13:10.446)
And were you guys refunded by insurance or were you able to claim it from the guests?

Vincent Nemeth (13:15.427)
Yeah, at that point it sort of went out of my hands and I was just trying to figure out how to best deal with not having this happen again. And really, it's so hard with guests because it's almost like you never know what's going to happen until it happens. And part of safety is you always want to have that proactive mindset, but then now you're forced to react in a situation like this. And it's just like, what do you do? And…

But unfortunately, it's like, I think some of those homeowners in that respect realize there's a certain degree of risk care involved when you're letting people come into your home. But have you ever thought in a million years, are they gonna take all your furniture out in the backyard and burn it? Probably not. But there's a first time for everything.

Jasper Ribbers (14:04.686)
So what are some ways, what can we do to prevent these type of things from happening?

Vincent Nemeth (14:09.827)
Yeah, you know, again, guest screening is a huge thing. I'm sure you've talked about it on your podcast before, but, you know, really there are so many ways to really screen tenants. It's time consuming, but it's really your first line of mitigating risk from a guest that's going to come in there and potentially do damage. And you look at their social media is a big place to start. If you can find them on there.

One thing that I learned in the past is that sometimes people, you know, they rent these places because they want parties. They don't want to party in their home. They don't want their own home being destroyed. So let's go rent an Airbnb and party in there. So it's really, it's a little bit of detective work. You got to sort of put on your private investigator hat, but at the end of the day, it's, you know, it's going to, it could save you a really catastrophic loss. And I always tell owners is too, there's so many.

Jasper Ribbers (15:07.022)
Mm -hmm.

Vincent Nemeth (15:08.899)
just don't rely on social media. There are other, you know, comb the public records, the district courts in many areas post their records. Look them up. If they added any past court cases or convictions for just vandalism or theft or, you know, any type of destructive activity, it's, you know, it's immediate red flag. Just not a good guess.

Jasper Ribbers (15:31.758)
Yeah, you mentioned party squashers. There are a number of tools that can help us prevent these types of things. For us at FreeWild, what we use is we recently started using Stafi, which is not really a safety tool, but it does allow you to see how many people are connected to the Wi -Fi. So that is one clue. If you have four guests and there's 12 people connected to the Wi -Fi, it's like, okay, well.

Vincent Nemeth (15:54.307)
Right, right.

Jasper Ribbers (16:01.422)
Something's gone on, right? We have the noise aware devices to monitor the noise. And then for guest screening, we actually use AutoHost. I'm not sure if you're familiar with AutoHost, but that's a really nice tool. Yeah, AutoHost is a really cool tool. Sorry, I was just going to give a little bit of context on AutoHost. What they.

Vincent Nemeth (16:13.763)
No, no, not that one in particular. Yeah. And I…

Vincent Nemeth (16:22.435)
Oh, no, that's fine. Yeah. I think, you know, as a, as a property owner, like the manager, the internet of things, as they call it has just expanded so much. It's made been such a game changer in the short -term rental space from, you know, party squasher and device counting tools, the noise monitors. I know you had some people from Windon that had smoke. You could tell if someone was actually smoking in the property, which is fantastic.

type device to have and, you know, even basic things like leak detection. I tell a lot of people from property evaluation standpoint, we've had people just leave guests leave their kids just had the faucets running in the bathroom and the running, you know, a couple of days before somebody gets over there to do post -ay inspection, the faucet's just running full bore. And, you know, from an environmental standpoint, I always say, you know, mold can start growing in a, in a moisture rich or water infiltration type environment in less than 48 hours. So.

You really leak detectors are, you know, might seem kind of a minor thing, but actually could do really, be really beneficial, especially like in a larger property or in coastal areas.

Jasper Ribbers (17:34.894)
How do they leak detectors? How does that work?

Vincent Nemeth (17:39.171)
So it's just a small device. You can place it near any type of water source. I usually tell owners the best place to put them is in your sink cabinets underneath the bathroom sinks, because that's usually a leaking faucet or a supply line is usually going to be something that could damage your property from a mold standpoint. But also, if somebody just leaves the water on, it's going to eventually detect that, and you can get in there.

you know, prevent a disaster. They're cheap. They're really inexpensive, but can really save you a lot of money.

Jasper Ribbers (18:11.278)
Hmm. Interesting.

Jasper Ribbers (18:19.566)
Yeah, it's one of those things where you kind of assuming that's not going to happen. But then if it does happen, then you're happy that you have those things to let you know, right? Let's say.

Vincent Nemeth (18:25.443)
Yeah, yeah for sure.

I always kind of tell, oh I'm sorry.

Jasper Ribbers (18:33.934)
Go for it.

Vincent Nemeth (18:34.723)
I always kind of tell guests like safety is, it's like, you know, safety and revenue do go hand in hand. It's, it's, it's kind of like an extended car warranty. Why do I want to pay all this money for something I may never use? Well, with safety, you're not, you know, there isn't one, I always tell owners there isn't one safety measure that's going to cost, cost you more than what you're going to give up in refunds or, you know,

bad reviews or having to go almost through litigation or filing a claim. A lot of safety measures are really inexpensive, but they could save you the potential to save you a lot of money or mitigate risk or avoiding lost revenues is so great. Like you should think about these things. You should make them a priority because they're that important.

Jasper Ribbers (19:20.302)
Mm -hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (19:25.326)
You know, one very cheap way to make your home safer that I learned about a couple of months ago, I think it was, is if you have carpets, there's like these little sticky things that you put underneath the carpet so it attaches to the floor and so like you can't slip on the carpet. If you heard of this.

Vincent Nemeth (19:43.875)
Right. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. I actually address furniture and decor in my book a little bit, simply for the fact that we, you know, I had working at a company where, you know, 3000 properties Monday morning after all the big weekend occupancies and stays, you know, is get, you know, the incidents reports and notifications sort of start filtering in and you're looking at them and, you know,

that after a while a certain theme starts to develop. Like what is being reported the most? Pools always are number one. Pools and hot tubs are always going to be a number one source of an incident or complain or safety issue. Furniture is actually number two because with a lot of owners, I know like when you're setting up your property and you get sort of lured by…

you know, a lot of really cool and trendy furniture that you can get at very good prices like on Amazon or Wayfair. But, you know, it's going to make make a really aesthetically really pleasing. But how how much can this furniture really take from, you know, wear and tear? So chair might look barstools might like super great. But after, you know, few stays, you know, they might even if it's not.

well -made, it's gonna start loosening up and then eventually it's gonna lead, I can't even count how many times somebody said they sat on a barstool and it collapsed and they got hurt and it's like, you know, they get out there and it's like, we looked at the barstool and it's like, oh, this is just sort of a cheaply made barstool and you know, now we have to replace it. Well, okay, maybe we should think about, you know, taking a look at buying some little better furniture just so that it can take the abuse that it gets from stay to stay. So.

I know it's easy, you know, you, you, and when you're setting up, everybody might be on a limited budget, but it's just one thing you have to encounter. You want to put a lot of area rugs down. Great. They look really cool. But when you're coming in that door or you're coming out of the pool and it's wet and you come in through the slider and you know, there isn't something sticky under the carpet. You know, it's going to, you're going to go airborne on that thing and you're going to potentially get hurt. And again, there's another, another incident to deal with. And it's, um,

Vincent Nemeth (22:08.483)
So again, like you said, something simple, just like putting something under the carpet might seem, you know, you might not think about how important it is until the time when actually something does happen.

Jasper Ribbers (22:20.494)
Yeah. Well, that's the whole thing with safety. It's like, you don't realize what's necessary until something happens, right? But you mentioned pools and hot tubs are the number one category where there's incidents, right? So let's dive a little deeper into that. Like, what are some safety measures that we should absolutely have in place if we have a hot tub and or a pool?

Vincent Nemeth (22:43.459)
Yeah, that's, that's great. I love to love to talk about pools and hot tubs. Um, always was a number one incident reported whenever there was a complaint or safety issue or someone was injured. Pools, hot tubs, you have to look at them. They're, they're a combination of risks, you know, they have, uh, they're tripping and slip hazards. They're drowning hazards. Um, you know, their health hazards, if they're not cleaned properly. Um, and.

So they have like, it's the number one amenity everybody looks for, but it's also the one that's gonna cause you the most grief if you're not maintaining it properly. So first of all, like it's, this was always sort of a little bit turn of an argument. And I had spent some time, I met with some really big national pool cleaning companies and I said, look, what is, how often do you need to clean these pools? We get a lot of people that are complaining about.

you know, rashes and gastrointestinal issues and the pool's not clean. And they said, regardless of what, whatever your cleaning schedules, that pool needs to be clean between every state. That should be no exceptions. That's what it needs to be done. They said simply entering a pool, one person entering a pool or a group of people entering a pool as little as 15 times can affect the pH in the pool to an unhealthy level. So.

That chemistry needs to be adjusted. You need to do it between stays. The one thing that I always tell people, glass is such the invisible, that's the invisible thread in a pool. Everybody loves to get in the pool. They're having a glass of wine, they're drinking, glass breaks, piece of it goes in the pool. It's invisible at that point almost. You can't see it. And if you're not getting in there and cleaning that pool between, cleaners aren't gonna see it. So then what happens, kids get in the pool, people get in the pool, they get cut. Now you have…

you have an incident on your hand. So cleaning the pools, you know, between stays, it should be just part of your process. I know some people say, well, I just can't afford to do that. Pool cleaners are very abundant trade. There's a lot of them out there and it's not an expensive thing to have done. And it's definitely, definitely worth it. Hot tubs, freestanding hot tubs are another, they turn into these biological soups of unhealthy water.

Vincent Nemeth (25:06.979)
because they just never really get drained out and clean. They just have more chemicals added to them constantly and combined with heat, they just turn into really nasty, nasty environments. And I always say that, and people say, it's all possible. I can't do it. I'm like, yeah, you can do it. If you're going to spend this money to put this freestanding hot tub in there, you need to drain it every other month in a slow season and you need to drain it every month and refill it in a busy season.

to keep that water at a healthy level. It sounds like a lot, but trust me, it's gonna go a long way. Because I've seen so many rashes and illnesses from people getting in these hot tubs that have never had the water change. I mean, years, thousands of guests never had the water change. There's more chemicals dumped into it to try to get it into some sort of manageable, clean level. And it's just, that's not the way to do it. And then, you know, baseline through your insurance when properties are being purchased or…

or sold insurance companies always look, you know, pull has to have a self closing gate or fence around it. That's pretty much the code and standard in almost all areas. But I think as owners and managers, you really got to go a little step further. You got to put door alarms on in the homes, you know, with, especially when children are staying there and what that is, if you don't know, it's just, if a door to the pool gets open, it sounds an alarm. You can just prevent a child from.

you know, undetected child from going out into the pool and maybe falling in and drowning. You can go a step further than that too. In pool alarms are just devices that float in the pool and it detects motion into the pool. It sounds an alarm. You can check great things, very inexpensive, really just great at mitigating risk and preventing incidents. So yeah, they're, like I said, they're just a combination of hazards, but there's a lot of cheap and effective ways to really just mitigate all that risk.

around them and like I said, so many people say, I just want to put a pool in my Airbnb. Great, do it, but here this is the things you need to do and these are the things you need to consider when you do it.

Jasper Ribbers (27:17.102)
Sure. What are some other things that come to mind where it's easy to prevent, it's not very expensive, but most property managers just don't consider it. Do you have any more examples of that?

Vincent Nemeth (27:31.395)
Yeah, and you'd be surprised. It's probably some of the most important things like smoke alarms and fire extinguishers. So how many times I go into properties and it's like they have no accessible fire extinguishers or they're 20 years old and the smoke alarms haven't had the batteries changed. So it's why jurisdictions are so important about, you know, keeping on fire safety, especially now we're entering fire season in forested areas like in Tahoe and Big Bear.

So you really, you know, keeping your defensible space clean. They've really just, and it just seems like in the last few years, a lot of jurisdictions on regulations on STRs have really pushed, you know, moving away from just the traditional battery powered smoke alarm to interconnected smoke alarms and hardwired smoke alarms. And even like in places like WashU County and Tahoe that you have to have, if your occupancy is above say 13, I think it is.

You have to have a monitored system in there where it actually notifies the fire alarm or the fire company when the smoke alarm goes off. So again, fire prevention of you, John, my biggest fear and why I got into this is really, I always worry about children being hurt in homes, properties. And that's something that I just take it on as a personal mission to really, you know, make sure that children, especially children are safe and, and homes and properties and fire safety, number one.

Jasper Ribbers (28:36.91)
Mm -hmm.

Vincent Nemeth (28:57.859)
really cannot skimp, avoid, not think about. You always want to be thinking about fire safety. Always, just always.

Jasper Ribbers (29:08.75)
Mm -hmm. So do you have any other like, just like little small things like a carpet, you know, the sticky thing under the carpet I thought was so interesting because it's so, that's so cheap and it's so, it can, you know, prevent like somebody from getting really hurt, right? So can you think of other like just small little things that people can, that's kind of no -brainer to install?

Vincent Nemeth (29:32.963)
Yeah, well, one thing, and I know this not, I guess I'm all really relying on all the properties I value it and what I see are the trends and definitely, you know, things like that. I always tell people like walk through your property. If you think it's unsafe, if you think somebody might get hurt on it, they probably will. It's just the nature of the, you're letting all these strangers in here every week or whatever. Not everything is foolproof, but.

GFI outlets, if you're aware of those, are the outlets that have breakers in them that actually trip if they become in contact with water. I see so many properties that don't have these. I don't know how they miss because it's usually a pretty key code item that, you know, when you're getting your permit or renewing your permit. But you have to think about it. Everybody that comes, they come on vacation, they have everything they plug into. They plug in their phone, their laptop, you know, their iPad, whatever, everything.

They carry with them, has a charger and they plug it in. But if these aren't close to a water source, they're like an immediate shock hazard. And you know, kids get out of the pool, they want to plug in their iPad, you know. So I'm really, really big on that too. It's like, make sure your outlets are, are GFCI protected. Anything that's near a water source, just it's an easy, cheap, easy fix. You know, if you can't do it, having electrician, it's a couple hundred bucks.

Jasper Ribbers (30:53.454)
Mm -hmm.

Vincent Nemeth (30:57.699)
but again, it's gonna prevent someone from really being shocked or harmed through electrical shock. But again, I go back to the furniture because a lot of people don't think about it. You really have to really plan out your decor. And I know aesthetically, designers, they can make these places look amazing, but if you have some sort of birdcage chair that is suspended from the ceiling, think about…

five people jumping on that thing to get a picture for Instagram, it's probably gonna come out of the ceiling and you're gonna have a bunch of people laying on the ground bruised up and probably angry.

Jasper Ribbers (31:30.03)
Ha ha ha.

Jasper Ribbers (31:35.374)
Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. You gotta kind of put yourself, uh, don't just think like, Hey, if I use the space, like what will be a danger? But yeah, like you, like you said, think about like how many people are going to come. Who are these people? What are they coming for? Like what could they potentially do? Right. That could turn into a hazard. Right. So, um, I think kind of like having that mindset helps.

Vincent Nemeth (31:57.763)
Right. And unfortunately, Jasper, when you mix in the whole factor of drugs and alcohol, which is a prevalent part of our society today, it just exacerbates all these risks and hazards like a hundredfold. So what you might in your rational, sober mind wouldn't do is fair game when somebody is intoxicated or impaired.

Jasper Ribbers (32:23.598)
Yeah. Yeah. I remember I had somebody on the podcast, man, I've done so many podcasts. I can't remember who it was and where it was, but like somebody, somebody jumped in the water. Uh, so they, they had a, some type of, uh, pond or lake, or I don't know what it was, but essentially somebody dove head down in the water and really hurt himself because it was shallow. Um, and so, you know, even like,

Vincent Nemeth (32:29.795)
Yeah.

Vincent Nemeth (32:45.987)
Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers (32:51.95)
just putting up a little sign of like, Hey, shallow water, don't dive. Right. It's, it's like probably common sense to most people to not dive in water if you don't know how deep it is. But you know, those are to your point there, you know, if there's a, any stimulating, uh, ingredients that have been consumed and what, what, whatever that would be. But you know, like people might act a little different than, than what, what.

Vincent Nemeth (32:59.363)
You

Jasper Ribbers (33:20.142)
is common sense, right? So like kind of thinking through that and, um, and really thinking of like, what can we, what are the most, what are the most important hazards and like, what kind of precautions can we put in place, even if it is common sense and we would never do it ourselves. Um, you know, putting yourself in like really thinking that through, I think can be very helpful.

Vincent Nemeth (33:42.467)
Yeah, absolutely. And I sort of tell owners, like, think of it managers as threefold. Like you have that initial property evaluation when you're acquiring the property. Like, what do I need to do to get this property up to the jurisdiction regulations or standards or whatever they're putting in place? And you do that. And then a lot of people sort of just drop off at that point. Like they don't, and it's like, no, you have to carry this through to, you know, you have a pre and post day inspections. You need to all come up with a checklist.

you know, even sometimes a unique checklist for each property and go through that checklist pre or post day to make sure these things are being maintained. Again, like, like I say, I'm always surprised at the amount of fire extinguishers that I just don't see are accessible in properties because, you know, they're unsightly, they hang on the wall. Somebody, a guest comes, they take it off the wall. They're goofing around with it. A lot of times spraying it in the home, which is a bad thing, but, you know, it gets shoved under a sink. It gets shoved in a closet. And then suddenly when you need it, where is it?

and then things get out of control. But again, I would say some of our craziest incidents always come from bachelorette parties. We always think, oh, college guys, maybe a bunch of college guys are going to get in there and drink and get wild. No. Bachelorette parties, I don't know what happens there. The wine starts flowing. They get…

Jasper Ribbers (34:42.926)
Mm -hmm.

Vincent Nemeth (35:06.915)
they get crazy, things happen, you don't understand how they happen. But again, as the owner and manager, you're always on the defensive or you're always playing detective to try to figure out what exactly has happened. Sometimes you never do, so, because you just never get the truth.

Jasper Ribbers (35:25.102)
I can't imagine. Well, Vincent, I appreciate you jumping on the show here and providing some advice and some funny stories. Again, if you're listening, you want to learn more about the essential safety for short -term rental properties. Vincent wrote a book here. It's about 100 pages, so you probably get through it pretty fast.

Vincent Nemeth (35:31.843)
Sure.

Vincent Nemeth (35:52.867)
Sure.

Jasper Ribbers (35:54.126)
Where can people buy the book by the way?

Vincent Nemeth (35:56.099)
Book is available on Amazon as a digital copy or you can get a paperback. I really look at it as just, it's great tool for the new owners or someone that's really starting to build their business to really, it's kind of broken up in several parts. The first part is really identifying what are common hazards around these types of properties. The second one is part of the book is really how to look for them and to address them.

And then there's some other things in there, I think a valuable resource like trust and safety, which evaluating guests, internet of things type devices you can put in there, which have been great for safety related items, as we discussed. Privacy, protecting guest privacy and even the data that you collect is all personal information. How are you handling that? Are you keeping that secure? And then even a little section on event safety.

I, you know, when you're dealing with large properties, people want to have weddings. They want to have large scale events, their music performances. And anytime you get above like a hundred, when you're, when someone's planning on a hundred plus guests, even though you might not directly be involved in that safety of planning that event, you want to understand and make sure that the right things are in place to handle it. Like that many guests, like, what do you do with all those cars? How are you going to handle?

If there's an emergency situation, how is there enough amenities, things of that nature. So it just, although it covers basic functional safety, there's a couple other tips in there. And, and as I tell people, you know, as, as we end this, I, I, I'm not really great on social media. I'm trying to get better, but I just love to interface with people that just contact me and talk to me. What do you, what are your plans? What are your goals? Do you have a portfolio of homes that just need to be evaluated? That's.

That's what I love to do and that's where I love to help people is just to bring all their places, all their properties up to just a safe standard.

Jasper Ribbers (38:03.63)
Awesome. And the website is safehavensproperties .com. So I know there's some resources out there. There's some services that you offer. You can find more information about the book as well. So for everybody who wants to learn more, safehavensproperties .com. And with that said, Vincent, again, thank you for joining the show today. Appreciate you sharing your knowledge. And to the listeners, thanks for listening.

Vincent Nemeth (38:09.795)
Correct.

Jasper Ribbers (38:32.43)
and we will be back soon with another episode. So we'll see you then.

Vincent Nemeth (38:35.427)
Yes. Thank you, Jasper.

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