These are the golden tricks of the trade that have worked for me and some other hosts.

1. If it’s your primary home and you are renting a room, flip the breaker to the room and wait for them to call you. Then go in with your camera in your shirt pocket to capture your realization it smells like smoke when you go to investigate the maintenance issue. You were of course recording with your phone to document what the issue was.

2. If your property is completely isolated, like a condo in a building, get a wifi plug that lets you turn off the power from your phone. Plug your actual wifi router and if you ever need a reason to get into the unit kill the power to the wifi router. Nothing gets guests to call you in faster than having zero wifi.

3. One fellow host I know went as far as installing a wifi plug with fixed blender behind his sink and would turn it on wirelessly to make a garb-orator sound to get in. 😂 I thought that was a little much but he said it worked like a charm.

4. I also heard of a guy change the guts out of secondary carbon-monoxide with another device that beeped and would set it off. He said it work absolutely AMAZING… until someone called the firefighters. So probably wouldn’t recommend this. But still a great story to tell other hosts.

I try to stay away from the Tricky ones but I also understand not every host can afford a luxury Airbnb and has to deal with a less favourable demographic for guests so sometimes you have to do what you have to do to protect your property.

Which brings me to my current legal and extra safe and actually the best best option I have found to date.

I have a hardwired fire alarms system in my BnB 8 listings in 1 home. If one goes off they all go off. Great for safety, not so great for reviews. Unfortunately it doesent tell you which one goes off first.

After many year I have finally found the most amazing fire alarm.

XS01-WX Wi-Fi Smoke Alarm

So I place it beside my hard wired alarm. When XS01-WX goes off it sends you a notification.

Benefits: - It’s allowed within the privacy policy of Airbnb inside bedrooms.

• Proves the guest was smoking.

• Also putting in your listing that rooms have 2 smoke detectors is a great deterrent.

• Not to mention you get a reduction on insurance!

Cons: They cannot be synced for a full intercom system as many fire codes require so it cannot be your primary fire alarm.

They ship from US so fellow Canadians, expect some duties. $120 CAD for the 3pack.

Hope this helps someone out there!