SAFETY FIRST!

[00:00:02] Speaker A: This is short term rental management, the show that is all about short term rental property management with your host, yours truly, Luke Carl. If you like what you're hearing, if you're picking up what I'm putting down, you can join me on a live weekly call, talk about your next short term rental, or ask questions about the one you already have. I am live once per week on Zoom. I would love to have you come and say hello. It's strquestions.com. That's strquestions.com. Come and join us. All right. Here we. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Short term rental management with Luke. And today we got a fantastic guest who has probably the coolest name in the business, Justin Forge. Sound like a movie star. I love it. And Justin is a safety expert. So, Justin, if you don't mind, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into this whole thing. [00:01:05] Speaker B: Yeah, safety. I'm glad that you made my name sound exciting because usually people then hear safety and go, oh, that sounds boring. So, yeah, I've been in the short term rental industry now for. I started in 1997. So at 26 years, I always like to joke to people. I don't know if it's true, I haven't checked his age, but I think I've been doing rentals since Brian Cheskey at Airbnb was in diapers. It at least tries to highlight that I've been around doing this for quite a while. I started a vacation rental company with one property up in Maine, co founded that and grew that into the largest vacation rental company in all of New England when I sold my shares in the company in 2017. And we did boat rentals, sold real estate, we did weddings and events, did all of it, and at one time managed up to about 600 properties along the entire 300 miles of main coastline. People used to joke to me that, or they weren't joking. I was joking back that, like, wow, we see your trucks everywhere. We had two trucks, but we were everywhere. We were on the move. And so, yeah, been in this industry now for 26 years and took a kind of change like most people in this industry, plugging along. Things are great. You're focused on dollars, revenue, yield, management. How many more listings can we get? Go. And then all of a sudden, one day you get that phone call that a guest has been injured in one of your properties. It's a showstopper. It stopped me and it made me go, wait a minute. How was I supposed to know about this? Nobody ever talked about this when I got started. And there's no laws, there's no regs. There's nothing that told me I'm supposed to pay attention to this type of stuff other than good common sense. And so I turned and put a focus on that in 2013. And so, yeah, ten years in now, I'm pretty proud about the fact that we're getting this message out there. I think I've found a unique way to share the message, and I hope that comes through during our time together here today, to try and get people to be more aware of the safety of their guests, to prevent incidents in their properties. [00:03:30] Speaker A: Absolutely. Okay, so I'm going to rewind this just a little bit because I'm fascinated in the early stages of your career, because, I'll be honest, a lot of folks come through or listen to my show, et cetera, and they want to know about managing a vacation house or whatever it may be, an Airbnb, this, that, and I think a lot of them don't even realize that really what they're talking about is sort of becoming like a property manager and maybe even at some point bringing on other people's properties. So it sounds like that's kind of exactly what you did. Walk me through that process. I assume it starts with the fact that you were in a vacation town. Yes. [00:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I was located in a vacation. Know for a lot of people don't realize that vacation rentals have been around forever. I mean, George Washington stayed in one when he was moving down the coast of Delaware to go down and fight the British. He was paying somebody money to stay in their house that was furnished and take it over for a little while. So these aren't new, and it used to be back in the Maine, especially where I live, because it's cooler in that part of New England than it is in New York or Boston in the summers, going back into the 18 hundreds. I mean, the Vanderbilts would rent a house up on the coast of Maine for a month and come up and cool off by steamboat or steamship. So that tradition had moved forward in Maine, and that was that. You went into the back of the New York Times, you picked out a rental, and you sent a check and said, these are the weeks I'd like, and the person will mail you back an agreement and cash your check. And there you go. So when I got started doing that, that's what I was doing. I was just quickly advertising my own home because I was in a market where you could do it. And I think I got into it the way people are still getting into it today. And that's when the neighbor came and knocked on the door and said, hey, we're not going to be around next summer. And you seem to be doing pretty well renting out your house. You think you could help us with ours? And boom. 12345, 600. [00:05:35] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. And so verbo was around. Yeah. I mean, verbo started in like 99, 98, 99, and what must have been in its infancy. Were you using it or when did that come into play for you? [00:05:47] Speaker B: Yeah, we didn't use. It was around. It was vacation rentals by owner. And I think they had it all spelled out. I don't think they'd abbreviated it to Verbo at that point. And of course, home away, a big one at the time that was coming out was flipkey, which eventually sold. The tripadvisor. Didn't have to use a lot of those. One of the challenges I get into fights with people about is a lot of people who are so resilient on, I need to use Airbnb or I need to use verbo to get bookings. And they rely on 95% of their bookings that way. It's the opposite for most management companies, especially in New England, where 80, 90% of their guests are repeat clientele. And you don't put your properties on Airbnb or Vrbo because why give them a commission when you're getting the bookings anyway? Just because the same families, same people, they come to vacation every summer. Very strong Repeat renter market up here. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Okay, cool. I do think things have changed personally a little bit. I think, quite frankly, a lot of those old school management companies are kind of getting left behind because of that mentality. But I don't know, I think maybe a lot of it has more to do with just the day to day operations and being stuck in the past than the way they're marketing their property. I don't know. It's another conversation for another day. So you built the property management company up to 400, 600 doors. How many? [00:07:13] Speaker B: Yeah, at one point we had about 600 properties. [00:07:16] Speaker A: And then. So at that point, you sold the company or you just sold your share? [00:07:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I sold out my share of the company as my focus turned to safety. I've always told people, and I said this on day one, I actually had it in writing. I can't imagine doing this business for more than ten years. Those 02:00 a.m. Phone calls that there's a drip or the smoke alarm is beeping, and those 06:00 phone calls on Saturday night that we can't figure out how to use a lockbox. I knew that would wear out real quick. And sure enough, I did eleven years of that, and that was it for me. [00:07:55] Speaker A: And you were the manager? [00:07:56] Speaker B: I was a manager. I did everything. I swapped out hot water heaters on a Sunday afternoon, run down to Lowe's, grab another one. I held trash bags under leaking sewage pipes. And you know my favorite one, best one of all, had a phone call once that the renter said a bird had flown through the window and four of them were being rushed to the hospital. And sure enough, a turkey had flown through the sun porch window and shattered glass everywhere and injured a bunch of the guests. So, yeah, I saw it all. [00:08:28] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. It's no wonder you were busy. I can't imagine a property manager that's going to swap my water heater for me. That's way over the top, above and beyond. Bravo. Bravo. So there were other partners involved, and eventually you just kind of stepped back and said, pay me off. Or did you sell it to somebody else and they absorbed the company? Yeah. [00:08:50] Speaker B: And I sold it to a partner who had co founded the company with me and sold my half out and was happy to do so. Happy to move on into that next stage. Complacency is devastating. That's kind of the living that I have. And I started to become complacent. I wasn't the friendliest guy on that 11th year when you called me and told me you couldn't figure out how to work the lockbox. [00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah, property management is definitely not easy, for sure, which is part of the struggle. But, hey, that's why we have my podcast. You want to learn how to get better at it? Come listen to short term rental management and we'll help you with all that stuff. Okay, cool. So, at that point, how did you get deeper into the whole safety aspect of things? Were you a fireman at one point or how does that come into play? [00:09:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's interesting. I served in the US coast guard, and so I had a background in doing safety inspections on fishing vessels and understood that you've got to have a core safety. You never know when your ship's going to sink. Your life jackets, your flares, your life rafts, they've all got to be in good order, and you got to have some spare water kicking around of throwing the lifeboat with you. So that was a basis of what I had. And then when I became a property manager and started doing vacation rentals, I did something stupid one day with a brush fire, and the chief turned to me and the local fire chief and said, hey, we're running out of people over here. You look like a somewhat smart guy. Even though this was a stupid thing. How about joining the fire department? So I joined my local fire department for 15 years and worked my way up to the training officer. So I had that idea. And people who built a lot of. I don't like to say you can't instill common sense, but I like to say they opened up my common sense. That fire chief for that time in the coast guard definitely opened my eyes up that there's an approach and a way to do things, and a lot of people weren't doing that. [00:10:48] Speaker A: Oh, man. So I can't even imagine the amount of stories you have from the firefighting days. Are you still doing that? [00:10:56] Speaker B: I'm not. I have a complete focus on what I'm doing now with the safety program. But, yeah, I went to a fire once at one of my own rental properties. That was really interesting. You hear the tone. Your hip vibrates because they got these big vibrator pagers, and I'm like, I know that address. And went over there, and the guest had not connected the grill tank connection. When they swapped out the tanks, they'd run out of a tank. They hadn't reconnected it properly. And so when they lit it, eventually the gas leaked up to the burner and then spread down and blew out half of the grill. In fact, it was kind of embarrassing. The other guys in the fire department were giving me a hard time going, what did you set these guys up with here? But, yeah, that was definitely interesting. [00:11:47] Speaker A: All right, well, I've had that happen. Not exactly like that, but I've definitely had the grill issue, and it was not fun. But give me, I guess, just a general overview of what we need to do to be safety conscious in this business. [00:12:06] Speaker B: Yeah, here's the big challenge we have. We're in the travel industry. Everyone likes to think from a short term rental investment point of view, we're investing in real estate, and it's a real estate business. Some people like to refer to it as a tech business, but the reality is this is a hospitality business. And if you focus on every sector of hospitality that people, at least in North America, like to engage in when it comes to travel, it's either they stay in resorts or hotels, they travel on cruise ships, or they rent vacation rental properties. So what do they do when they go on cruises? Most of them drink. They drink a lot of alcohol. What do people do at resorts? They look for the all inclusive package they drink. And we've set up commercial standards in both of those environments for people to be somewhat safe. You don't generally hear about issues with alcohol. A couple of people fall overboard on a cruise ship once in a while, and every now and then someone dies in a hotel related to a fire or something. But now you take a look and add these 2 million, 3 million vacation rentals into the factor. We're letting all these people go vacation unsupervised, and all the surveys show that they're drinking alcohol while they're doing it. In fact, there was a survey that just came out last year that said 75% of North Americans acknowledge at some point in time they will reach a level of intoxication on vacation. And then half of those people said they don't usually drink at home. So even worse, we've got people who aren't experienced drunks coming to stay in properties they're not familiar with. And yeah, you could have a camera on your front porch, but we're not watching them and we're not going, holy smokes. Look what they're doing with the grill. Look what they're doing with a hot tub. No one's watching that kid by the pool. And so that's probably the biggest awareness message I'm trying to get across right now, is to recognize the general public isn't just the general public, people you've never met, people you'll never see again that are coming to stay in these rental properties. These are people who, in most cases, aren't in good decision making powers when they come stay in them. [00:14:11] Speaker A: No, I agree 100%. They're out of their element. They're lost. Their boss is not there to tell them how to get up and do their day to day life like they normally have, and nobody's holding them accountable, and they're drunk when they otherwise may or may not have been drunk, and it's just an absolute recipe for disaster. So that's actually a question I was going to ask you. I guess we just answered that question. But is there a difference between vacation rental safety and, say, storage unit safety or multifamily apartment safety, et cetera? [00:14:49] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah. Long term property management safety. You're setting up a property that's empty. It's an empty dwelling. Let's say you're renting out an apartment on an annual basis, and you're getting a $1,200 a month check, hopefully more. You go in, you make sure it's painted, you make sure the sink doesn't leak, you make sure that there's a light over the stairs that leads into it. You put a couple of smoke alarms, a seal alarm in it, and that's it. You're out of there. You've made it safe. Now the renter is going to put all their contents in there, and it's up to them. When we're dealing with short term rentals or vacation rentals, it's all these contents that we're putting in the property that are causing the issues. You're down in Florida. Number one cause for pediatric injury for a child under the age of ten in the state of Florida right now are furniture tip overs. And we see so many times in vacation rentals where people are just quickly throwing. It's an investment property. I'm throwing a dresser in each room. I'm going to put a tv on top of that dresser. But they don't take into account that the kids who are coming to stay here are going to climb up that dresser to get to the tv, to plug in their xbox they brought with them on vacation, and it's going to tip over and fall on them. So that's something you don't, for example, take account of in a long term rental. Right. [00:16:09] Speaker A: They're bringing their own dresser. In other sense. Makes sense. All right, well, what other things do I need? Okay, so do I screw the dresser to the wall? That makes sense to. [00:16:22] Speaker B: You know, a lot of the furniture companies are really on top of this. Ikea, Wayfair, they had big, massive lawsuits last year. And as part of that settlement, they really have to go above and beyond now. And if you've bought so many short term rental hosts and investors, that's what they do. They go online, buy the furniture, ship it to the property, either have a handyman or a local guy assemble it, or they show up, get it all set up, and they come with these red lanyards that are in the boxes, and they're tied to this bag. That bag has the hardware you're supposed to secure it to the wall with. I bought something on Wayfair recently, and I want to say 2 hours after delivery, I got a text message saying, again, anchor this stuff to the wall. And it's because of those lawsuits that they've had over all the injuries with kids. And if you don't have the bag and you threw it away by accident when you threw the packaging out, then, yeah, you go to Home Depot or Lowe's. It's $9 in the safety aisle, which is the aisle where all the padlocks and door locks are. [00:17:19] Speaker A: And how does this device work? [00:17:22] Speaker B: So, in some cases, it's almost like a wire tie. You're screwing a plate into the wall, and you got to use the right wall anchors. If it didn't come with it, you get the right wall anchors, you're screwing that plastic plate in, and then you're essentially wire tying the dresser to the wall so that it's not going to tip forward, or at least hopefully, it's going to prevent it from tipping forward. If you want to do something stronger, which I certainly recommend, depending on the situation. They have straps and they have a package. I think I bought one the other day. It's like $12. Safety first is the name of the company that sells it, and it's heavy duty straps, and it's to secure down a tv. I didn't believe this. I had to google this, and probably some of your listeners will, too. But this is a true fact. A 50 pound tv tipping forward and falling falls with the force of 27,000 pounds. I mean, that's a lot of force. And it's because that 50 pound starts getting some speed and movement behind it, and then it falls, and that's why so many people are seriously injured. It's not a 50 pound tv falling on 100 pound kid, and you go, boy, that's a boo boo. No, this is 27,000 pounds of force nailing them in the face. So it's pretty serious. [00:18:40] Speaker A: Okay, you're making it sound like a zip tie. Is it like a zip tie situation. [00:18:45] Speaker B: With a zip tie? [00:18:47] Speaker A: All right, padlock section at the hardware store. Okay, great to know. And what about. Tell me about more items in the house. Obviously, the stove and the anti tip. [00:18:58] Speaker B: So one of the cool things that I've been able to do over the past ten years of doing this is form some deep partnerships with the insurance industry. So you go into the insurance companies and you go, all right, what are you guys paying the most out on? Well, it's the same as it is on the commercial side of hospitality. Hotels, cruise ships. It slips, trips, and falls. People are tripping like crazy. And for our industry, we're lucky a lot of times because people say, well, I was clumsy, I was an idiot. They deal with their own medical claim. You don't hear anything about it. But increasingly, we're seeing more and more claims, and it comes from the most ridiculous stuff. This may sound like a strong statement, and I know it's really hard for a lot of people to absorb, but I don't like rugs in rentals. I don't like them anywhere. I like hardwood, wide open hardwood floors. There's too many slip strips and falls from carpets, and a lot of them are poorly placed. You could do it. Let's take a living room, for example. If that living room is part of a passageway that you've got to walk in the front door of the rental and to get to the kitchen, you've got to walk through that living room and you've got an area rug there that they have to step up over and walk. That's a hazard because people aren't thinking about it. It's a passage. But if you have that same living room off to the side and the only way into that living room is you have to step into it and you're consciously doing that. I'm a little bit more okay with the rug because again, the person is going to be thinking, I'm entering this space and they're going to hopefully be more aware of the rug. So, yeah, those are big ones. [00:20:34] Speaker A: What about the rug tape that you see everywhere? Is that effective? [00:20:39] Speaker B: Not really. It doesn't hold up. Well, I say a lot of times it's the entry. When we look at the insurance statistics, 60% of all these injuries, these slip strips and falls, happen within the first hour of arrival. What that tells us is people are just getting there. They're not familiar. So it's either lighting. Lighting is poor. Getting from your car in or once you get in, it's that doormat that's there, that first entry point. And I've seen where people tape them down and they get wet. Humidity builds up air conditioning, heat, whatever it may be, and eventually it wears out. You've got to be on it every time. And so really, the big way to address those is go big, have a big mat so it's not sliding around. I call them magic carpets, those little two x three rugs. There's no business for a two x three foot rug entry mat anywhere in a rental property. Anywhere, ever. [00:21:38] Speaker A: Okay. Interesting. All right. What else do I need to know to keep my house safe? I'm writing down some ideas, but I think you've been through this before, so just keep going for me. [00:21:47] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Well, the single most important item in your home is also the single most important item in a rental, and that's a smoke alarm. And so many people don't understand smoke alarms. Last week I was at a conference in Houston, and I bumped into somebody else who was at that same conference in the elevator. I knew them from before, and they said, hey, how you doing? I said, good. And they know we're going down to the bar. I said, yeah, that's fine, but I got to go to the hotel front desk. My smoke alarm is hanging off the wall. It doesn't work in my hotel room. I got to go address that. And she said, yeah, we got a problem in our room, too. The room safe doesn't work. I said, well, did you check? Is your smoke alarm hanging off the wall? She goes, yeah, I don't know. I didn't look at it. And to me that's like a big signal of the problem with the american society. We're more concerned about someone stealing our wallet than we are of dying. I mean, the smoke alarm is the one thing that's going to wake you up if there's a problem so that you can escape. And yet we don't do anything about that. And there's so many good products that are out there. And so you've got to understand that smoke alarms are priced just like cars. You're going to get a mercedes and spend a little bit of money, but what do you have? You got something that you're going to survive in, most likely in a car crash or a Volvo. There's good things that are out there. There's jeeps. I like a jeep. A jeep is fun. It's kind of mid price range. And I always like to refer to those Google ness smoke alarms that people like to get in their short term rentals. I call those a jeep. They're kind of mid price range. Some of them might even call them a little expensive. They connect into Wifi. They'll tell you the power is out when a guest has burned bacon, but they're garbage. You're dead if there's an accident with one of those things. Because they only detect through photoelectric means. They don't detect smoke. They only detect fire. So, I mean, there's a lot of different issues with those when it comes to, you got to look at consumer Reports and go, wait a minute, the Google Nest only scored 51, but this other smoke alarm scored 93. Why am I not setting my guests up with that? [00:23:52] Speaker A: Well, what smoke alarms do you recommend? I'm almost afraid to tell you which ones I use, but go ahead. [00:23:58] Speaker B: So I'm a huge fan of first alert. [00:24:00] Speaker A: Okay. That's what I use. Okay, great. [00:24:01] Speaker B: There you go. First alert is a great company, and this is an important statistic. It's not just going, hey, Justin, Ford uses first alert, okay? This guy knows something about safety. No, first alert hasn't had a recall since 2006. And if you look at any other smoke alarm manufacturer out there, kitty, big company. I used to like Kitty. Kitty's got recalls all the time. I want a product that hasn't had a recall since 2006. It's a good product and we see that they've had a lot of saves from them and that's, I think, important. And it's not just any first alert. You've got to have the dual sensor smoke alarms. Dual means. It detects fire through both ionization and photoelectric. Photoelectric is really good at detecting smoke. Ionization is good at detecting flames. And if you don't have both of those sensors, which is what the US fire administration has recommended in your smoke alarms, the potential is there. And I've been there as a firefighter, I've been in places before where you can't see your hand in front of you, it's so smoky. But it's because they didn't have the right smoke detector in the property and it didn't go off. People died. So it's important. [00:25:12] Speaker A: Are you saying that in some cases the flame will happen before the smoke or vice versa? [00:25:19] Speaker B: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, you think kitchen fire. Kitchen fires typically are going right to flame. I think of a Christmas tree fire that I heard about over the weekend at a vacation rental. Went rake the flame. And that's not going to set off an ionization smoke alarm the same as it is a photoelectric alarm. [00:25:38] Speaker A: Is a real Christmas tree or a fake Christmas tree. More flammable? [00:25:43] Speaker B: Definitely a real one. Especially if you don't put water. I mean, real Christmas trees don't belong in a vacation rental. I see people decorate their houses for their guests and they don't have a good watering system. Or they set it up once with that little as seen on tv thing where you screw the old Pepsi jug in upside down and fill it with water and leave a note for the runners. Runners, they're drinking. They're not going to refill your Christmas tree with water. And now you got a torch in there. [00:26:09] Speaker A: It's not something I would ever. It's very interesting. Sell with the short term shop. Are you looking to sell your short term rental or even 1031 into a different property? Our team of realtors will work hard to get you the most for your investment. We are experts in our field and would love to earn your business. When it's time to sell, call the shop. Theshoretermshop.com. That's the shorttermshop.com. Brokered by exp. All right, what else do I need to know about smoke alarms? [00:26:49] Speaker B: So smoke alarms need to be interconnected. We've had a lot of deadly fires in vacation rentals this year. One of the most notable ones happened in Quebec province, up in Montreal. I actually just visited there last month, and seven Americans died in these Airbnb units. And it's because they weren't interconnected. Smoke alarms, they weren't working. Another fire that happened at a vacation rental that killed three people this summer in the Outer Banks. Again, smoke alarms weren't interconnected. They've got to be able to talk to each other because you add in the fact that kids two to twelve don't wake up to smoke alarms. That's a known fact. You add in the fact that 60% of people who are intoxicated don't wake up to smoke alarms. Elderly people who stay in your rentals, 30% of your guests are over the age of 60. They don't wake up to smoke alarms because as they age, they don't hear well. So it's very important that they're interconnected, either wirelessly or wired. Hardwired is the best, but if you haven't set that up, it's really easy. I use the ring system. I have an older home. My house isn't hardwired. But you can buy a ring product that allows you to enhance and interconnect all your alarms wirelessly. It listens for one going off, and it sends alarms out through these dome sirens to wake people up, in other words. [00:28:12] Speaker A: All right, so again, you're the expert here, but if they're interconnected, that means there's wires inside the sheetrock and they're all like, literally wired together, right? [00:28:19] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. [00:28:21] Speaker A: Okay. If you don't have that ring, are there any other brands, by the way, ring. [00:28:25] Speaker B: Any other ring is the best one that I've seen. Yeah. I haven't really explored to see. [00:28:32] Speaker A: But you're not talking about a wifi situation. You're talking about the fact that the one smoke detector will pick up. The fact that the other one is going off. [00:28:41] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:28:42] Speaker A: And then it'll go off. That's cool. [00:28:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Ring has this thing, it's called a smoke alarm seal. Alarm listener. It's like a hockey puck. It's $30. You put a battery in it, you stick it on the ceiling next to each smoke alarm, and then they have another product called the. [00:28:56] Speaker A: Wait a minute, I don't even have to change brands on my smoke alarm? [00:28:59] Speaker B: No. And this is why I like this because this lets you keep using the first alert, smoke alarms, which I like. Now, first alert, not to get too confusing here, but first alert does make wireless smoke alarms. The problem is they're not the dual sensor type. So in order to keep that dual sensor alarm, which is the best one, you've got to use a different product, which I use in my house, which is the ring, and then it sends a signal if the alarm goes off to the dome siren. Now, a smoke alarm puts out 85 decibels. You're supposed to hear that within 10ft of each smoke alarm. Problem is, a lot of people still don't hear that. But if they use this dome siren, that ring has. It does 95 decibels and it has a flashing red light. Get your guests up, they're not familiar with where they are and get them out as quickly as possible. That's your only way that you're going to get through that successfully. [00:29:53] Speaker A: So if I'm not interconnected, I get this ring device, I put it next to all of them, I guess. [00:29:58] Speaker B: Yes, all of them. Absolutely. [00:30:01] Speaker A: And how does it. That's fascinating. I'm going to look into that. I like that a lot. Off top of my head, I think all my houses are interconnected. Now, I do have a little teeny tiny house that's only 500, 600 sqft. Is it okay to just have the one smoke alarm and 550 sqft? No bedrooms? [00:30:20] Speaker B: Yeah, if you got no bedrooms, yeah, absolutely. You're fine with that. And then that. Focus on the egress. But you add in one other factor here, and that is your garage. Do you have a garage in any of your rentals? [00:30:30] Speaker A: No. Interesting enough? No, but tell me, what if I did? [00:30:34] Speaker B: Well, so about a million vacation rentals in the US have an attached garage and they let their renters park their car in there. And that's mind blowing to me. We saw several fires this summer. A lot of the rental car companies are using Ford expeditions, Ford explorers. They've had recalls for fires. We actually saw fires because renters are bringing a rental car that they picked up at the airport and they're parking it in the rental car garage. And I always ask people, I'm like, so you're letting somebody park a car you know nothing about, that leaks gas or how do they drive it or anything about it. You're letting them bring it into your home that you're renting out and they're like, yeah, why not? I'm like, all right, well, then you're going to do it. But how do you know if it catches on fire? And that's when people's face go blank. You need to have a heat detector in your garage. You need to have that connected into the rest of the house. We saw an incident last month in South Carolina where these kids, I say kids, I'm 51, so I guess they're in their 20s. But those lime scooters, every city has these scooters. They brought the scooters back to their rental property, but they didn't want to put them back out on the street because they wanted to use them the next day. And they knew that if they were out there, someone else would take them. And the day before they had had to walk a mile to find one. So what they do, they brought them into the garage at the vacation rental, and one of them caught on fire and it burned the rental down. All of the renters survived, but minimum 70% burns on their body. And it's bringing these lithium batteries, electric cars. You're bringing all these things into a house. You've got to make sure that the garage I look at is one of the most dangerous points of fire after the kitchen, and you don't have detection in there. So, yeah, heat detector, it's $30. 1st alert makes them, kitty makes them, and they can connect into the rest of your system. And they work on the sense that if your temperature rises more than ten degrees in a few seconds or if the temperature exceeds 135 degrees, it will kick the alarm off and wake people up to get out. [00:32:39] Speaker A: Let's say I got interconnected in the house and I got nothing in the garage. What do I put in the garage that's going to talk to the house? [00:32:47] Speaker B: You can expand it with that ring system as well. You put the listener in the garage. There's other products too. Noise aware minute make listeners, and you can put those hockey puck type things in there and they'll also detect that type of alarm going off. [00:33:01] Speaker A: And it'll set off the alarms in the house from the garage. [00:33:05] Speaker B: It will with the Ring minute or noise aware, which are common products in our industry. People use to listen. If there's parties going on on their properties, those will detect a smoke alarm, but they're only going to send a notification to the manager. So then it would take the manager calling the house and saying, hey, the minute device is detecting a heat detector going off in the garage. So you got to hope that the renters are going to hear their cell phone ringing and wake up and all that stuff. So I don't like that process as much as I do. Having it directly integrated through something like. [00:33:36] Speaker A: Ring off the top of your head. Do you know the name of that ring? Hockey puck product? [00:33:41] Speaker B: It's the smoke alarm co alarm. Listener. [00:33:44] Speaker A: Listener. Listener. I'm going to order like 100 of those. [00:33:48] Speaker B: Yeah, they're $30. They're easy. [00:33:50] Speaker A: Okay, great. Listener. I like that. Okay, what about fire extinguishers? [00:33:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Have you seen these ads that are going around TikTok and Instagram, Facebook for the prepared hero. The guy walks in and throws a little blanket on the kitchen stove and it puts a fire. [00:34:09] Speaker A: No, again, you mentioned being a little older. I'm getting there myself. And no, I don't know anything about the TikTok. [00:34:16] Speaker B: Well, I'm sure some of your listeners do because every day I'm getting messages from people going, I'm thinking about putting these in my rental property. It's a little can of, I call it hairspray or bug spray or it's a blanket. Let me tell you something. Let's get this straight. Unless your guests are from the UK, they're not using a fire blanket. Americans have not been educated on using fire blankets. [00:34:36] Speaker A: I've never even heard of one. [00:34:37] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. A fire blanket is set up to be used in an ideal scenario that you're right there at the kitchen stove and, oh, my gosh, my stove is on fire. And you're going to calmly unwrap this blanket and set it down there. Now, fire extinguishers are the only product that needs to go in rentals. And here's the other thing. Get it out of your head that they're ugly. Get it out of your head that it makes your rental property look commercial. Think about it this way. A fire extinguisher is a tool you give your renters to save your investment property. I saw a fire that happened in Sanford, Florida, last year. This woman, she went on Airbnb and she posted a picture of her kitchen. Her kitchen was annihilated. It had been completely burned out and she wanted to chastise her guests. She said, my guests caught the kitchen on fire in my rental. And the fire extinguisher was right there in the pantry cabinet and they didn't use it. They just ran out of my house and everybody, oh, those Airbnb renters are horrible people. I can't believe they would have done it. You should sue them. Finally I got in there and went. So you're telling me that you expected your renters when the kitchen stove caught on fire, to walk past the fire and go into a pantry and get a fire extinguisher out. No. [00:35:49] Speaker A: And then you're also expecting them to know where it is and or open every single cabinet door. [00:35:55] Speaker B: Exactly. Or put it, it's under the sink and it's buried. No. If there's a fire, they're going to panic. It's not their home. They already don't care about it. You've got to put that fire extinguisher out in the open. It's got to be obvious and you've got to have it by an exit point. Code says in all vacation rentals they have to be within 30ft of the cooking appliance, put it by the closest entry point. So when they walk into the kitchen, they go, oh my gosh, the kitchen is on fire. This is horrible. And they're going to exit. But as they walk out, they see this fire extinguisher and they can stand in the doorway, give them the good five pounder, one that shoots 20ft and at least they're going to make a chance at it because they're not going to go hunting around in your house in a moment of panic to find that little teeny ugly white one that you don't want to showcase because it looks ugly in your property. They're not hunting for that. And that thing only shoots about 9ft and it's out of fire extinguisher material in 10 seconds. So you want the big five pounder? [00:36:51] Speaker A: You want. [00:36:53] Speaker B: Yeah, big one, big red one. Big ugly red one. Get it out there. Get in front of them. And I had a save two weeks ago in Shinkatik, Virginia. I was on a podcast just like this, talking. Somebody listened to me. They did this and they sent me a message that they put them in. They realized they didn't have them. They put one in on every floor. And the renters woke up in the middle of the night to the smoke alarms going off. They switched out, they put the first alert ones in, I told them to, and they woke up, remembered the fire extinguishers there put out the fire. The air handler unit in the master bedroom knee wall had caught on fire in the middle of the night. And the fire department said that if they hadn't put that out within seconds, as they did with that fire extinguisher, that would have destroyed that $1.8 million home. And sure, they were probably insured and probably they would have got out, maybe. But the reality is we live in a time where getting a contractor to come rebuild all that and getting same built, same price it's all a hassle. So for $30, they had to save just because they use common sense. [00:37:55] Speaker A: Major Hassle and just a nightmare. How long does one of these fire extinguishers last? And do I just replace it? Do I recharge it? [00:38:07] Speaker B: Yeah. There's two different ways to go about it. They have replaceable or rechargeable. The good five pounders are rechargeable. And that's something you want to do about every seven years. I work for a software company that helps track that breezeway. We do inventory and task management. So it's a task. You should set up that. [00:38:27] Speaker A: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Sorry. I'm going to bring that back up. But you're saying that one of these five pound red fire extinguishers lasts for seven years. [00:38:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Before they need to be recharged. Replaceable ones can go a little longer. They can go to 1011 years. [00:38:47] Speaker A: No kidding. I just assumed that it needed to be, like, checked every year or something like that. [00:38:51] Speaker B: They do need to be checked every year. [00:38:53] Speaker A: What do you want to mean? [00:38:54] Speaker B: That means looking at the gauge and making sure that it still is in the green zone. There's an arrow there. I'm picking on your state. I was in Florida a little while ago. Company knew I was coming in to do an audit, and they were so proud. They had installed all the fire extinguishers by their gas grills outside about a month before. And so I walked in and they said, we know you're going to check the fire extinguishers. We heard you before. And I went, yeah, no, it's great. I'm glad you installed them. But can you put ones in that are filled? And they're like, what are you talking about? And sure enough, the first two houses we went to, they were in the red zone, and it's because renters used them. And then they're like, oh, my gosh, that makes sense. We couldn't figure out what that white residue was all over the grill after the last guest checked out. I'm like, yeah, they had a fire. They put it out. They didn't tell you. So you got to make sure you're constantly checking to make sure that they're in that green zone and that the pin is in there, that it looks like the hose is connected. Well, everything's in good shape. [00:39:49] Speaker A: Dare I say that the renter assumed they were supposed to spray this grill every time? Because this fire extinguisher. Extinguisher was right again, because renners are. I would maybe think that, oh, there's a fire extinguisher. Maybe I'm supposed to shoot it so I can go to sleep, not have to worry about it. Very interesting. I'm going to the five pounders. I never thought of that. I'll be honest, I always thought that I had a better chance they would use it if it was a little one because the big ones are kind of heavy and intimidating. [00:40:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And generally speaking, that's why it's designed as a five. All these government people who sit in labs and work on this stuff all the time, they've determined that the average human being, which in America weighs 176 pounds, should be able to pick up a five pound fire extinguisher and you want some power behind it so you're not getting close to it. So in commercial settings, that's what they've determined is the best way to go and it's going to shoot. I did testing once. I got some video that people can see the little ones, they're like bug spray. The aerosol ones that maybe you put in your car because, I don't know, grandma drops a cigarette between the seat. Maybe it'll do something. But you want some power and you want some distance because you don't want to get close to it. It's going to be hot. [00:41:06] Speaker A: I just like the fact that your grandma still smokes even though you're the safety guy. [00:41:10] Speaker B: That's right. [00:41:11] Speaker A: Okay, where can I get these fire extinguishers? I've got so many questions. Let's start with that one. Where can I get them? Anywhere. [00:41:23] Speaker B: So I'm trying not to be confusing again. Don't buy going back real quick to smoke alarms. Don't buy smoke alarms at the box stores. I've never seen the good dual detection ones there. I only see those typically at like true value ace and on Amazon. But at the box stores you can get the anchor hardware we talked about. The other thing that the box stores are good for is the fire extinguishers. Home Depot, Lowe's, they all have those five pound fire extinguishers in the safety aisle. [00:41:54] Speaker A: Any type, particular brand? Just whatever they have. [00:41:57] Speaker B: Yeah, whatever they have. As long as it's a five pounder. [00:42:00] Speaker A: ABC and I'm screwing this thing right to the wall. [00:42:03] Speaker B: You got to. So here's the thing, and I know, again, people are going to hate hearing this. Every vacation rental in the United States, Guam, Canada, the American Samoas, I don't care if you're touching the United States is required. It's considered transient housing. It is required to have a fire extinguisher mounted, unobstructed and accessible within 30ft of all cooking appliances. That includes grills. And lawsuits have been lost over that big fire that killed four people at a vacation roll in Idaho four years ago is an open shut court case. The rental did not have fire extinguishers in it. It took someone like me, an expert in safety, to come up and go, you know what? If there'd been a fire extinguisher there, they could have put out that fire and people wouldn't have died. Open, shut. It is case law. You've got to have your fire extinguishers in mounted. Absolutely. They can't just be loose in the box underneath the sink. That's ridiculous. [00:43:07] Speaker A: Any idea what percentage of fires are started in the kitchen? [00:43:11] Speaker B: Over 30%. That is the number one cause of fire in a short term rental. But here's a surprising one. The kitchen stove, obviously is number one. Guess what number two is? Refrigerator. [00:43:26] Speaker A: No kidding? [00:43:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So when's the last time, Luke, you pulled your refrigerator out and all your vacation rentals and vacuum behind them? [00:43:34] Speaker A: So it's dust is what it is. [00:43:36] Speaker B: Well, yeah, so we use residential. Most of us go to, again, the box stores and we spend two grand, buy a kitchenaid, a whirlpool, whatever. Nice fridge, got a water dispenser, ice dispenser. We put them, the rentals, but we don't take into account the fact that those are designed to run with a small compressor because you got mayonnaise, ketchup, you're at home, you got food in it. And in these rental properties, they're left empty all the time and they're just sitting there running, sucking dust through and that dust builds up on the coils. And so we see a lot of refrigerator fires because people aren't pulling them out and cleaning them out to make sure that that hasn't built up. [00:44:13] Speaker A: Very interesting. What if I have multiple floors in the home? Should I put a five pounder on each floor? [00:44:18] Speaker B: Absolutely, yes. That can be the way that they're going to get out. It's right there at the top of the land today. [00:44:26] Speaker A: I have gotten to the point now, this is before I even talk to you, where if I'm flipping through photos of a rental, which happens fairly often, I like to rent houses or even in my own listings, because I used to be like what you're talking about. Oh, that fire extinguisher is ugly, it's tacky. And now I'm the opposite. Having gone through some just. I mean, there's no such thing as a good fire. Believe me, I've been through a few, and it is absolutely. It will stop your life right in its tracks. It's horrible, horrible, horrible. And I'm not going to get into any details about what I've been through, but I light up. I'm like, oh, there's a fire extinguisher. I need to know exactly where those are. And I want to be in the most obvious place ever. But I used to be exactly like what you're talking about. All that thing is so ugly. It looks like somebody, their decorator stinks or something like that, but it's so important. [00:45:32] Speaker B: It really is, you know, look, one of the worst skills I've developed over the past ten years doing this. This safety stuff is I can now tell. I can look at somebody, I can see it in their eyes that they've had a death in their rental property, whether it was a pool drowning, a fire, carbon monoxide incident. I know a host. I just look at the host. I can see it. It changes you forever. And the guilt that you have when you could have fixed it or prepared your guests for it. It's hard. [00:46:01] Speaker A: Yeah. The deaf thing aside, is it inevitable that something. It's not if it's when. [00:46:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:09] Speaker A: So we got to be prepared. You got to be prepared. And I think a lot of that's being mentally prepared. But if you prepare your house the way it should be with everything Justin's talking about, then you can at least go away from it saying, hey, I did everything, you know? [00:46:27] Speaker B: Exactly. A lot of people like to approach this, well, I'm insured. No, the number one lawsuit we're seeing right now are property hosts and owners that are suing their insurance company because they're not covering them, and the insurance companies don't want to cover it if it's not decode. Wait a minute. You didn't have a fire extinguisher in there? Yeah, we're not covering that claim, so peace of mind. I've never been an advocate of making these renters dress in sumo wrestler bubble suits and bounce around and they can't get hurt. And I've never thought that we can make these rental properties absolutely safe. But if you can make a commitment to this, you can minimize it. It's much better than no action at all. [00:47:09] Speaker A: And I'm the same way. I'm the house. A lot of it has to do with. Since I had kids, too, literally, before I even booked you to come on here or anything. I'm poking around my house. Where the hell are my fire extinguishers? I need to know where these things are, because you just never know. All right, talk to me about pool safety. Swimming pool safety. Yeah. [00:47:28] Speaker B: So pools are a tough one. Pools, as we know. You don't have to go too far from the news. Number one cause of childhood death, child death under the age of seven right now is from drowning. And pools and vacation rentals are a big contributing factor. State of Florida continues to see over 100 a year. Arizona, Texas, California. And so we've got to have a much better focus on it. And I hear so many people say, well, it's not on me to watch the kids, but really it is. I had a phone call from an attorney the other day. They want me to, and I don't do expert witness work. Just so we're clear, I'm an educator, not a litigator. They wanted me to testify in a case where the renters showed up and while they were unloading the car, the child walked out to the pool, walked through the door and drowned in the pool because the pool arm hadn't been engaged by the host, they had not left it on. And they're going to find someone who's going to testify that it should have been. I'm not going to testify that it should have been, but it should have been. The alarm should have worked when the guests arrived. And so we don't have good pool arms. Anybody out there who's an investor, who's looking for a good idea, I don't have time for it right now. We need pool alarms in our industry that actually make sense. The pool arms we have designed are designed for residential use. It's your family, you and your wife, you've talked about it. You and your husband, whatever, you've talked about it with your kids, you've sat down, and it's a residential setting. This is the alarm. Kids, if it goes off, this is what happens. But in a commercial setting, kids coming down to Florida from Chicago, they've never experienced a pool at home. They don't know what a pool alarm is, and their parents are annoyed by them that they have to hold the button every time they have to open the door, so they quickly pull the batteries out. And so we see a lot of pool drownings as a result of the alarms, being disabled and taken apart or not being there at all. And we also see a lot of pool drownings because we haven't provided the education to the kids. I see all these rentals where they're throwing the flamingos, the pink flamingos, the water toys, all that. You put those in the pool and you think that's great for your guests. But then the kids are drowning underneath and the parents can't see them. Those same parents who are drinking margaritas, they're on vacation, too, drinking wine and margaritas around the pool. They're not watching them. So we have to increase awareness. I believe everyone who has a pool at their vacation rental needs to leave out the cheapest, most inexpensive safety thing you can put in your property. And that is a water watcher card. It's a harness, it's a little bracelet, a card. You can custom make this yourself and laminate it. You can get them for free from the government. Just Google water watcher program, leave it on the counter and at least educate or create an awareness to guests that whoever's wearing that has to be watching the pool at all times. And they only give that card up if they're going to the bathroom. They give it to somebody else only who hasn't been drinking, who's going to watch and is committed to watching the pool. [00:50:31] Speaker A: What do you mean by wear? How do you wear a card? [00:50:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's just those little bracelets that are almost like the hair ties that the ladies put in their hair. It's just like a stretchy band and. [00:50:42] Speaker A: It'S like a keychain kind of. [00:50:43] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yep. And it's connected to the card. And some people I've seen have it as a necklace, too. Put it right there, front and center on the counter. A good friend of mine in North Carolina has done something really smart that's been effective. He created a YouTube video. It's a two minute video on pool safety, and he has it automated to send to his guests 2 hours before check in. And he says, hey, my name's Caleb. You're coming to stay in one of my properties. Parents, hold this up right now in front of your kids. I know you're anxious to get into the property and you're checking in in 2 hours, but I want you to watch this short video on pool safety. And they've had tons of positive feedback by that. That was a great timing because you're hitting them just before arrival, but they're not absorbed in the property and already there, so they're not going to watch it once they get there. But if you catch them during that anticipation time, a couple hours before arrival, you're going to have their attention. [00:51:38] Speaker A: How do I get this video? I don't want to be in the video. How do I get somebody? Can I hire Caleb to make me a video? [00:51:45] Speaker B: Well, you can hire Caleb. You get your wife, you go on YouTube. I've even seen where that crazy congressman they just expelled. You can pay him to do videos for you, but you can find somebody online who can record the video for you. [00:51:58] Speaker A: I like that. I'll put that in my guidebook. I do have a video on how the pool alarm works at my house, and I have a QR code right next to my pool. I like my pool alarm system. Yeah. I would assume that there's probably some way they can disable it, but every guest, the second they check in, they all say, how do we stop this alarm? It's so annoying. I'm like, it's doing its job. That's exactly what it needs to do. And I got a QR code right next to it that says, here's how it sends it to a video. And I'm so proud of it. I have it checked by professional security company every year. I love it when my guests get annoyed by that thing because it tells me it's working. [00:52:40] Speaker B: Exactly. So the other one there is the pool gates. And so the other reason we're seeing kids drown is because the pool gates get left propped open. I was just at a rental down in marathon key in Florida where a two year old would drown. And it's because the pool service company, every time they come, they use a rock to prop the gate open, but they leave that rock there. And so the renters show up. They don't want to keep opening and closing the pool gate to walk from the beach to the pool, so they use a rock. So I'm a big advocate of spending a little bit of money. Put a sign there on that gate that's a reminder that says, this gate must be closed at all times. If you see the rock or a bungee cord or a rope that they're using to prop it open, get rid of it. Let them know that's not okay. Really important, because that's the other common cause for these drownings, is pool gate access. [00:53:30] Speaker A: Love it. All right, we're going to cover fire pits, grills, and fireplaces on the way out. Let's start with fire pits again. When I see these folks on the Internet and such, like, building their gorgeous fire pit and that and the other, and I just roll my eyes. I'm like, you guys have never been through what's possible. Tell me your thoughts on fire pits or any kind of fire outside the. [00:53:53] Speaker B: Home so a lot of people think the fire pit, the dangerous point is that the guests leave the fire going, and maybe it'll cause a wildfire or burn the house down. And certainly the potential is there. But actually, according to insurance statistics, the reason all these injuries are happening at fire pits and vacation rentals is horseplay. Kids roasting marshmallows. They're falling into the fire pits. You've got to make sure you've got good barriers around them. And I like some signage there that emphasizes that to the parents. So that's the big awareness with fire pits is that kids and people having fun on vacation, it's falling into them that's been an issue. [00:54:30] Speaker A: I'm out on mean. I get the amenity thing. I want to have as many amenities as possible. I want my home to be more attractive than my. Don't me. I'm out. No way in hell do I want some drunk stranger on vacation starting a fire outside their house. But Justin says, it's okay. You just got to be safe. And I get that aspect. [00:54:48] Speaker B: If you don't have them, this is the other dangerous side. Don't let them bring one. We're seeing a lot of people that have those solo stoves. I love them. I have a solo stove. They're portable. They advertise that they don't get hot on the bottom, so you can set them on a deck. That's true, but the problem is the embers pop out of them and catch things on fire. We just saw a fire in Texas at a vacation rental where renters weren't homeowners. I don't have a fire pit. So the renters brought their own, set it on the deck and caught the deck on fire. So make sure you've got it in your reg. If you don't want them to have a fire pit, make sure they know not to bring one as well. [00:55:22] Speaker A: I actually have a fire free home policy in my house rules and my rental agreement. And I say if any sort of flame of any kind is created in or around this home's $250 fine, I just do that to try and discourage them. [00:55:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:36] Speaker A: And I even put in there candles. Any kind of flame, including a candle. You don't like candles? It seems. I just threw that out there. [00:55:44] Speaker B: But candles have no business. And in fact, I even have trouble with the led ones because, again, people know common sense. We've seen fire started because people are trying to light those led ones. [00:55:54] Speaker A: Okay, fireplace. Fireplace. I'm out on the fireplace. I will put it in electric insert. But that's just me. But what can we do for fireplace safety? [00:56:04] Speaker B: Got to make sure, like you mentioned before, you got a QR code there that tells them how to operate the fireplace. That can't be in a digital guide. It can't be in a book. They've got to have an easy way to see. Open the flu, close the flu, don't leave it unattended. Understand what to do with the ashes after the fire's out, give them a bucket, put it in a place where they can't just set it out on the deck. Here in my home state of Maine, we just had a fire in famous Kennebunkport because the renters took all the ashes out while they were still hot and set them out on the deck. So I'm okay with them as long as you get really good, clear instructions. I'm not as big a fan of gas fireplaces. They malfunction. They cause the majority of carbon monoxide related incidents in our industry. But if you're going to have them, you've got to have them with the timers, the wall timers that after an hour they automatically shut off. And you've got to make sure there's a carbon monoxide alarm in each room where there's a gas fireplace. [00:56:57] Speaker A: Okay, wonderful. What about propane? Is the co detector going to pick up propane? [00:57:02] Speaker B: Co detector is not going to pick up propane unless you get the explosive gas detector type, which both first alert and kitty make. I like those. If you have propane or natural gas in your rental property, spend the few extra bucks. They're about $50, but they detect not only carbon monoxide, but they detect explosive gas as well. [00:57:19] Speaker A: Very common in the east Tennessee smoky mountains to have those propane fireplaces. Is propane less dangerous than natural gas? [00:57:29] Speaker B: No, they're both about the know and they've got an odor sensor that's added to propane that's a little stronger than natural gas. But both of them have something. Hopefully the guests are going to smell it, but you want to make sure you've got all the detectors in place to catch that if it happens. [00:57:47] Speaker A: I'm going to wrap here pretty soon. But I do want to talk about grills, which is a whole other. We could do a whole hour on grills. [00:57:52] Speaker B: We can go an hour on grills. So the grills that everyone keeps buying, whether it's a weber or a next something, next star, whatever grills, I see them all over the place. They're stainless steel grills, 300, $400 at the box stores. Those come with a 36 page minimum manual, of which four pages are safety warnings. One of them is only light the grille with the igniter button. One of them is how to connect the gas grille. And yet we stick these out and let these renters use them and they have no idea what they're doing. The grille must operate as the manufacturer intended. That means if that igniter button isn't working, to light the grille, it has to come out of service immediately, never to your policy. Leave a flame stick and say, hey, yeah, our igniter doesn't work. If it doesn't work, light it. No, they say, don't do that. They come with a special chain and a matchstick holder. You don't want renters doing that. I'm a big advocate now for the Blackstone grills and I see a lot of professional companies going that way. They're still gas, but at least it's a griddle top on top. So now you're not exposing the renters to open flame erupting in their face. I think that's a much better way to go with the rental properties. And frankly, I think they cook better than the open flame grills. [00:59:08] Speaker A: What about charcoal? [00:59:10] Speaker B: Never lighter fluid at a vacation rental. Give me a break. No way. [00:59:14] Speaker A: What about these park style grills? Let's say it's 40ft from the home and cemented in the ground. [00:59:19] Speaker B: Hey, there's a reason that smokey the bear and Yellowstone National park and your local town park have gone with those. Those are idiot proof. You're putting it in a place where. [00:59:30] Speaker A: But they are charcoal. [00:59:32] Speaker B: They're charcoal. So just to go back, I was referring to the portable charcoal. [00:59:36] Speaker A: Okay, good, because that's what I use. [00:59:38] Speaker B: I use the standalone charcoal in the ground. [00:59:41] Speaker A: Can't move this thing. That's the way to go for me. I'll be honest, I think my enemies, for lack of a better way to put it, my neighbors can get a leg up on me on the grill department because I just have those smoky to bear style cemented in the ground. Can't burn my house down grills. And you can go get one of these fancy $600 grills and probably get more guests than me, but I'm not dealing with it. I am not going to let these drunk people build a fire anywhere around my house, whether it's to cook meat or any other reason. So, okay. It's good to hear from the fire guy that the smokey the bear style grill. Anyway, go ahead. You go ahead. On the park style. [01:00:19] Speaker B: Yeah, no, the park style is the way to go. I want to emphasize, don't leave lighter fluid for them. The assumption is they're going to bring match light. If they are going to use lighter fluid to light it, let them buy their own lighter fluid. And then if they leave it behind, get rid of it right away. [01:00:33] Speaker A: And you're right. If it's good enough for the national park, it's good enough for me. [01:00:38] Speaker B: Okay. [01:00:39] Speaker A: All right. What did we miss? Talk to me about breezeway. How do I get a hold of you? And I know you have courses, so I would like to take one. [01:00:47] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to send you a link so you can do it for free because you're speaking my language and I like that. [01:00:56] Speaker A: Listen, I got a lot of rental real estate, and here's another thing. I just had a house that I used to own get hit by a tornado. But still, you know what I mean? It's like you get enough real estate, it's going to happen. It's going to happen. Once you've been through a few things, your perspective completely changes. Anyway, go ahead. [01:01:19] Speaker B: So I'm a big believer in making sure that people understand what they have to do when it comes to anything. So if you think about this, if you're going to go work for Southwest Airlines and load bags on a plane down in Nashville airport, you got to go through two weeks of safety training before they let you on the tarmac. If you're going to be a cook in a kitchen, you got to go through food safety. Up until recently, our industry had nothing to train people on safety. You can't go work in a Marriott hotel without two days of safety training. So I developed a course that I believe has answered it. We've had over 1400 people just in the past two months go through the safety course. Every single one of them went, oh, my God, everybody in the industry should take this. And it's a $350 course. I'll send you a promo code to give your guests $100 off if they want to take it. And it takes you two to 3 hours to do online. And then afterwards you're certified. You get a nice certification sticker and badge and you can put it on your website. You can get an insurance discount if you're committed to doing safety inspections in your property. Some of the major insurance companies proper, for example, gives their biggest discount to people who've gone through it. So it's a good thing for our industry. It's a small commitment in time. [01:02:36] Speaker A: I'm in. [01:02:37] Speaker B: Yes. [01:02:40] Speaker A: Now wait a minute. Hold on. Why are we pigeonhole holding ourselves to the short terms? Why can't I take this? If I'm a mobile home guy, you. [01:02:46] Speaker B: Can do it as a long term guy. I've got someone who's doing midstay rentals. They're doing it. And frankly, I have a lot of people who go through the course and go, this is great. I'm going to do all this from my renters. But holy smokes, we didn't realize we didn't have any smoke alarms in our bedrooms. And we just put them in and we had a fire the other day and da da da. So, frankly, I've heard of a lot of saves from people who've gone through the course. My favorite ones are the ones where people go, we did this stuff in our own home and it made a difference. So it is a home safety course. But the difference is that you've got paying guests that trust. Mean when you go stay at a hotel, you just assume they've done all that stuff and you're paying a tax and you check into the Hilton and the Marriott, you see all that stuff. People assume that of vacation rentals. They just assume someone's checked all this stuff and you've got to meet that assumption. [01:03:34] Speaker A: For me, it was the babies. We had babies. And I said, that's it. I went through this house like a fine tooth with a fine tooth comb. Everything works great. And I got spiral alarms in every room and the whole nine yards. All right, listen. All right, so how do I get a hold of you? Did you give us that already? Where do we go? What's the website? To take the class? Yeah. [01:03:55] Speaker B: So breezeway is a short term rental, vacation rental platform that helps people manage the back of the house. There's a million websites out there that help you get bookings. Integrates with Airbnb. To get your booking. [01:04:07] Speaker A: We've had them on. [01:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So we help you manage your cleaning, your maintenance, your inspections. And that's what I do is I built all the inspection templates. So if you use the breezeway software, you can get access to my safety inspection templates and my education. That safety course you get for free if you're a breezeway customer. So breezeway IO, we're a tech company, so that's why it's IO not. And I'm easy to get in touch with that way. Safety at breezeway IO is my email address. Justinford expert is my website. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can follow me on short term rental safety on Instagram, short term rental safety on Facebook, short term rental safety on LinkedIn. And I'm constantly posting and sharing as much information as I can to help people ensure that they operate safely. Because you can. It's the one thing you can achieve. You'll never get your pricing right. You'll never get your mattress comfortable for every guest. You can make your rental safe. [01:05:07] Speaker A: Okay, wonderful. That's great. I love it, man. You're going to help me sleep a little better at night. I appreciate your time. And on behalf of short term rental management, Luke, Carl and Justin Ford, the movie star, reminding you to please don't overthink it.