<![CDATA[[video width="1280" height="720" mp4="https://professionalholidayhomes.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/How-to-stop-guests-trashing-your-holiday-home-1.mp4"][/video]
<br /]]> I just read an article online about some guests causing $150,000 worth of damage at a beautiful waterfront house in Melbourne over the weekend. I just thought to myself, seriously… what the!
This is a classic example of not vetting guests correctly and is so easily avoidable. Now we have another instance of an article about party houses in the media because, let us face facts, articles about millions of holiday makers having a nice peaceful time over the weekend doesn’t unfortunately make the headlines. So, what can you do to prevent this?
It’s a very simple case of… are you actually allowing people who you don't want in your house to come into your house. It’s as simple as this if you don’t want under 25's or large groups of under 25's coming into your property, specify it in your property descriptions and specify it in your rules so that you don't have them inquiring in the first place.
Secondly, if you can sense that you have a larger property and it's going to be occupied by large groups of people put extra additional steps in place such as getting photo ID and also (the biggest deterrent of all) make sure you get a massive security deposit from them. I’m talking a $1000 $2000 or even $3000. If you've got a multi-million dollar property and you want to protect it make sure you're charging a significant sized bond if you're going to be putting yourself at risk of that happening.
There are a few other things that you can put in place to prevent things like this occurring as well. There are devices out there like NoiseAware that you can install for a couple hundred dollars that will alert you in the event that something is going wrong such as a party or a disturbance.
You can also stalk your guests on Facebook or LinkedIn to get additional information about them if you think there might be a risk that they’re going to have a party in your house.
The other thing that you can do as well is making sure that you've got adequate insurance in place. If the worst does happen and someone does cause damage to your property it's really important that you have a policy that covers you for accidental damage and also malicious damage. But as I always say, prevention is the best form of cure. Put steps in place where you’re not letting these kinds of people into your house.