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[00:00:00] Sarah: Welcome back for another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.
[00:00:02] Annette: My name is Annette Grant, and together we’re–
[00:00:04] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.
[00:00:05] Sarah: And this is the–
[00:00:06] Both Annette & Sarah: Hosting Hotline.
[00:00:08] Sarah: Today we’re going to talk about bounce houses.
[00:00:10] Question: Hi, this is Ingrid from Rowe Rentals in Columbus, Ohio. I have a question regarding safety and liability. What is your take on guests wanting to bring rentals, such as bounce houses, and tents, or chairs onto your property?
[00:00:32] Sarah: Listeners, spoiler alert, we do know Ingrid.
[00:00:34] Annette: And did you hear her baby? That’s the first baby on the Hosting Hotline.
[00:00:39] Sarah: I know. He’s so cute. He’s cute in real life too. So I know Ingrid. I actually know this story. Her and her husband have an epic business here in Columbus, Ohio, next level downtown short-term rentals. Anyhoo, she messaged me when this happened, and we were talking about it. I’m going to color that in a little bit more. But what we did was we reached out to our attorney, but he’s on paternity leave. Rest up Scott Brown. And we also reached out to our good friend Justin at Breezeway. He is an international safety expert, but he also used to manage upwards of 600–
[00:01:16] Annette: I know. It blows my mind.
[00:01:18] Sarah: 600 plus vacation rentals in the New England area. So this man knows a thing or two about these outside things. It’s interesting to see what Justin had to say. So let’s hear what his recording is.
[00:01:29] Justin: There’s a couple different ways to approach this question, but first and foremost, if someone wants to bring a tent, or an inflatable pool, or a bouncy house to the rental property, that’s fine if it’s stuff that they’ve purchased on their own, they’re bringing to the property, and they’re going to use it low key. If you’re dealing with a bouncy house where you’ve rented it for a big gathering, then you need to get event insurance. An event insurance is $75. Easy to get. You can find it online. Just Google it. And that way you’re covered for any of your renters and their guests that are using these items.
Now, very important to remember, not really from a safety side, all those items are going to leave big brown marks on your lawn. So personally, I would never allow them. And as a professional rental manager years ago, I would never allow anything that would leave marks on the ground at the property. And I get it. It’s not safety-related. Supplying those items, you don’t ever want to do. You don’t even provide pool toys, so you’re certainly not going to provide an inflatable pool or a bouncy house. So just think about it. Make sure that you’re being smart when you talk to your guests about it. Think heavily about event insurance, and watch those brown spots on your lawn.
[00:02:49] Sarah: I was shocked that Justin brought up the brown spots. I’m sure he got some–
[00:02:53] Annette: Because it’ll ruin it for so long.
[00:02:55] Sarah: Some memories coming back of these things happening. I like Justin’s point of view of the event insurance, but I also want to encourage listeners too to not only look at the event insurance as an option if your guests want to bring something like this. But I’d also talk to your attorney. I’m going to say this because I know that Ingrid did talk to her attorney, and he was like, heck no. It’s just not worth it.
Even if she had them all individually sign a waiver, they were not about it. They’re like, it’s just not worth what could happen. Even the time it would take if, God forbid, an accident happened and someone got hurt and they brought it on and she had event insurance, the timing it would take to figure all that out, I don’t think it’s worth it.
[00:03:46] Annette: It’s painful thinking about it. Something we didn’t talk about in any of it yet is, depending on how close you are to your neighbors, this could be a huge issue in the neighborhood for sure. But let’s talk about how you can maybe put some of this in your listing, in your house rules, Sarah, ahead of time to mitigate any issues if, for some reason, someone just shows up and they don’t even think to ask you because it just doesn’t cross their mind.
[00:04:13] Sarah: Right. They’re like, I rent your property. I own this now for a couple days. And that’s what Ingrid and I talked about when she brought this to my attention. I was like, well, the good news about this whole situation is now you know how to round out your house rules a little bit more. You know that you don’t want to allow this.
And that way, a guest, when they book, they either sign their guest rental agreement– whether they read it or not is up to them. Or also you can say it on the OTAs, you confirming your booking means that you’ve read our house rules and you agree to all of them. And make sure that it’s in there, that these third party, these rental, what do you call them, amenities, I guess, that you bring without our permission, you won’t be able to use them at our property.
And so you can just make your house rules a little bit more robust. And here’s the thing. Maybe you’re listening to this episode and you’re like, but I have the perfect property, as Justin would say, a bouncy house. What you could do is, before you even get this question or any of the other questions that you might get from a guest, like, can they bring, I don’t know, a trampoline or any fun–
[00:05:18] Annette: A tent.
[00:05:18] Sarah: A tent.
[00:05:18] Annette: I like what Justin said there. That would be very common. Like, hey, I want to bring a tent because I’m having a family reunion or a few extra people. Those are things I can see happening.
[00:05:26] Sarah: So talk to your attorney now, ahead of time, and figure out what ducks you’d have to have in a row in order to accommodate these things. I know when we used to manage a very large vacation rental with a lot of land, you cannot bring a boat. You cannot bring in our RV. You cannot bring a tent. And that was in our rental agreement. We didn’t want them parking these things. It had safety implications, so that’s why we couldn’t allow them. And also the whole, like, the grass being indented and leaving brown spots. It could really ruin your landscape.
[00:05:55] Annette: I will say, the bounce house, that one was a surprise to me to hear about the bounce house.
[00:06:00] Sarah: She told me about that, and I was like, I’m sorry.
[00:06:02] Annette: Let’s wrap this one up, though. The guest did not end up staying.
[00:06:08] Sarah: No, they ended up staying.
[00:06:09] Annette: Oh, they did. So the bounce house flew under the radar?
[00:06:13] Sarah: Yeah.
[00:06:14] Annette: Ooh.
[00:06:14] Sarah: And so they were already–
[00:06:16] Annette: Did the bounce house show up, and they started installing it? It’s a big–
[00:06:20] Sarah: Okay. This might be he said, she said, so Ingrid, don’t kill me, but I feel like the cleaning team reported back to Ingrid that something was happening with a large inflatable in their backyard. I feel like it was something like that. And so–
[00:06:35] Annette: They caught wind of the inflatable.
[00:06:36] Sarah: Ingrid made it right. She figured it out, and now she is more equipped for future stays, and she was so kind to call that question in.
[00:06:44] Annette: Yeah. Be on the lookout for bouncy houses, everybody.
[00:06:48] Sarah: Bouncy house. And Justin, thank you so much for your insight, not only as a safety expert but also as a former vacation rental manager of 600 plus properties. Oh my gosh. They’re so many. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.
[00:07:02] Annette: I am Annette Grant, and together we are–
[00:07:03] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.
[00:07:04] Sarah: Talk to you next time.
