The famous seasonal rental platform Airbnb continues its fight against noise pollution. Many travelers have used Airbnb so far to find places to host parties by taking into account the neighborhood and Airbnb's rules of use. After several measures adopted to combat this phenomenon, Airbnb is once again positioning itself on the side of owners by inaugurating a partnership with Minut, a company specializing in the design of detection equipment.
Putting it into context: noise pollution in Airbnb rentals
Airbnb quickly had an image of a particularly accessible vacation rental: very attractive prices, a wide choice of destinations and accommodation, great flexibility in making reservations... It was enough to create the success met by the platform but also to observe the first abuses. Many travelers have preferred Airbnb rentals to organize their private parties. If the cases of private parties causing severe damage to housing remain marginal, nuisances in the neighborhood are much more regular.
For us, concierge and rental management agencies, the problem of noise pollution is well known. The platform therefore quickly considered a range of actions to ensure that the possibility of organizing these clandestine evenings was limited. An algorithm has been developed to select profiles upstream and block “suspicious” reservations. Age of the traveler, distance from the rental to his home, planned length of stay, time of year… These are all data analyzed to authorize or not a reservation and fight against untimely revelers on the platform. As an Airbnb concierge, this is useful to us and acts as an additional filter to our own verification in the reservation processes. Explain Antonio, concierge in Narbonne.
Not a little proud, the platform claims a 40% drop in party reports since the implementation of its party ban policy in August 2020. However, the fight continues and new actions are regularly undertaken, like of the partnership with Minut.
Minut: the rental protection specialist
Minut's story began in 2009 when its founders wondered about the best way to monitor a home without spying on its tenants. A few prototypes, a Hax acceleration program and a Kickstarter project that raised more than $200 later, Minut entered the rental monitoring market with a unique product: a detector analyzing noise, presence in housing but also other variables: temperature, humidity, etc.
This detector is easy to install, like a simple smoke detector: a base on the wall and you just have to affix the detector to it. With 5 minutes of configuration with the application and here is the security system installed without the need for external help or a specific technician. From then on, your smartphone, using the dedicated application, sends you:
- The noise level in the accommodation
- The presence of tenants in the dwelling
- the presence of (too?) a large number of people
- the temperature in the accommodation
- the humidity
All through automatic notifications. Note that this system integrates perfectly with your Airbnb owner account. Noise detection notifications are, for example, sent directly in Airbnb messaging to the owner and his tenant. A reliable and simple way to alert on excessive sound levels and to invite tenants to take responsibility. And to dissuade the clever ones, the detector also informs you when it has been removed from its base, preventing tenants from being able to lock it at the bottom of a drawer with complete impunity.
What does the Airbnb / Minut partnership bring to the Airbnb owner?
According to our concierge, the first advantage of this partnership is to inform the owners of the existence of this detector. It seems to correspond perfectly to the needs of owners in terms of noise and crowd detection without passing the common thread of tenant policing. Second advantage: 3 months offered when taking out a subscription, necessary to operate the detector.
Subscriptions are simple: €10 or €15 per month. The first includes the complete operation of the module, the second allows full integration with Airbnb for more daily comfort. An interesting offer for a useful feature. More information on this equipment on the Airbnb website and Minutes.
