5 Ways to Promote Fire Safety in Your Vacation Homes
In recent years, we’ve seen a resurgence in people using vacation rentals as destinations for their getaways. This has been a great business boom for landlords from New York to Los Angeles as properties that were being ignored are now once again hot items. Thanks to Airbnb, people are back to using short-term rentals and living like the locals in the neighborhood.
Los Angeles is one of the most popular cities in the United States for vacation rentals, and it’s also one of the most arid and flammable big cities in the country. Plenty of landlords have had to suffer property loss due to wildfires, but there are things you can do to encourage fire safety and keep your rental property a secure place for vacationers to lodge. Continue reading to get some fire safety tips that will help preserve your Los Angeles vacation home.
1. Supply cigarette receptacles.
One of the hardest parts about being a property owner is making sure your tenants respect your property so you can continue making money off it. Cigarette butts laying around your property are something that will be a huge turn-off for nonsmoking prospective tenants. With all the short term rentals Los Angeles has to offer, you can’t afford to have any problems that will send prospective tenants headed for the next vacation rental.
One of the best things you can do is put cigarette receptacles in a designated smoking area in your backyard. You should put your smoking area on the patio or deck where there’s less chance of cigarette butts catching a blade of grass on fire.
Visitors to the city of Los Angeles from other areas of the country aren’t as cognizant of how much damage a lit cigarette butt can do, but we here in L.A. are well aware. Putting cigarette receptacles in a designated area is a great way to limit smoking to one part of the yard, prevent cigarette butts from piling up, and decrease the chances of sparking a wildfire.
2. Be sure that you have smoke detectors in your rental property.
It’s important to make sure that you have smoke alarms in every room in your home for the safety of your tenants. In fact, most states have an ordinance stating that any place of lodging has to have functioning smoke detectors. If you don’t want your tenants smoking in your home, you should upgrade to cigarette smoke detectors.
Marijuana smoke and cigarette smoke can leave odors in your home that are nearly impossible to get rid of. The fact of the matter is that most of your renters will probably be non-smokers, so you want your vacation property to be suitable for them. With a cigarette smoke detector, you can make sure your tenants obey your rules about smoking in your rental property.
3. Choose an electric stove over gas.
One of the best things about vacation rentals is that you can prepare home-cooked meals on vacation. With that being said, if you have a gas stove in your kitchen, you should replace it with an electric one. There are too many things that can go wrong with a gas stove, and you can’t assume that all of your tenants will even know how to use one.
4. Keep a fire extinguisher in your kitchen.
You should always have a fire extinguisher in any short-term rental home. Even though you hope that there’ll never be a fire at one of your properties, you should always prepare for the worst. Fire extinguishers save lives, homes, and businesses.
5. Put limits on how many people can stay in your rental property at one time.
One of the best ways to prevent fires in your vacation homes is to put limits on their occupancy. The more people there are in a building during a fire, the harder it is to maintain order and get everyone to safety. You should also forbid parties on your premises because parties are unpredictable and have been the source of many wildfires in the city of Los Angeles.