RESOURCES · GUIDEBOOKS
The guest privacy checklist: what the last guest left behind in your rental
Every connected thing in a rental keeps a little of the people who used it. The television holds their streaming logins, the router the names of their phones, the lock the code you texted them. Guests are increasingly aware of this, reviews mention it, and a few platforms now ask hosts to disclose devices outright. This is the room-by-room list of what a previous guest can leave behind, what to clear at each turnover, and what your guidebook should say so the next guest knows what is recording and what is not.
The television
The biggest one, and the most visible. Streaming apps stay signed in until someone signs them out, so the next guest opens Netflix to a stranger's profile and watch list, YouTube to their history, and Amazon to their account with purchases enabled. Sign out of every app at each turnover and clear the history in YouTube and the browser. If the television is a Google TV, remove any Google account a guest added in Settings under Accounts & sign-in. Better, put the television under management so checkout day does all of this by itself; it is the one device on this list where the fix can be automatic.
The WiFi router
Routers keep a list of every device that has joined, by name, sometimes for weeks, and a guest network that has no sign-in page shares the same password with every guest who has ever stayed. Use a separate guest network, change its password at least a few times a year, and if the router supports a captive sign-in page, use it: each guest signs in as themselves and the password stops being the thing that circulates. Do not put the guest network on the same segment as your own cameras, printers or the thermostat.
The door lock and the thermostat
A smart lock with a code per stay is a privacy improvement over a lockbox, as long as the old code is actually deleted; a lock with a hundred stale codes on it is a hundred keys. Check the lock's app after each checkout, or use a lock the platform or your PMS rotates itself. Thermostats and the like usually hold nothing personal, but their apps may keep a location history if a guest signed in; leave them on the house account and lock the schedule.
The sign-in sheet and the guidebook
The paper WiFi card on the counter is not a privacy problem, the guest register some jurisdictions require is a mild one, and a guestbook is one only if guests write their surnames. What the guidebook should carry is a short, plain paragraph: which devices are connected, what each one keeps, that there are no cameras inside, and where any outdoor cameras and noise monitors are. It is the same disclosure the platforms ask for in the listing, repeated where the guest actually reads it, and it takes a complaint off the table before it forms.
The turnover, in one list
Sign out of every streaming app and clear the television's history. Delete any Google or Amazon account a guest added. Delete last stay's door code. Glance at the router's client list for anything that should not be there. Then check the guidebook still says what is true about all of it. Twenty minutes the first time, five after that, and the one on the list you can automate is the television.
Common questions
Do I have to disclose smart devices to guests?
Airbnb requires hosts to disclose security cameras and recording devices in the listing and bans them inside the home entirely; noise monitors must be disclosed. Vrbo has similar rules. A television or a speaker is not a camera, but a line in the guidebook saying what is connected and what it keeps is cheap and guests appreciate it.
Is a previous guest's Netflix login my problem?
Legally it is theirs to sign out of, practically it is yours: the next guest sees a stranger's profile and reads it as a room not turned over, and the previous guest has no way back in to fix it. Sign out at every turnover, or use a television that does it on checkout day.
Build a guide guests actually open
Tabellara turns this advice into a working guidebook: app-style guides, area maps, and page-level analytics.
Create your guide