A year without indoor cameras: how we keep an eye on a home
One year ago today Airbnb announced that indoor security cameras would be prohibited in listings worldwide, with the rule taking effect at the end of April (Airbnb newsroom). Outdoor cameras and noise monitoring devices remained allowed, with disclosure requirements.
At the time a lot of owners were upset about it, and six weeks past the deadline we were still finding forgotten devices on shelves and inside enclosed entryways. Twelve months on, I think the rule forced the industry into better habits, and I want to lay out what actually works now — because "I have no way to know what is happening in my house" is a real concern and it deserves a real answer.
What you are actually worried about
When an owner says they want a camera, they usually mean one of four specific fears, and each one has a better tool than a camera.
"Someone will throw a party." This is the big one. The tool is not a camera; it is screening plus a decibel monitor plus a fast local response.
"Twelve people will stay in a home booked for four." Occupancy is best controlled at the door and in the messaging, not on video.
"Something will get damaged and I will not find out." That is a turnover and inspection problem, and the answer is somebody walking the house four times a year with a checklist and a camera.
"A guest will do something illegal." That is a screening and response problem, and if it happens the answer is the police, not footage of your living room.
What actually works
Screening at the booking stage. House rules that state occupancy limits, no-party terms, and quiet hours in plain language. Verified guests. Attention to the bookings that pattern-match to trouble — a one-night local booking on a holiday weekend for a large group is a conversation, not an automatic decline, but it is a conversation.
Decibel monitors, disclosed. These measure sound level only. No audio is recorded and no conversation is captured — they report a number. Placed in the main living area and disclosed in the listing, they let you know a party is forming before a neighbor does. Disclosure is not optional and it is also good practice: guests who know there is a decibel monitor behave differently, which is the entire point.
Smart locks with per-guest codes. You know when the door opened and with whose code. Codes expire at checkout. No key handoffs, no lockouts at midnight, no former guest with a key.
An external doorbell camera, disclosed. Outdoor devices are permitted with disclosure. A camera on the front door shows you how many people arrived. That single data point resolves most occupancy disputes.
Neighbors who have your number. The best monitoring system on any street is the person who lives next door. On the homes we manage, adjacent neighbors have a direct line. It costs nothing and it works better than hardware.
The Boost part: the messaging stack
Here is the operating detail, and it is the one that prevents most of what the cameras were supposed to catch: guests hear from us before anything goes wrong.
The sequence we run on every home we manage:
At booking: confirmation with the house rules restated plainly, including occupancy and quiet hours. Not buried, restated.
Three days out: the practical message. Parking, check-in, what the street is like, what to bring.
Morning of arrival: the code, the exact door, a photo of the entry, and a direct line to a human.
The morning after check-in: one short message asking whether everything is right. This is the highest-value message in the whole sequence. Problems reported on day one get solved. Problems discovered on the review get published.
The day before checkout: checkout instructions and time, so nobody is surprised.
Any hour: somebody answers. Automated where automation is honest, a person where a person is needed, and me on escalations.
That last one is the whole thing. A guest who has a human on the other end at 11 p.m. calls that human when the lock acts up. A guest with no one to call posts about it instead.
Response speed is a monitoring strategy. A noise complaint answered in five minutes rarely becomes a party. Answered in an hour, it is already a neighbor's phone call to Codes. It is also one of the three levers that still wins a booking as the platform keeps adding listings, so you are buying two things with the same habit.
If you are self-managing
The lowest-effort version of all this, in order of value:
Send the morning-after-check-in message. Every stay. It takes thirty seconds and it will move your review average.
Put quiet hours and an occupancy limit in your house rules in one short sentence each.
Install a decibel monitor and disclose it.
Give the neighbor on each side your cell number.
None of that requires a camera, and all of it is better than one.
If you want a guest communication system running on your home without you being the one who answers at 11 p.m., talk to Boost Rentals. Guest messaging is covered around the clock on every home we manage, and I will walk you through exactly what your guests would receive and when.
— Chris Hetzner, Boost Rentals