I noticed my router was disconnecting for the last 3 nights between 11pm-8am after the current guest checked in. I scheduled an appointment with the cable company to have the issue checked out. When I informed the guest about the appointment he admitted he was turning off the router at night to reduce EMF while sleeping. He said he noticed I have several cameras connected to the router that should reconnect when he turned the router back on in the mornings. I have one ring peephole camera on the front door and noiseaware connected to the router. Both were installed after issues with unauthorized guests and parties. They are disclosed in the house rules. Has any one else had a guest with these issues? After the party issues it sends up red flags when guests disconnect the router. Do I say something in the guest review for other hosts to see?
I havenât had this issue but you need to lock the router in a place guests canât access.
Yes, please.
The âtin hatâ folks are out there, right along with the âvaccines are not for meâ people and the believers that a pizza shop where Hillary Clinton eats babies makes perfect sense.
I had for a while a ârouterâ plugged in in my living area. It was fake, of course, and âdisconnectingâ it did not disrupt the wifi. Buy one used for $20. Sometimes that will work.
@Rolf You can call it tin hat and lump them in with nutcases, but itâs a real thing. I had a guest who has EMF sensitivity. She wasnât some nutcase, she still uses her laptop, because as she said, you canât live in todayâs world without being connected, but she definitely limits her time on it.
She wasnât some fusspot who is allergic to everything, not a complainer or navel-gazer. It took years for her to find out what was triggering a really weird, disturbing feeling she would get in her body, particularly her arms. When it was identified as EMF-caused, and she stopped using a cell phone and limited her online time, that feeling disappeared. As soon as she has to use a cell phone, or do a lot of online work, it instantly comes back.
I also had a guest whose business is going into peopleâs homes and offices and monitoring the amount of EMFs they are being exposed to, and shows them ways to rearrange things to mitigate the exposure.
He got into that business after he and his wife, who were young and healthy, lived in an apartment with a cell tower on top and both of them started to get ill with symptoms the doctors couldnât peg to anything. My guest had thought it might be related to the cell tower, started researching that stuff (he already had a degree in environmental science). They moved from that apartment and both started to get well right away.
I donât think itâs BS, but like anything, some people have sensitivities others donât.
Hereâs a previous post on this subject:
I remember looking at this back then and I found a couple of double blind studies that concluded people who claimed to be sensitive to EMF could not detect the presence of EMF. This was for consumer EMF that would come from devices in your home (WiFi, Bluetooth, cell phones, etc.), not commercial EMF that might come from cell towers, power lines, microwave communications transmitters, etc.
I assume youâre a remote host or at least somewhat remote. Have you verified some other way that the guest is indeed NOT having parties at your listing and using the EMF sensitivity as a cover for disconnecting your security cameras?
I have my WiFi extender plug labelled in the suite so guests can identify it and unplug it if they wish, either at night or for the duration of their stay.
So I can accommodate guests without getting into the scientific validity of their concerns.
I did have an inquiry from a guest who said they and their partner were sensitive to chlorine and asked permission to unscrew my shower head and put some sort of filter on it, but they didnât ultimately book.
I havenât had a guest unplug the router, but they did ask where it was and if it could be turned off at night.
I have very bad tinnitus, have had for years. I never thought about EMF exposure until I spent 2 weeks backpacking in Central America with little to no cell tower reception and all the internet was land-line based. About 5 days in, I turned to my was-band (ex hubby) and told him I could hear perfectly and the noise was gone. I spent the rest of the time blissfully happy and thought it was due to being in Panama and Costa Rica enjoying the beaches and jungles.
Back home in San Diego and BAM. Ringing started up again. Thought it was stress. Met an environmental scientist who explained about EMF sensitivity. Now, if I unplug, go sailing offshore, and am away from âcivilization,â the ringing dissipates.
No tin hats here, just a constant white noise that goes away if I detox from cell phone coverage and wi-fi.
Yes, please. But make it kind.
Absolutely!
Iâm thankful that my router is in my part of the house and never gets turned off until the UPS shuts down during a power failure. If I did have a separate router for upstairs, it would be locked away.
Anyone staying here who is worried about EMF is in the wrong place. There are VHF TV and FM broadcast (100KW) transmitters half a mile away, and a large Federal office building with FBI, Coast Guard, NOAA, Customs, and US Marshals transmitters on top 3 blocks away, and cell towers the same distance in other directions. 2 ham radio operators on the hillside above and behind me.
Like allergies, if a guest has special concerns, itâs their responsibility to make that known to hosts before they book, to make sure things wonât be an issue for them.
The guest I had with the EMF sensitivity didnât say anything about it beforehand, because, as I said, she wasnât a fusspot who expected others to cater to her particular issue.
She just told me about it by way of explanation as to why she doesnât carry a cell phone around with her. When she phoned to say she had arrived at the bus depot, she just asked the woman who was her seatmate in the bus if sheâd mind making a quick local call for her. Otherwise she just would have walked the 20 minutes to my place.
The guest informed me that he is currently seeking a medical retirement from his job because of his condition. My downstairs neighbor would have informed me by now if he was being loud and having parties while the router is turned off. I wish he would have told me about his special needs the first morning I contacted him about the router. I advised him to communicate with future hosts about his special needs or maybe put something in his profile. We agreed its ok to power off the router at night if it helps him sleep,hope we donât regret it. Its been a learning experience.
I will be kind. I appreciate your informative response.
I hosted in a small town in AZ for several years. This area was sought out by people with EMF issues which I knew very little about until moving there. I had a few guests stay that had these issues and my place worked out fine for them.
I got to know one woman that lived in town that stayed a night or two with me when she was having problems at her rental. It is something that is a little hard to understand, but I came to believe it is a real thing and can cause the person a huge amount of anxiety and turn their life upside down.
No one would make this stuff up.
People can have real things whether itâs caused by what they think itâs caused by or not. Itâs like people here who are dismissive of emotional support animals. The help they provide is real. PTSD is real. Anxiety is real.
The problem is when a guest behavior disrupts what a host needs to run their business. Luckily my router is in my part of the house. Guests have excellent reception because their room is right next door but they canât turn it off. Iâve had over 1000 guests and no EMF sensitivity yet.
Maybe a block of shungite by the router will help? Label it with an explanation. Shungite blocks (or absorbs-I donât know which) EMF.
There is a growing trend to place shungite on desks to block emf from laptops & cell phones.
Whether it works or not, I donât know but there are studies. Hereâs some anecdotal âevidenceâ.
Decorative piece 20âx20â $19.99
Yes a bit different but might give some benefit.
I would be hesitant to put the sensitivity in the review as it would be revealing a medical condition. I would, however, reinforce his need to disclose to future hosts in the private remarks. If all else goes well, I would give him a positive review.
The only thing is EHS is not a recognized illness in the medical field so not sure if worded delicately that would be an issue.
You might consider getting a shower filter. I got one called Mission 8 on kickstarter. After all the covid related delays I finally got it, liked it and bought two more. In shopping around I see there are a variety of filter set ups now and you might see something you like better. Some are supposed to reduce hard water, some reduce chlorine. Regardless of their claims it seems to me to be the sort of thing that isnât that costly and canât hurt. I got good reviews of my shower before I bought the filter so I canât tell if it helped or just maintains my showerâs reputation.
At least they asked, rather than just doing it and leaving you with a leaky mess when they took it out and declare it their âright to be free of chlorineâ.
The suggestion to have the router locked away creates a new issue. I stayed somewhere where WiFi was important to me and the remote host walked me through resetting the router when it was necessary. I would have been out of luck with a locked away router. I would suggest privately to this guest that he/she inform hosts of this need before booking since an unplugged router doesnât just affect that rental property. I would cut the guest some slack if they are relatively new to Airbnb. If they are not, I would be more apt to mention it in the review.