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Good idea. I could possibly hide it taped under the back side of the toilet tank or something guests are very unlikely to check.
What kind of cabinet are you thinking about? I currently have the router on the bottom shelf of the entertainment center/TV Stand and the router on the shelf right above that.
I think many of us here who list with Airbnb areā¦
Those doors are also lockable.
@CeeBee How very true!
I wonder if I would have to replace the whole breaker box or they sell replacement lockable doors or if I could rig it somehow with that. I have a wooden door that covers the box so I was just thinking a gasp on that would be easier (although it could easily be unscrewed so would need something different than a simple hasp).
Just google it. There are locks for the existing doors or rig a lock on your cabinet. Thing is, if they are unscrewing a hasp lock at least they have to go to some effort and canāt claim it was an accident.
Yes, been looking now. They have some with combination locks evenā¦I hadnāt even thought about that possibility.
Very true but still wonāt help with evidence if they do. If Iām going to all this trouble I would rather just make it so they would actually have to do willful damage in order to do it instead of just put screws back in where then thereās no evidence of tampering having been done. Damage is more likely to be covered when it comes to Airbnb. And I would think that most wont actually do the damage given the problems it could cause them. Most of my problem guests are just trying to cover their tracks not actually do damage.
They make hasps that lock and you would have to unlock it to access the screws. This what we put on our little under-the-stairs-closet where we have our Orbi locked up.
Ahhhhh! Thanx! Brain fart on my part. When I bought the place I had a hasp that could be I screwed and replaced it with what you showed! Thanx again!
I had NO idea that was a thing people do??!! Thank you so much for posting this.
Am in the process of researching CCTV systems for my whole house rental and for my daughterās ski resort AirBnB. It is disheartening to know guests can fool around with it like that.
One of my many cameras has a local storage micro-disk so since it still had power it was recording. I just didnāt have any way to get to the footage remotely while the WiFi was off. I have several different brands and types of cameras for this very reason. However, in this case the area being recorded was the side yard which is normally only in use when the guest brings pets. So in this. Are it was of no help.
Means I need to work on getting more cameras up. I recently bought a bunch of $20-$40 Wyze cameras to mount in the corners of the house. I also bought the brackets. Now I need to figure out how to get the wiring done to the powerā¦the plan was to have an electrician put a power distribution outlet box inside the eaves on each corner of each house but getting an electrician to actually come out for an estimate even is nearly impossibleā¦even when I said I have possibly 3 houses and a barn to be doneā¦ ugh! I am so sick of not being able to get reliable workers or ones that will even show up once!
Thank you for that information. I am thinking that getting it wired in will cost more than the actual camera systems?! Its an hour round trip to the ski hill so that is one hour already charged.
I need a system that is simple to install.
Get one that has doors so you can lock it up. Tv on top with dvd player and cabinet you can put a lock on under that. Mine comes in in the laundry room where a built in cabinet makes sense.
RR
Yes, time for an electrician to do the work costs more than the cameras. Not sure how you driving an hour round trip to get to the listing costs you an hour for an electrician.
Cameras are generally very easy to install but to put them in more beneficial locationsā¦if your house isnāt already prewired or you donāt have an attic, will be a bit of an investment if you canāt do it yourself.
Right? We actually have an amazing electrician and we treat him as a king basically. Our guests usually come first except they actually come after the electrician. Even with a house full of guests Iāve let him come over and do work whenever he has time. I know that getting good skilled tradesmen is a rampant problem because when Iāve had to tell guests, āIām so sorry but there will be a little disturbance this afternoon. We have a great electrician and he has time for us today and we just canāt take a risk of losing him so I told him to come on overā they always reply with some version of āoh, of course, donāt lose a good electrician, we totally understandā.
Itās a serious problem. And yet we keep pushing everyone to go get a bachelorās degree that puts them in debt and low-paying new-grad jobs and doesnāt help anyone get plumbing fixed, electrical work, fences installed, etc And itās a shame because the people I went to school with that went into trades started making great money much sooner and most own their own shops now and definitely arenāt paying off school loans.
Iāve been lucky so far.
Two rentals, two Spectrum modem/router combos, nothing locked upā¦occasionally my routers need to be rebooted and Iām not premises so I left them accessible. Like mentioned in prior posts, the savvy saboteur can unplug it or flip a breaker or cover the camera. If someone truly wants to circumvent monitoring they will find a way.
Many years ago, I worked for a cash-heavy food service company with cameras on the registers. Employee A decided to clean and noticed dust on the wall from the HVAC vent, while cleaning moved the camera then 30 minutes later the store was robbedā¦people will always find a way
Travel time for the electrician. Job is outside of city limits in a rural location.
The Wifi in my guest suite randomly gets a bit spotty (signal has to go through a brick wall). So I got an extender to install in the suite via coax cable, and set up guest bands with guest passwords. However, while I can change the extender admin password (from āadminā) and black out the serial number to avoid anyone resetting the PW, itās pointless. The manufacturer confirmed that the IP address is available to anyone who logs on with device, and that the extender can be reset to factory defaults by pushing the reset button. So itās accessible to anyone with a minimum of tech knowledge. Also they warned against using a lockbox that would retain heat.
A locked, airy cabinet is a great solution but I donāt have room for that and Iām tethered to the coax location unless I want to spend $$$.
So I macgyvered a tamper-evident holder using a plastic magazine holder. It has cut outs on the sides but a solid spine. I drilled holes for coax and power cables, leaving the reset button and all the identifying label info covered by the spine. I zip-tied the extender into the holder so the reset button canāt be reached without cutting the ties. I could make it tamper-resistant by substituting a locking cable for the zip ties.
One thing to add ā apparently there is a whole population of folks out there who fear being exposed to electro magnetic frequency radiation (EMF) from routers ā as well as a huge number of over-priced āprotectiveā devices being sold to them!
I fully expect Iāll have some guests who unplug the extender as itās next to the bed. No bother as they donāt have access to my router in the main house, all I need to do is plug the extender back in for the next guest.
Does it really have to be next to the bed? I donāt have any EMF issues but that seems intense next to the bed. I guess it doesnāt matter if you donāt care that it gets unplugged; however, I might be afraid to unplug it and cause some internet problem (Iām not very techie).
