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Hello all! I have missed many of you! It’s been a few years now since I’ve done Airbnb as a host but I’m getting back into it this year, particularly in time for the US Open! I am wondering about the subject as I will probably be buying a house w/ a Jack & Jill bathroom setup I have never seen before. Each bedroom has its own sink room off the bedroom. Then between the 2 sink rooms are pocket doors that lead to a toilet, a shower and a linen closet. How can I best deal with this to be able to rent the rooms out to separate parties and ensure that there is no accidental double occupancy AND no accidental lockouts of the opposite guest AND minimize the need for me to be physically present to go in via the offender’s bedroom to rectify it if something goes wrong? Thank you all in advance!
I did some research about a year and a half ago looking for something similar. It was very hard to find pocket door locks that even had a keyed lock. I was not able to find any that had a smart lock or a combination lock.
I did eventually find one that had a key lock and it cost me $312 if memory serves. I’ll have a look and see if I can find the details on it.
I know you didn’t ask this so forgive me please for the unsolicited opinion…but I must say I think renting out the rooms to separate parties is potentially very problematic. First, there is the issue of one party or the other accidentally locking the other out. Second, there is the cleanliness issue. One party may be quite a bit more messy than the other. And, since it’s a shared bathroom without access from a common hall, you can’t go in and tidy up if one guest leaves a disgusting mess because the bathroom can only be accessed from a private guest space.
Shared bathroom situations work best when the guests are all part of the same group…family, or friends, or co-workers, in my experience.
You could put up 2 separate listings. One for one bathroom with a private bath, and another for 2 bedrooms with shared bath. I think you might make out better that way. Single rooms with a shared bathroom don’t tend to rent for much.
I’m trying to get my head around that. If I am renting room A and my code is 1234, what stops the person renting room B from using their code 4321 to get into the bathroom whilst I am using it?
Wouldn’t I have to use a bolt or similar on the room B side door and then remember to unbolt it when I leave the bathroom?
I think @Keugenia has the best idea. As @jaquo said, what stops the other party from using their code? And non-smart locks are bad, too - it absolutely WILL happen that a guest leaves the other lock locked which keeps the other guests out.
Do you have another bathroom down the hall that one of the bedrooms can use? If so, lock out permanently from the shared bathroom the one that can use the bathroom down the hall. Then advertise one as “en-suite bathroom” and the other as remote.
Otherwise - same party for both rooms. Maybe make one listing that is one bedroom with the bathroom, and the second listing at a 50% upcharge for both bedrooms with shared bath and be clear it is a Jack-and-Jill bathroom.
I’m not sure if there is room. I’d have to measure that and it would be extremely extensive work (and money more than having the extra individual room would make) because when I take out the pocket doors I’d need to add a stud back because I couldn’t put hinges (or more likely the latch hole) on the empty space where the pocket doors were. But at least this way I could put a regular smart lock on each door to be able to rectify it remotely if someone forgot to unlock the inside of the other lock before going back to their own room.
I found lots of pocket door locks with keys on ONE side, price range $15-$35 and then on up, of course. I am very interested to see what lock you purchased for $312 (or whatever price). How do you like it? Would you please post pics of both sides?
Yes this is something that I looked at and was hoping to find a SMART version. I did find this that is made for sliding patio doors and I think could work like the one you provided. These both do block the door from opening fully but only slightly.
I totally agree on your indication of even more problems than I outlined as far as just the locks go. I certainly will do the listings as you said! I am wanting to at least consider the alternative I indicate needing the smart locks for.
Instead of using any latch bolt while on the inside it would be the smart lock I am inquiring about. The sink/bedroom sides could have mechanical locks with no issues. It is the inside that would need the smart lock so I could rectify it remotely. If there was any kind of “dumb” mechanical lock on the toilet shower side of the doors it would require me to physically go in through the offender’s private bedroom to rectify it if they weren’t there to do so. Not something I would want to have to do, as I expect there will be many times where I am not even there!
The smart lock is for ME to use smartly. The guests would not need a code as they would physically lock it themselves while inside. They SHOULD also unlock it before they leave out the opposite door but if they don’t I can remotely.
To get in a person would not need to use the smart lock but unlatch their side. This would likely be a simple slide latch similar to what might be in a bathroom stall.
No guest would need to use any code. The smart lock is for use while INSIDE the toilet/shower area but mechanically for the guest and only smartly for ME to rectify if they forget to you lock it before leaving. Yes, I would NOT even attempt this without a smart lock I could use remotely.
I do have a powder room down the hall off the kitchen/living room that the guest could use the toilet if needed but no shower.
I started some research for you but haven’t gotten very far. I did find this discussion about a similar situation on Houzz. It seems to lean toward using synchronized locks, which makes sense to me as, ideally, you wouldn’t be needed at all to facilitate the locking/unlocking. The last post at the bottom has several links to equipment/ideas that might (or might not) be useful or at least give some ideas so here’s the link (scroll all the way to the bottom):
Thank you, @JJD ! This is something I was wondering about! This option seems wonderful for industrial uses and I’m sure has the industrial price tag as well. (Actually the price is not as bad as I thought, given the exchange rate, but shipping costs might be prohibitive and aren’t known until shipped. It is the INSTALLATION that would be much more tricky and involved than replacing a deadbolt with an August Smart Lock or replacing a doorknob system with a Turbo Lock (Bluetooth or not).) This is the “smart” AUTOMATING of the doors so it never becomes an actual issue (as long as their is electricity).
The $2k Is version seems quite similar for a LOT more money and that’s before installation as well.
I was wondering how I could potentially do that with a smart lock (for only me to be able to operate remotely) and a single key (maybe hung from the center ceiling on a long string to reach each door by not get lost) that required the locks to match each other in order to work, but then they could never use the bathroom without being completely locked in and that is definitely not good.
If my two smart locks could work like connecting the calendars of multiple listings on Airbnb does that would be great! (i.e. when any one of the individual rooms gets booked the whole house option isn’t available and vice versa)
I am still very interested in seeing the $312 option @Keugenia has. I wonder if it is like the one I posted from the The Connected Shop.
Are you absolutely dead-set on renting it out to separate groups?
Our three-bed/three-bath house has walls that don’t go all the way to the ceiling, so you can hear what’s going on in the bathroom if it’s quiet (which is usually is) and if you are on the other side of the wall. We only rent out to groups that are travelling together. We still get a few people that are extremely modest about bathroom noises and are uncomfortable with hearing other people’s noises or people hearing their noises. Although I’m sure your bathroom is enclosed, it’s possible guests will hear noises through the walls and be less than thrilled about that.
Not absolutely, not yet anyway. Given that there are the sink rooms between the toilet/shower room and the bedrooms it is even less likely that the noise will be heard by guests in the other room. And as you can see by the floor plan, the doors to the sink rooms and to the toilet/shower room are not directly across from each other either.
So far I like it fine. Mine was that expensive because I needed to match it stylistically to the other hardware in the home, which was built in 1913. Also, it needed to be installed on a heavy solid oak pocket door. I bought it 2-3 years ago and the price has definitely gone up since then. It is only keyed on one side. The inside door side of the lock just has a thumb turn knob to lock it. That works fine for me, because it’s the door to the laundry and storage room that I want to keep guests out of; they have a separate laundry room.
