A guest texts at 10:40pm: "The code isn't working." You check your records. The code is right. You send it again. They try again. It still doesn't work. Twenty minutes later it turns out they were at the neighbour's gate.
This sequence plays out often enough to be sure of one thing: the lock is almost never broken. Sort the causes hosts report and the pattern looks roughly like this:
- They were at the wrong door — roughly a third. Side entrances, duplexes, buildings where the unit number on the buzzer differs from the unit number on the lease.
- They didn't press the confirm key — about a quarter. Most keypad locks need a hash, a tick, or the Schlage logo pressed after the digits. Nobody mentions this.
- They typed a digit wrong in the dark — about a fifth. The keypad backlight takes a firm press to wake up, and a tired person taps gently.
- The code wasn't active yet — maybe one in ten, if you rotate codes by booking window.
- The battery was flat — genuinely rare, and usually preceded by a beep the last guest didn't report.
Every one of those except the battery is a writing problem.
Write the address the way a driver will see it
The single highest-value edit you can make to a check-in section is to describe the door, not the address. An address gets a guest to the block. A description gets them to the handle.
Bad:
14 Marden Street. Use the lockbox.
Better:
14 Marden Street. The house is set back from the road behind a hedge, so the number is hard to see from a car — look for the dark green door with a brass letterbox, between the white house and the corner shop. The lockbox is on the right-hand side of the porch, at waist height, under the mailbox.
That second version has three independent ways to confirm they are in the right place: the colour, the neighbours, and the fixture. A guest who is tired and slightly lost needs redundancy, not precision.
Write the code as a sequence of actions
Codes fail because hosts write the number and stop. Write the whole motion.
- Press any key once to wake the keypad. The numbers light up.
- Enter 4 7 2 9.
- Press the tick key below the 9. You'll hear the bolt turn.
- Push the door — it sticks slightly in wet weather. A shoulder is fine.
Step 3 is the one everyone omits and the one that generates the midnight text. Step 4 is the one that stops the second text.
Photograph the lockbox in daylight, from where the guest will stand
Take it from about two metres back, standing where a person with a suitcase would stand, showing the box in context with the door and whatever landmark you mentioned. A close-up of the dials is the instinctive shot and the useless one. Guests match scenes, and a scene is what they need to recognise.
If the lockbox lives somewhere unintuitive — behind a gate, under a stair, on a fence post around the side — take two photos: the wide one, and the close one showing the dials.
Decide your code policy and write it down
Three approaches, all defensible:
A fixed code. Simplest, and fine for a low-traffic property with a physical lockbox that doesn't leave a digital trail. Change it every few months and after any cleaner turnover.
Last four digits of the guest's phone. Popular with smart locks. The advantage is that you never have to send a code at all — you tell them the rule, and it is impossible to forget. The disadvantage is that guests who booked on a partner's phone get locked out. State whose number it is.
A per-stay code with a window. Safest. The catch is the window. If your lock activates the code at 4pm and your guest lands at 2pm, you have manufactured a lockout. Activate codes at noon regardless of your check-in time, and say in writing that the code works from noon but the home isn't ready until four.
The message that prevents the text
Send this the evening before arrival, not the morning of. People read travel messages the night before they fly.
Hi Sara — you're in tomorrow. Door code is 4729, then press the tick key below the 9. Green door with a brass letterbox, set back behind the hedge. Lockbox is on the right of the porch under the mailbox. Code works from noon; the place is ready at four. Photos of the door and the box are in the guidebook: [link]
If the keypad doesn't light up, press firmly — it needs a proper push. Anything at all, text me on this number.
The last line matters more than it looks. A guest who has been told what the likely failure is will try the fix before they text you. That single sentence has saved me more sleep than the lock upgrade did.
One thing worth checking tonight
Walk to your own front door after dark, with your phone in one hand and a bag in the other, and follow your own instructions exactly as written. Do not fill in gaps from memory. Most hosts find at least one step they have been holding in their head for years and never wrote down.