You've probably seen the headlines about unauthorized house parties taking place at Airbnb rentals, some of which have led to shootings and gunfights.
A Silicon Valley company is promising to help owners and managers of such properties put the kibosh on such gatherings. BlueZoo Inc. offers a service called Party Squasher, which uses sensors to track the number of people inside particular dwellings and alerts property managers if the number of occupants rises above a certain threshold.
Just having the service can be enough to dissuade potential revelers from renting a property and throwing a party there, said Fred Renard, BlueZoo's senior vice president of sales. BlueZoo encourages — and Airbnb requires — customers to inform potential renters that they're using Party Squasher to monitor occupancy of their properties.
That's "one way for them to prevent parties from happening," Renard said. "The first prevention that we bring is pre-emptive and being able to avoid people from booking the house in the first place to organize a party."
Property owners and managers aren't just being party poopers. There have been a growing number of incidences of theft, vandalism and violence at parties thrown at short-term rental properties in recent years. In August, a man was killed in Sunnyvale after an Airbnb rental was used for a house party.
Party Squasher's service relies on a sensor that can detect the number of devices in a particular area. Looking like a square hockey puck, each sensor can monitor an entire house and can be hidden in a closet or somewhere else out of sight. The device doesn't collect personally identifying data, protecting individual users' privacy, according to the company.
The service continuously tracks data from the sensors and sends automatic notifications to customers. BlueZoo offers a basic service that's designed for property owners with only a few homes that allows them to monitor sensors via a mobile app. It also offers a professional level service — launched last year — targeted at those with dozens or hundred of properties that allows them to monitor the homes using a web interface.
BlueZoo offers Party Squasher as a subscription service
The web app is appealing to small property management firms that are looking to grow their businesses, Renard said.
"This is one of the tools that they can use to convince property owners to give them their properties" to manage, Renard said. They can tell potential customers: "We're going to take good care of your location by protecting your investment, and we're going to provide these types of services to make sure nothing bad happens," he said.
BlueZoo charges Party Squasher customers an annual subscription fee that's based on the number of sensors they've deployed and their chosen service level. The price ranges from $249 a year for the first year for one sensor on the basic service to $149 a year per sensor for 250 or more devices on the professional-level service.
Annual renewal rates after the first year range from $108 per sensor for 250 or more devices for the basic service to $252 per device for up to 9 sensors for the pro service.
Based in Menlo Park, BlueZoo was founded in 2020 to acquire BlueFox Inc., which owned the Party Squasher product. The home monitoring service is just one of BlueZoo's offerings. Under the BlueFox brand, the company offers sensors and services that help retailers and restaurants track customer traffic in their stores and insurance companies monitor overcrowding in spaces they insure.
BlueZoo has raised $1.5 million in funding from backers including Fusion Fund.
In addition to property managers, insurers are also getting on board with its Party Squasher service. Last month, BlueZoo launched a program called SafePro through which it's teaming up with insurance providers. Those providers are offering discounts and other incentives to Party Squasher customers.
Among BlueZoo's SafePro partners is Property Protect. The Colorado insurance firm is offering Party Squasher subscribers a 10% discount on its policies.
"We like to work with owners that take a proactive approach to protecting their properties," CEO Kate Birtch said. "It mitigates risk on all sides."
A previous version of this story incorrectly reported that BlueZoo was founded in 2007 and acquired Party Squasher the same year. In fact, BlueZoo was founded and acquired BlueFox, which owned Party Squasher, in 2020. Additionally, the story reported that BlueZoo had raised $11.2 million to date. Instead, it's only raised $1.5 million. The Business Journal regrets the errors.
