Sydney man found property manager secretly living in his apartment

A shocked Sydney man found his property manager secretly staying in his apartment – inspiring him to make a big business move.

When Adalbert Hutter returned from an overseas trip one Australian summer, he couldn’t understand why his beachside property in Sydney that he put up for holiday rental remained empty with no bookings.

He was shocked by what he found.

“I was riding a motorbike through Siberia to the Arctic Circle, raising money for charity and there wasn’t much phone signal as you can imagine,” the 40-year-old told news.com.au.

“But when I came back home the expectation was that, it was summer time, [the property] would be rented out and the rental account had some cash in it.”

But when Mr Hutter checked, there was no new money in the account.

“I had a look at the calendar and it showed it was empty, the place was vacant,” he said, adding that he thought he would go check it out.

“I opened the door and the place was just full of clothes and personal effects, and I see a head pop around the corner.”

Much to Mr Hutter’s surprise, it was his property manager living in his Manly apartment.

Sydney entrepreneur Adalbert Hutter found his property manager living in his Manly apartment. Picture: Supplied

The incident inspired Mr Hutter to found his tech start-up, Cappsule. Picture: Supplied

“I was shocked and thought maybe I did something wrong, maybe I’d misread the calendar … I apologised to her and she was quite freaked out,” he said.

It turned out the property manager had been living in the northern beaches apartment while he was away.

“I knocked on the doors to my neighbours and it turns out as soon as I left she moved in,” he said.

It was this ordeal about eight years ago that inspired Mr Hutter, a tech entrepreneur, to create new technology that could give hosts more information about what happened inside their holiday rental homes, while maintaining guests’ privacy.

After years of playing around with prototypes, the “Cappsule HQ” was born.

Cappsule’s device is said provide hosts information about their property while maintaining the privacy of guests. Picture: Supplied

Mr Hutter told news.com.au that the device – which he hopes will be on the market this year – would be placed in the common area of holiday rental properties, such as the living room.

“You put it in the common area and it detects what’s going on in the ambient space, so it’s packed full of sensors and we run our own proprietary algorithms through those sensors,” he explained.

“So for instance if there’s a party brewing, you know there’s going to be a lot of movement, increase in baseline of sound, you might have an increase in things like carbon dioxide and the number of mobile devices in the property.

“There’s all these different elements you can measure without invading privacy, so [for example] you can measure the sound level without listening to someone’s conversation.”

Mr Hutter said the technology could even pick up on the sound of breaking glass and would send an alert to the owner or property manager if no one was meant to be in the property.

Once a guest leaves a property, the host gets a report of anything to look out for, like breakages.

In June last year, investment group Australian Silicon Valley decided to back the project and fund the development of the tech.

Next week, Cappsule – the Australian tech start-up Mr Hutter founded to launch the product under – will launch a capital raise to fund the first production run.

The aim is for the product to be on the market in six months.

Mr Hutter now lives in Bondi and rents out the property often when he is away for work. Picture: Supplied

There are also “Cappsule Stay Tags” expected to be on the market in about two months, which can be attached to expensive items such as televisions.

An alert is immediately sent to the owner or property manager when the tagged items are dropped, moved or leave the premises.

“As a traveller myself I want to make sure privacy is front of mind because I’ve been spied on while I’ve been travelling … it’s a real uncomfortable feeling, I wouldn’t wish that on anybody,” Mr Hutter said.

“But also in terms of accountability, protecting your asset. Your home and its contents are your biggest assets.”

Mr Hutter ended up selling the Manly apartment and now lives in Bondi – which he also often rents out for holiday goers when he is away for work or caring for his elderly parents.

Last year, a similar incident at that home reinforced his mission to launch the tech.

“I walk in the front door and there’s someone sitting at the table … it turns out it was the property manager’s friend,” he said.

He said this property manager claimed to make a “judgment call” as the home was vacant and their friend was visiting and needed somewhere to stay.