Locked thermostats have become a growing complaint among Airbnb travelers frustrated by hosts trying to save on utilities, but one guest in Wisconsin may have found the most creative workaround yet.
After realizing his Cudahy rental felt colder than the thermostat reading inside its plastic lockbox, the guest used a bag of frozen okra to manipulate the temperature sensor and force the heat to kick on.
His video demonstration quickly spread across TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X, where viewers praised the hack and swapped their own stories (and solutions) about hosts restricting temperature controls.
The thermostat hack spreading across platforms
The video has nearly 100,000 views on TikTok, where it was shared by the account @flackoshahin on Nov. 3, 2025.
The Airbnb guest said, despite the “really nice house” and “really cool host,” there’s a lockbox on the heat to keep energy costs down. A clip of the thermostat showed it reading at 71 degrees inside the box, but he explained the house is old and the windows leak, “So the house stays cold.”
“And then I remembered I watched a lot of movies and I’ve seen this scenario before,” he said. “The lockbox is reading a certain temp that’s regulating the whole house. So I then went and grabbed frozen stuff and put it on.”
Within minutes, the frozen food brought the temperature of the box below 71 degrees, causing the heat to turn on.
“It actually worked,” he said. “I got the box to read 67 degrees, the heat came on. The house is actually warm now.”
@flackoshahin Quick DIY vs Airbnb #airbnb #thermostat #happydadsinfatwhips #fyp #mke ♬ original sound – Happy Dads in Fat Whips
A frozen-food trick sparks bigger questions about Airbnb hospitality
People in the comments said that locking the thermostat is bad hospitality and shared other ways to deal with the situation.
“I would definitely put it in the reviews bc I’m not staying somewhere like this.”
“Grab a wire hanger, thread it through the openings, and jab the button.”
“Spent a week at a place that did this. The second day there I same-day ordered the exact thermostat cover from Amazon. The kit had keys in there. Those covers don’t use unique keys, they’re all the same so long as the brand is the same. Returned the kit the day after we left.”
“It’s a 3-digit code…. scroll each number and you’ll be in in 10 minutes.”
“Just turn on the oven and leave the oven door open. It’ll heat up the entire area in no time.”
“I would break the lock box and prime a new one to install the last day cause absolutely not.”
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