diff --git a/src/nspawn/nspawn-mount.c b/src/nspawn/nspawn-mount.c
index ee00362b54..ea54b23e08 100644
--- a/src/nspawn/nspawn-mount.c
+++ b/src/nspawn/nspawn-mount.c
@@ -598,6 +598,8 @@ int mount_all(const char *dest,
                   MOUNT_FATAL }, /* If /etc/os-release doesn't exist use the version in /usr/lib as fallback */
                 { NULL,                     "/run/host/os-release",         NULL,    NULL,                             MS_BIND|MS_RDONLY|MS_NOSUID|MS_NOEXEC|MS_NODEV|MS_REMOUNT,
                   MOUNT_FATAL },
+                { NULL,                     "/run/host/os-release",         NULL,    NULL,                             MS_PRIVATE,
+                  MOUNT_FATAL },  /* Turn off propagation (we only want that for the mount propagation tunnel dir) */
                 { NULL,                     "/run/host",                    NULL,    NULL,                             MS_BIND|MS_RDONLY|MS_NOSUID|MS_NOEXEC|MS_NODEV|MS_REMOUNT,
                   MOUNT_FATAL|MOUNT_IN_USERNS },
 #if HAVE_SELINUX
@@ -605,6 +607,8 @@ int mount_all(const char *dest,
                   MOUNT_MKDIR },  /* Bind mount first (mkdir/chown the mount point in case /sys/ is mounted as minimal skeleton tmpfs) */
                 { NULL,                     "/sys/fs/selinux",              NULL,    NULL,                             MS_BIND|MS_RDONLY|MS_NOSUID|MS_NOEXEC|MS_NODEV|MS_REMOUNT,
                   0 },            /* Then, make it r/o (don't mkdir/chown the mount point here, the previous entry already did that) */
+                { NULL,                     "/sys/fs/selinux",              NULL,    NULL,                             MS_PRIVATE,
+                  0 },            /* Turn off propagation (we only want that for the mount propagation tunnel dir) */
 #endif
         };
 
diff --git a/src/nspawn/nspawn.c b/src/nspawn/nspawn.c
index db9e3b12c7..13d744870d 100644
--- a/src/nspawn/nspawn.c
+++ b/src/nspawn/nspawn.c
@@ -3758,6 +3758,19 @@ static int outer_child(
                 directory = "/run/systemd/nspawn-root";
         }
 
+        /* Make sure we always have a mount that we can move to root later on. */
+        r = make_mount_point(directory);
+        if (r < 0)
+                return r;
+
+        /* So the whole tree is now MS_SLAVE, i.e. we'll still receive mount/umount events from the host
+         * mount namespace. For the directory we are going to run our container let's turn this off, so that
+         * we'll live in our own little world from now on, and propagation from the host may only happen via
+         * the mount tunnel dir, or not at all. */
+        r = mount_follow_verbose(LOG_ERR, NULL, directory, NULL, MS_PRIVATE|MS_REC, NULL);
+        if (r < 0)
+                return r;
+
         r = setup_pivot_root(
                         directory,
                         arg_pivot_root_new,
@@ -3815,11 +3828,6 @@ static int outer_child(
         if (r < 0)
                 return r;
 
-        /* Make sure we always have a mount that we can move to root later on. */
-        r = make_mount_point(directory);
-        if (r < 0)
-                return r;
-
         if (arg_userns_mode != USER_NAMESPACE_NO &&
             IN_SET(arg_userns_ownership, USER_NAMESPACE_OWNERSHIP_MAP, USER_NAMESPACE_OWNERSHIP_AUTO) &&
             arg_uid_shift != 0) {