Seems easy enough – right? Well not always. I hear complaints from guests that range from dust on the ceiling fans to a full blown stained sheets and broken furniture. If you are managing your home from a distance this is not good news – as you cannot personally inspect every turnover.
No worries though! I am going to give you some solid tips to make your home appear cleaner and actually BE cleaner.
#1 Hire a Reliable Cleaner and Pay Them WELL
First of all – this is the golden rule to short term rental management. Let’s be real – 90% of the vacation home business is delivering a clean and comfortable home for guests to enjoy. A great cleaner is worth their weight in gold. I know many hosts will charge way more for their cleaning fee and only give the cleaner a small percentage of that. Let’s not play those games here. Give your cleaner at least $25 – $30 an hour and I even recommend cleaning the home yourself at least once to gauge just how long it take to turnover. On average it takes 1. to 4 hours to clean most of my units that range from efficiencies to a 2 bedroom pool home. For example, I pay $60 to $75 for my efficiencies. At this rate I am able to keep a small portion of my cleaning fee and put it toward a rainy day fund – and you know those will definitely happen in this business. Paying your cleaner a bit more than needed will ensure happy cleaners when its an easy turnover (90% of the time). I also find that my cleaners don’t complain too much when a messier than usual guest checks out.
#2 Let Your Cleaner Be Your Eyes At The Home
As stated before – a good cleaner is worth their weight in gold. Personally, I prefer the same person turning over my properties so they know when something is out of place or needs to be REPLACED. Broken furniture? Stained linens? Broken or missing items? Your cleaner should be able to notice these things and send you a text about them that way you are able to reach out to the past guest and request funds for missing or damaged items. The worst thing in the world is when something is broken and is discovered by your next guest. When things are damaged or missing your cleaner should be taking pictures and sending them to you so you can put claims into Airbnb if the guests refuse to pay.
#3 White Everything
Psychologically, white is the color of clean am I right? There is a reason why those fancy hotel rooms only use white linens in their rooms and it’s because white is associated with the sense of cleanliness. Now, this is not to say that you can’t get away with other colors but I can tell you from experience, that I have personally passed on homes that have darker color bedding and or linens. I associated white with cleanliness and not only that – as a host – it has saved many linens from being thrown away as bleach has been LIFE. Many of my linens have survived for a year or MORE due to them being white and being able to bleach them.
#4 Declutter Your Vacation Home
Extra items in your home that are not needed for vacationers is perceived as clutter. What happens to clutter? It gets dusty! Less is more when it comes to vacation homes and keeping it simple gives the home a light and airy look! Anything that doesn’t add to the design or the benefit of your guests should be removed.
#5 Light Scents Are Best
Nothing is worse than walking into a vacation home and smelling harsh chemical smells and cleaners. When I smell harsh chemicals it makes me think of cover up smells and if I see a bit of dust or disorder it makes me think the cleaners did a half done job. I don’t use fragrance detergents but occasionally I will dab a few drops of essential oils onto a wool dryer ball before throwing items into the dryer. This gives my linens a light fragrance that disappears after a few hours and also keeps my cleaning costs low.
