Yup it’s true, your cleaners will make or break your Airbnb business. They are the single most important members of your team.

Let me explain.

The biggest factor in a guest leaving a horrible review is ick factor.

Guests can be pretty lenient with many things, but a dirty house is not one of those things.

If an Airbnb host receives a terrible review because the house was dirty, that is the kiss of death for any new bookings.

Even if you do get a new booking, that guest will be on high alert for a dirty house.

And in life when you are looking for something… you find it.

So that bad review can lead to more bad reviews, killing any momentum you may have had before that first bad review. 

You Can’t Use A Regular Cleaner To Do Vacation Rentals

Now don’t worry! We’re not suggesting that you go out and clean the house yourself every time your guests check-out to make sure everything is perfect.

It’s more about what to keep in mind when selecting the right cleaners for your house.

We learned early on that a regular house cleaner would not be the right fit to clean a vacation rental.

Over time, we realized that we needed to find a team of cleaners that focuses on vacation rental hospitality cleaning.

Here are a few tips to help you find the right cleaners for your airbnb business and also what you can do to help the cleaners do what they do.

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First Things First – What is Vacation Rental Hospitality Cleaning?

Vacation rental cleaners focus on hospitality cleaning for your short-term rental or AirBnB. They will consistently accomplish a set of tasks after every cleaning.

They’re more like the cleaners you find in a hotel than the cleaners in your personal home.

In your personal home you wouldn’t expect the cleaners to check inside any personal drawers or throw out leftover food in the fridge – that would be a big no no in your own home.

But that is what you’d expect from a hospitality cleaning.

After your guests check out, the cleaners, for instance, will inspect the house from top to bottom while they follow their regular cleaning check-list.

A vacation rental cleaning service is expected to check all of the drawers, closets, and cabinets, place everything back in its proper place. They’ll provide light maintenance, such as changing the TV remote batteries or a light bulb.

The goal for a vacation rental cleaning service is to have the same level of cleaning for every new guest that checks into your house.

It’s important to organize your vacation rental, that way all your guests have the same experience and it also help your cleaners get their job done faster.

Remember, when it comes to your vacation rental business, you’re only as good as your last cleaning.

What Is Part Of Their Routine?

When interviewing the cleaning service for your vacation rental, ask them what is covered in their routine cleaning checklist.

You can expect the standards to all be done, vacuuming, dusting, cleaning the bathrooms should all be standard.

Some cleaners charge additional fees for things like BBQ cleaning, linens, cleaning the pool deck, cleaning outdoor furniture, etc…

Other questions to ask are:

• Do they provide soaps
• How about toilet paper and paper towels
• Do they use their own cleaning supplies

Once you know what they do or don’t do, it will help you better determine which cleaning service is the right fit for you.

Are The Cleaners Insured?

Make sure they are properly covered. Your cleaners will have full access to your house and, sometimes, your guests.

You want a cleaner that has their own insurance coverage in case anything happens while they are at your house.

The last thing you want is the cleaners to get injured while cleaning your house – and for you to be on the hook for it.

Is It The Same Cleaners Every Time Your Guests Check-Out

It’s okay to try out a few cleaning services, in the beginning, to figure out which one is the right fit for you.

In the end, you’ll want to consistently use the same cleaners so that they have familiarity with your house.

Your regular cleaning team will reach a point where they will enter your house, and they will be able to tell right away if there is something out of the ordinary or if something needs to be fixed.

Keep in mind that your cleaner’s feedback is essential to your vacation rental business.

Your cleaners, for instance, will be the ones who will give you the green light to return the damage deposit for the guests who just checked-out.

As short-term rental owners, we rely on their feedback to make a multitude of decisions, such as maintenance issues, restocking of supplies, etc.

A new cleaner may do a great job, but their lack of familiarity will affect a lot of valuable feedback that you’ll typically receive from your regular cleaners.

They’re still getting to know the house and learning how you like for things to be done around the house.

A Note On Management Companies

Using the same cleaners will be next to impossible if you use a management company for your Airbnb.

We tried with our houses but it never worked out.

Even when the management company assigns the same cleaning company to do our house there was simply no way for the management company to ensure that we’d get the same cleaners from that cleaning company.

We were 1 step too removed. That’s the main reason we started to use our own cleaners.

Provide A Picture Book/Checklist To Help Your Cleaners

It’s really helpful to create a house picture book with a checklist. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy.

Even a team of cleaners with intimate knowledge of your house can forget where certain items should to be stored or may even miss that something is missing.

Keep in mind that your cleaners probably do multiple houses, and every house may start looking alike, particularly when they are cleaning back-to-back.

To be honest, there are times, where we have walked into our vacation rental and forgotten where certain items were placed.

That’s the reason why we create a picture book checklist for our cleaners.

With it they can see what the house should look like and where everything should be placed.

Providing a picture book checklist will also save you time. They can reference it instead of having to call you every time they have a question.

The picture book and checklist are also great when you are starting off with a new cleaner know. It clearly lays out what they should be doing and how the house should look when they are done.

Cleaners Are Your Eyes & Ears 

In the process of cleaning, your cleaners become your eyes and ears.

They’ll let you know when there is wear and tear or if an item is broken and needs to be replaced.

We personally don’t go to the houses after every single check-out so without our cleaner’s feedback we’d really be left in the dark.

They let us know about everything that is going on in the house.

Something as simple as them letting us know that the tub is a little slow, gives us the heads-up to call the handyman to unclog it.

A slow drain isn’t a big deal if you address it right away. But it can easily become a yucky clogged tub for your next guest.

Managing Expectations

Cleaners have a very challenging job, especially when they are doing a back-to-back cleaning (a check-out and check-in on the same day).

We don’t expect them to clean behind the stove and dust the blinds on every clean.

These tasks would be more appropriate for a deep clean, which we schedule twice a year for our houses.

Make sure to let your cleaners know what you are expecting from them and how they can communicate with you.

Some cleaners provide pictures, some video, some call while others text.

There is no good or bad way of communicating, as long as you’re both on the same page.

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