Airbnb Cleaning. How you approach your turnover is going to be crucial to your success. Travelers expect a clean, fully functional property upon arrival, and anything less can result in a negative review. Any review about a lack of cleanliness is not good for business.
Between guests, it’s easy to miss grime that can build up over time. This is true, especially during high season, so a good spring cleaning is a great idea. Make sure to inspect well at least once a month for these 10 things that are grossing out your Airbnb Guests.
Airbnb Cleaning Schedule
At the very least, you should have a cleaning scheduled after each guest’s departure. Not only do you want your home cleaned after travelers leave, but your Airbnb cleaning provider will be the eyes and ears of your property and can notify you if there are any maintenance issues or damages. If you have a week before the next guests arrive it’s better to go in and clean right away. You don’t want germs or bacteria to move in. You can do a quick freshen-up and dust the morning before they arrive. Here is the cleaning schedule that I give my cleaners.
1. Fingerprints on The Walls
I’m a mom of a couple of kids, so I’m quite familiar with fingerprints, but don’t always notice them (or i’m just ignoring them!) Have a good inspection of the walls in your Airbnb you may find there are marks and greasy-looking prints all over, which may make guests think ”what else hasn’t been cleaned around here?”. Decorative Mirrors also should be cleaned after every guest.
Solution: Go around armed with a ‘magic eraser’ and wipe away any fingerprints and marks on your walls and baseboards. Trust me you will find them. Once a year you should consider touching up the paint where needed.
2. The Faucet
The faucet and the handles of the overflow hole can have some serious bad guys lurking in there. If you have hard water it can cake onto the facet and leave a yellowish hard film and seem impossible to scrub off. Don’t give up and leave it.
Solution: Use A hard water mineral cleaner when needed. A toothbrush with baking soda will also do the trick. I found this great hand-held brush that is rechargeable and you don’t need to do the scrubbing at all.
3. Back of Chairs
Check the back of your dining room chairs. I bet there’s a bit of pasta sauce or chocolate clinging on for dear life. If guests touches a sticky chair back they will be grossed out. Carefully examine your chairs. The legs are often full of splatters and spills and they don’t often get seen and cleaned.
Solution: Fill a bowl with some warm water and dish soap and go to town with a dish sponge, preferably one with a scrubber side.
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4. Lightswitches
I once had a guest who arrived with the flu. I could hear coughing and sneezing the whole weekend from the suite. Cringe! I was determined to completely air the place out and do a deep cleaning. That’s when I saw the light switches. We have metallic switch covers and they were covered in creamy fingerprints and had some gunk on the wall around. How long had they been like that? I’m glad The next guests did not have to ask themselves that same question.
Solution: Use some disinfecting cleaning wipes, or spray a paper towel with an all-purpose cleaner and wipe those switches down!
5. The Sofa
Imagine the remote slips down the side of the couch and your guest reaches down, only to be greeted by a handful of crumbs and a sticky candy wrapper.
Solution : When guests check out you really should vacuum the couch, and down the side and middle cracks. Look for spots and with a damp cloth work on those. Using a lint roller works wonders, if you your guests had pets then definitely consider using an animal hair vacuum.
6. The Blinds
If you have blinds they may have an oily residue with dust on top. Vinyl blinds splattered with grease, such as in a kitchen, require a bit more cleaning than blinds that are simply dusty. Not the best combo for a guest to see.
Solution: Since the blinds are vinyl, they may be washed with a mild soap-and-water solution after vacuuming and dusting them to remove any grimy residue that remains.
7. Bathroom Hidden Zones
This may be an obvious thing to clean. But how clean, how deep cleaned is it really for every guest? For sure, you cleaned the bowl and the underside of the seat? But what about the sides and the treasure of unmentionable gunk lurking on the floor behind the back of the toilet? Also, check the insides of the vanity, I’ve had guests leave items there many times.
Tip: Sit on the toilet, like a guest will and look around with fresh eyes. What do you see? Are the baseboards clean? Are the corners of the floors clean? Pick up use some wipes and disinfect or use a swifter to get behind the toilet.
8. Kitchen Hood and Vents
Make sure to give a good spray and wipe to the hood and vents. The grease will come off easily with a little Dawn dish soap on a wet cloth. Also, vacuum the dust from your furnace’s air intake vents, they can collect dust like magnets!
9. The Trash Cans
Make sure to wipe down trash cans, and don’t miss the inside of the lid with a Clorox bleach wipe. Any leftovers are unwelcome guests and no one wants to see that!
10. Inside the Fridge
I ask guests to do a little cleaning in the kitchen before they leave and this is totally acceptable. I ask them to take or throw away and items in the fridge, load the diswasher and take out the trash. But, use a wipe and give the inside of the friege a wipe down to catch any crumbs or sauce that may be left behind.
Tips: I use a Kitchen sign in my own Airbnb, It makes the turnover way easier, here is the exact one I use.
Deep Airbnb Cleaning
I do a regular vacuum to deep clean when guests leave. I also have a iRobot Roomba that I let loose in there an hour or so before check-in. It’s a great machine to gather any dust that has settled and clean under the beds and furniture. Make sure to check for the nitty-gritty and use an Airbnb cleaning checklist. If you have professional cleaners make sure they use your checklist.
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