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Does anyone offer daily housekeeping (making the bed, vacuuming, wiping down the bathroom, etc)?
@Zandra’s post made me think of it. While it would be added work, it would definitely be a perk in saving linens and cleaning major stains quickly, etc. I wouldn’t do this with every guest, but maybe something offered that guests could agree to and would be an added amenity.
Not sure if I want to mess with it, but it could be a nice perk. I’ve been thinking of adding a personal safe to the apartment and I would do this first for their peace of mind. Thoughts and experiences?
Daily “maid” service means you are definitely filling out a Schedule C, not a Schedule E. But even more important, if you make this promise, you loose control over your non-checkin days in addition to the checkin days.
You would have to constantly be checking, have they left the space now? now? not yet. now? And then drop whatever you are doing to clean while they are out, since you don’t know how long they will be gone. Good luck getting guests to agree to cleaning during a specific window of time. Guest A is recovering from a small surgery so has no plans to leave the space today. But next week, Guest B sleeps until 11am since they work until 2am. And then Guest C checks in and it up and out by 6am, but sometimes returns around 1pm for a nap, but other days doesn’t return until 7:30pm.
:: shudder ::
How would you plan your lessons with the kids, or baseball practice, or dance lessons? I can’t imagine this working out well for you or your family.
Yeah, no, I definitely don’t want to deal with that. I was thinking more along the lines of adding it to longer stays as a once a week, pre-scheduled go-over with linen changes. But those who offer daily housekeeping will have thoughts and experiences with it.
I’m just trying to think of a way of wording something that will make it easy to pop in, straighten up the bed, and turn down the AC units this summer!
My one longer term guest… I changed her linens once a week as we agreed before her arrival. I didn’t vacuum, dust, or do any “maid” work. There are some cleaning supplies in the bathroom if they want to wipe down a table or something. This guest was incredibly tidy. I might feel differently if she was a slob.
Yeah, with my place most of my long termers are families. I want to start maybe having the agreed upon expectation that during long stays I’ll set a time with them to come up and change linens and clean the bathroom. It would be a perk for a mom who doesn’t want to clean a bathroom on vacation but will let me make sure the kids aren’t doing damage.
I do also think this summer I’ll mention in communication that they need to make sure they turn down the AC when gone or I’ll head up there to turn it off. I’ve have a little cute picture near the entrance saying turn it up to 75 when gone, but those window units blow through the electricity. I don’t like to invade space and I know people don’t want to worry about electricity on vacation, but I’m usually 95% booked in the summer and that’s a lot added up!
You also need to be careful about offering daily housekeeping because then it will turn you into a hotel business, at least here in NY. When I was doing research for hotel occupancy tax that was one of the distinctions, as well as providing breakfast and concierge services.
If guests are staying for more than about nine/ten days I offer to change the bed and give them fresh towels at the middle of their stay. I think guests have only wanted it on two or three occasions. But when they have, I’ve also done a quick clean to minimise the cleaning after they’ve gone.
My last guests who stayed for two weeks said that they didn’t need the weekly ‘housekeeping’ and I wish they had. The sheets and towels were the worst I’ve ever encountered, plus the state of the bathtub was unbelievable.
I have never understood this. The bathtub is where you go to get clean! Why would you not rinse it with the shower head after you finish soaking, before the bath scum clings to the walls of the tub? Baffles me, but I am not a big bath person, so what do I know?
The tub is one of those small 1940s ones so I don’t imaging that many of our guests - if any - actually take a bath but simply shower. But yes, the shower head is detachable and it’s the easiest thing in the world to have a squirt around after use.
And it looked at though a good proportion of Fort Lauderdale beach was in there too.
We have 10 Apartments and do offer weekly housekeeping for our long term guests and daily housekeeping for the short term ones.
There are multiple reasons for that, not only to improve the service, but also for our security.
We are in control - we know that the apartments are clean
We know our guests - if they are pigs - dirty, messy, not taking care - we will realise it from the beginning on and ask them to leave in the worst case (never happened so far)
It is an extra service, which makes us better than other hosts in the area
