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It’s not luck. If you read the rest of the comment, when I find a keeper, I work to keep them with bonuses, raises, and praise. Also, look for mom’s who’s kids are already in school.
Also, when I looked to hire professional cleaners they were less flexible with their time and wanted to charge well over $100 to clean what takes about 60 minutes (no kitchen) and because I have 3-5 turnovers a week the place just doesn’t really get dirty. When my cleaner deep cleans that’s what she makes but she is here for about 3 hours.
Got you @Lynick4442
What I have started doing is joining up with Apartment cleaning groups on facebook.
Searching out companies with flexible cleaning schedules. Doing a one month trial contract with them (KYC) period. Then seeing if I want to proceed to a 3 month contract. I have found one reputable one so far. She did her first clean yesterday. Guest got in apartment and without being promoted sent me a message saying she’s wowed at how clean apartment is. I’m still holding my breath. Interviewing 2 more companies over the next week.
I also want one person/company per property. Reason? If one of them does something stupid or decides to go AWOL, I can load balance with the others.
Cool strategies I have taken onboard from comments:
Sounds you have found a great way of working with your cleaners @Lynick4442.
We don’t have a lot of ‘stay at home mums here’, but plenty of mums running a cleaning business, like the three I use. Always happy to support single parents trying to make a go of things.
I think the trick is to invest time in making sure there is a good fit with host and cleaner and have clear expectations and information around what needs to be done.
Exactly. And preferably someone who has Airbnb experience which is totally different to a hotel cleaner. There’s all sort of stuff all over the internet about how hotels allow twenty minutes (or whatever it is) to turn over a room and then there’s that famous video of a so-called housekeeper cleaning the bathroom’s glasses with the same cloth she’d just used to clean the loo.
I would certainly avoid anyone whose experience is hotels. As Airbnb hosts, we are supposed to have much higher standards.
We have two apartments (490 and 600 sq. ft.) and I do the turnovers myself and a proper turnover can take up to five hours. On days when I have two same day turnovers then I use shortcuts but always the places are thoroughly cleaned.
So one cleaner can’t do all four apartments so it’s good too that @BlaQMarbleHost is getting a cleaner per apartment. Bear in mind though that hairs on a pillow and fridge that hasn’t been cleaned properly aren’t ‘niggly little things’. They are where the guest is going to put, respectively, her head and her food.
Anyway, going forward, you need to be more businesslike in your approach. Remember that ‘cleaners’ aren’t what you want, you want people who can prepare STRs for guests. The two are very different.
I’d suggest doing what I do. I have a complete ‘apartment preparation manual’ online. (Use a free blogging service if you don’t have a website or one of those Wix-type wysiwyg things). Because this is online, your preparation person can refer to it on his / her phone while they are actually doing the job.
I have lots of photographs too to show how various things are to be arranged and what the rooms should look like and so on.
I’m surprised nobody has commented on this part yet. Is it industry standard to dock pay if a cleaning job is substandard? It is illegal to do so in my city.
Good point. It would be illegal to do so in my country to do so too @Xena.
@BlaQMarbleHost not sure how it works where you are based? You say your cleaner had a payslip so am presuming you employed her rather than her being an independent contractor?
Hi @xena and @Helsi,
We had a contract. She owns a company.
A clause in the contract states clearly,
If as a result of poor cleaning, client loses money (re: has to refund a guest), Cleaning company takes the hit.
A contract between two companies. Not a staff and her payslip. Absolutely legal.
Hope this clears that up
For my walkthrough after cleaning I have a laminated checklist with an erasable marker. I leave it in the owners closet. I also have pictures of each room pasted on the inside of the cupboard door so I can tell where throw pillows and decorative items go if they were moved.
I did all this to make my walkthrus easier, but since I’ve left them very seldom do I find anything not cleaned or out of place. I think the cleaning people use them too.
What a nightmare! Finding hairs would really gross me out. It sounds to me like she is packing the washer wayyyyy too full of laundry and nothing is getting clean. To compound the issue, the oversized load is then put in the dryer and lint/hairs are not being sucked into the lint trap because the laundry is so compacted.
Of course there also is the horrifying possibility that she was not washing sheets between guests!
Me2, and I always find them when making the bed. Well almost always. Following advice learned here I lint roller the sheets as I strip the bed, and then again as I make it.
I have an industrial sized lint roller that works great. The sad part about it is the hairs I find are usually my own! Note to self: Invest in a hairnet!
I don’t really have a spot check system. I get up there every 2-3 weeks but it’s not after each guest.
As for lacking time and too many turnovers, we have 2 properties but she cleans I don’t know how many others. So it’s really up to them not to overschedule themselves by taking on too much.
We have considered taking it out of their pay-never thought to check the legality of that-but instead it’s always worked to send the cleaner back over. We have paid -or offered to pay-for their dinner out when the cleaner went back . This was the few times communication got crossed and it hadn’t been cleaned. A few times with our last service and once with this cleaner-who offered to forfeit her pay.
I would kind of like to have two cleaners but now with this one having two, she’d see it as a demotion if we took one away.
Maybe I’m weird but if sheets and towels have been laudered, a clean hair or two really wouldn’t bother me.
If you’ve laundered the sheets you know they’ve been laundered so it makes sense those hairs wouldn’t bother you. But if you are guest and you see hairs on the sheets and they don’t look like yours, it’s probably going to bother you and it might make you wonder if the sheets had been laundered.
I thought about just flipping the sheets over and using the other side.
Buhahahaha
You better just be kidding.
To be honest, after making the beds a few times myself, I am tempted to conclude that my old cleaner sometimes just changed the Flat sheets and left the fitted sheets on.
I’m not kidding
Yes it’s grossing me out just thinking of it.
If I came to my place and was confident the cleaner had done the laundry and found someone else’s clean hairs it wouldn’t bother me , but from a guest point of view, you have a good point.
