I have four hours to “flip” my rental. I set check out at 11am and check in at 3pm. Our rental is a 3bdrm 2ba 1600 ft single family. I’m the one who cleans. I have check out at 11am (we are near 2 wedding centers - 80% of my guests are for weddings) and 3pm for check in. It’s pretty hard to get it “flipped” in that time. I have 2nd sets of all sheets, blankets, duvets, towels, table cloths etc , but it’s still kicks my butt. What are your check out and check in times and have your guests ever complained?
I too clean my Airbnb but I block two days in between bookings since I have to clean after work. My checkout is 11 AM and check in is 3 PM. I used to flip it in 4 hours when I first started since it was over the summer and I’m off summers, but it was too stressful so I changed it. I also now do a min. stay of 5 nights. Be careful not to get burned out.
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During the pandemic that’s a hard no on same day check ins. Especially now with the more infectious strains I’m not going into the rental except to open doors and windows and let it air out.
My check in time is 3pm, check out is 11am. I do get requests for early check in or if the room is ready I’ll just message the guest and tell them they are free to check in early or out late. But that’s at my discretion. If a guest has a “complaint” about it they should book another place.
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Currently, you should leave the property to ventilate for a minimum of three hours post check out.
This is the EU recommendation, the US CDC recommends twenty four hours I believe.
Because we have a buffer day, we tend to leave it for twenty four hours before touching it.
Our check out instructions ask guests to open all the windows and internal doors before they leave.
So far, this has worked for us.
JF
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I am in a very cold climate; how do you do this? If i open all windows and doors the heat will continue to stay on. Do you leave them open for an hour or what?
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You can’t turn your heat off?
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that is one idea - for how long tho? It is 16 degrees farenheit now.
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Nope, leave it ventilating until we start turning it over.
Aerosol transmission is what we are doing our best to avoid, and a good airflow is the best way to do it.
Ask the guests to turn heating off?
Other than that, I have no idea how you’d do it, you’ll know what will work with your listing and what won’t.
JF
So, you ventilate windows open for 24 hours? Trying to clarify.
I have MERS 16 filter on my a/c system, maybe open windows for 2 hours and then run MERS 16 ventilation for 24 hours?
Are you in a cold climate?
Yeah, I live in a mild climate. However, I’m closed for now, only booking repeat guests or friends who contact me directly. If it were 16 here I’d open it up for an hour or two and then close back up and wait at least a day before going in to clean.
Yep, sometimes longer if we can’t be arsed turning it over, guests are a rare breed here just now, sadly.
No, we’re in Andalucía, bottom of Spain and probably closer to the Sahara than we are to Madrid, as the crow flies.
JF
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Yep. We learned a lesson on our very first turnover (2200sqft, 4br, 2ba house). We got lucky because the guests left very early in the morning. We started early and even with both my wife and I working, we barely made it by 3pm check-in and that was before the pandemic cleaning requirements. We added 1-day preparation time after that, which gives 28 hours instead of 4 hours for a turnover, at the expense of losing a day of occupancy for every reservation (in theory).
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If you live in a cold climate and can’t leave the windows open for long, I’d get a fan you can set up by an open window, facing so it draws the inside air out to hasten the airing process.
But no way should anyone be doing same day turnovers during these pandemic times. Going in to clean right after guests have left us insanely risky for the cleaner.
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Our heat can be turned off, but it is only 9 deg F here, lol, and so it isn’t practical for us either @Rolf. What we do is to not enter at all until the guest has been gone for 12 hours. After 12 hours, my OH takes in a big air purifier, plugs it in and blasts it. He does a quick eyeball for damage and gets out. He’s in there for all of 30 seconds and wears a mask, face shield, shoe covers, etc. The air purifier is actually plugged-in right outside the unit’s door otherwise, which is also just through the front door of the building, so it is an ongoing purifier for the building in general when it’s not inside the unit post-guest.
After 24 hours, one of us goes in and removes trash if any is left behind (we started asking guests to remove their trash only since the covid situation, but 99% have done it), remove fruit that isn’t good still, opened half/half and yogurts, that kind of the thing and the dirty linens and towels. If we have a check-in on that day, we will then start cleaning it by 11 or 12 for a 4:00 check-in, but otherwise it sits empty (but stripped) until the day we do have a check-in. If our guests seem particularly foolish about Covid, sometimes we’ll block 2 days instead of 1 after them.
All of the linens/towels go into laundry bags, into the trunk of the car and then to a wash and fold. We started doing wash and fold way back when we still had 3 units because it was actually cheaper than using our own machines and definitely more efficient (and the industrial machines and professionals that wash and fold do a much better job too). But I definitely wouldn’t want to be fussing around with the guest’s linens right now so am glad we already had that set-up.
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I listened to an NPR interview with a researcher that determined COVID can not live on surfaces more than 40 minutes indoors and only 7 minutes outdoors. That was last May, and it could have changed, but they did the research. I’m not that concerned with surface COVID after the first hour.
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You do what you feel comfortable with, however, have a quick read of this:
JF
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That being said, I wash everything. All the towels (used or not), duvets, blankets, sheets, throw pillow covers, shower curtains and liners, throw rugs and welcome mats. If it’s cloth, it’s washed. I also disinfect all my furniture (it’s all vinyl), all remotes, light switches, door handles, faucet levers, etc. and everything including the garbage cans are washed and disinfected in the bathrooms. All surface areas and clock radios are also sprayed. Floors swept and mopped (no carpet). I do have a large area rug in living room that I have not taken out since COVID but was considering it. I think losing bookings (I’m 100% booked during winter months and 80% in summer) is not something I want to do.
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Putting cash over health has just lost any respect I may have had for you.
Do what you fecking want.
JF
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No same-day turnovers here, either. I usually run in masked as soon as the guests leave to open the windows and turn on the “fan” setting on the HVAC (mild climate here, too). Then I leave it at least 4-5 hours before I go in and start laundry, etc.
To be honest, the amount of time is largely dependent on my gut feeling of how careful the guests are - if they come and go wearing masks, I give it a bit less time than if they were maskless and seeing friends in town. The guests I was most iffy on emailed me a few days later to say they got COVID on their trip here. I was not shocked.
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Bad idea. We had a guest check out on Monday just gone, always wore mask etc.
He called on Tuesday to let us know he was expecting a positive, due to work colleagues essentially.
It happens…
Best you can do to protect yourself and your future guests is to have robust protocols for guest contact and changeovers.
JF
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