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We knew this was a thing. We’ve talked about it in this group.
I’m trying a cleaner this summer. The only way she has time is if I do Friday -Friday reservations. No one is available for Saturday to Saturday.
I couldn’t find a linen service so guests are to bring their own linens & towels or if they use the ones in the condo wash, dry & store them before they leave.
Labor is a huge issue in every industry - cleaners, truck drivers, caregivers, retail workers, you name it. This reminds me of all the stores resorting to self check-out.
Never having been an early riser or breakfast person, I was going to call my place B&MYOFB,- Bed and Make Yer Own F***king Breakfast.
After re-opening in Sept 2021, I tried out two new cleaners and both cleaned poorly and one was very unreliable. When I re-opened, I blocked the day before and after a booking.
I take a day to air out the STR, run a HEPA purifier and fans . I decided to just clean it myself. I have grown o really love the 1 1/2 to turn over the STR and probably will never go back to back-to-back bookings.
Cleaning the unit myself seems less stressful and I have 3 sets of everything so I can take my time cleaning the linens. At the end of the month I schedule a deep cleaning (with myself) and get all the nooks and crannies that most cleaners miss,
I’m peeved that these kinds of articles mention the quality of housecleaning as if it was a high standard at hotels but airbnbs are a lower quality. In reality, a private room in my airbnb is always cleaner than a hotel’s room, with more time and energy spent on it.
I went through hell finding my cleaning crews. Ultimately I had to revise some of my processes and realized some additional checks would be necessary to ensure consistency. But what also helped was - I sat with my cleaners and asked what I could do / change to make this feasible / desirable for them. Whether it’s supplies, processes, simplifying things, etc.
I get between 35 and 60 photos from my cleaners after every turnover ( their suggestion - not mine ). They take inventory each time. I provide anything they ask to help make things smoother - and I drop random bonuses for them. I also still do random spot checks for sanity sake. I never book a same day turnover unless they approve it first.
I’m just glad to have the confidence not to have to inspect between every single clean.
It really sucks finding good people - there are lots of folk but very few good ones.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who has had problems with cleaners - scheduling, poor attention to detail, not “getting it” (understanding leaving keys in a lockbox, setting out an appropriate number of towels per guest, refilling amenities, etc. We all know Airbnb turnover is very different from cleaning a normal home and is more hospitality-driven).
We are extremely lucky to have a cleaner who we adore - she’s always on time, quiet, very thorough, takes pictures afterwards, double checks guest counts, lets me know when supplies are low, and is very pleasant in the instance where guests are being slow to check out. I’d love to have an equally awesome backup person for when she’s unavailable, but honestly it’s just easier to do it ourselves, even if that means I’m taking work calls while changing linens!
At this point, our cleaner vacations at my partner’s mom’s house with her daughter, and I pay her time and a half whenever we’re out of town and she’s truly managing the listing for us singlehandedly! She’s invaluable, even if she’s not available quite as much as we’d like.
You realise “cleaning all the nooks and crannies that most cleaners miss” is more likely a deep clean rather than a general clean. Most cleaners work on a general clean basis or a deep clean basis. I once worked for an agency who hired me to clean for people who had some medical or physical limitation and the agency did this under the basis of a general clean. I would do 3 different clients in a day with different sized homes or units. One lady with a very large home, would ask me to scrub her shower from top to bottom each week, and insisted on me getting down with a small toothbrush to do nooks and crannies at ankle height. It made me late for my other two jobs. When my boss asked me why I was late, I explained the clients request to get down low and scrub the bottom of her shower. My boss instructed me to tell her that I was there only to do a ‘general clean’ and not a deep clean. I wasnt prepared to do that since it was my boss who set down the terms but thats why you will never have a perfect clean if your cleaner is doing more than one job…at pace.
This is why we ended up with cleaners who use crews. We have a 3000 square foot cabin. No individual can do that in any great detail in 4-5 hours.
The solo cleaners started strong but they always fell off eventually
What makes something a “cabin” as opposed to a house?
Honestly - it’s subjective. We are isolated in the mountains - and have a ton of wood inside - but we aren’t wall to wall wood
As far as most Alaskans are concerned, the difference is indoor plumbing. 
Hahahaha ! Well we have ALL the plumbing LOL! Including a dehumidifier to keep the air dry and prevent any mildew / mold
My wife and I have always done our own cleaning in our self-contained 2B 1.5 bath apartment of about 80 sqm. It takes us about 1.5 hours to clean up which includes washing all the linen (but not drying them). I take the linen to a laundromat because while the apartment does have a drier which is fine for occasional use, it’s not that well ventilated so I don’t want to be doing lots of drying in it.
Not sure about deep cleaning but so far we’ve only had positive comments about the apartment’s cleanliness from guests who leave reviews. In fact my wife often comments she wish I would clean our own house as carefully as I clean the apartment!
But every now and then I will wipe down the dust from the top of baseboards (especially hidden behind doors) and other places that are not easily seen or accessible. But I have yet to have a guest complain about dust there.
Also while I haven’t travelled in a long time because of Covid I did notice I was much more careful about examining the cleanliness of the places I had booked 
I went through two before finding one, my mother. The first never replied after our introduction. The second ones stressed us out so bad I fired them after the first cleaning.
They had me convinced it wasn’t even our home. Then finally I asked my mom who needed the extra money and does an incredible job. Which is fortunate cause last person I’d wanna fire is her!
Another thing I did to save money is to
a)Only wash the white in hot water and since I have solar heating I wait until mid-day to wash and it’s the only load (due to towels getting scratchy) that I used the dryer with.
b) I struck up laundry lines in my basement and hand all the other bed linens to dry. Since I have 3 sets of each, not time issues and since I don’t have to worry about the weather outside bird poop and such, they are still very clean. Saves me 2 dryer loads per turnover.