Planning a same-day turnover between two guests
Checkout at 11, check-in at 4. How to make five hours enough: the order to clean in, what to check before the cleaner leaves, and the supplies that cause most failed turnovers.
A same-day turnover is the hardest ordinary day in short-term hosting. One guest leaves in the morning, another arrives in the afternoon, and in between the place has to be cleaned, restocked, inspected and photographed. It goes wrong in predictable ways, and almost none of them are about cleaning. They are about time, supplies and information.
Start with the arithmetic
With an 11 am checkout and a 4 pm check-in there are five hours on paper. In practice, guests leave late, laundry takes as long as the dryer takes, and a new arrival may ask to come early. Plan on about three and a half working hours and treat the rest as margin.
Laundry is the fixed cost. One set of bedding and towels is roughly a 45 minute wash and an hour to dry, and a second bedroom doubles it. The single most effective change a host can make is to own two full sets of linen for every bed, so the clean set goes on at once and the used set is washed afterwards without the clock running.
The order that saves time
- Walk through first, before touching anything. Look for damage, missing items and anything left behind, and photograph what you find. Ten minutes later the evidence is gone.
- Strip the beds and start the laundry, so the machine is working while everything else happens.
- Clear the rubbish, the refrigerator and the dishwasher. Start the dishwasher now for the same reason.
- Clean top to bottom, back to front. Dust falls, so high surfaces come before low ones and floors come last. Work from the room furthest from the door toward the exit.
- Bathrooms and kitchen get the most time. They are what guests inspect and what reviews mention. Hair in a drain undoes an otherwise spotless clean.
- Make the beds and restock, then do the floors on the way out.
- Reset the house: thermostat, blinds, lights, remotes back by the television, door code changed if the lock allows it.
The checklist before leaving
A short final check, done the same way every time, catches the things that generate messages at 9 pm.
- Toilet paper, soap, shampoo and dish soap all at more than half.
- Enough towels for the number of guests booked, not the number of beds.
- Coffee, filters and bin bags.
- Every light and every remote working. Carry spare batteries and bulbs.
- WiFi working. Check it on a phone.
- No personal items from the last guest in drawers, the shower or under the beds.
- Windows and doors locked, and the key or code ready.
Photograph the finished job
A few photos of each room at the end of every turnover take two minutes. They prove the condition the place was handed over in if a guest complains or a damage claim is needed later, they show the host that the clean is done without a phone call, and over time they make it obvious when a sofa or a set of towels has worn out.
Supplies fail more turnovers than cleaning does
A cleaner who arrives to find no clean sheets or no bin bags cannot finish on time, however hard anyone works. Keep the stock in a locked cupboard at the property, and keep a count. The rule that works is a reorder point: when the count of anything drops to what two turnovers would use, buy more. It is also worth recording what each turnover costs in supplies, because that figure belongs in the cleaning fee.
Give the cleaner what the booking knows
The host can see the bookings. Often the person doing the work cannot. A turnover goes better when the cleaner knows, in advance and in one place:
- The checkout time and the next check-in time, and whether either was changed.
- How many guests are arriving, which decides beds and towels.
- Anything the last guest reported as broken.
- Any request from the next guest, such as a cot or an early arrival.
The worst failure in hosting is a clean that was never scheduled because a booking arrived late and nobody passed it on. Whatever system you use, it should make a new booking produce a turnover without anyone having to remember.
When the margin is gone
Sooner or later a guest leaves two hours late. Decide the order of sacrifice ahead of time. Beds, bathrooms and the kitchen are never skipped. Deep tasks such as the oven, the windows and the inside of the cupboards can wait for the next gap in the calendar, as long as they are written down so that they do happen. If the place will not be ready, tell the arriving guest early and plainly, and offer somewhere to leave bags. Guests forgive a delay that was communicated. A surprise at the door is what earns a bad review.
Leave a gap on purpose sometimes
Back-to-back bookings earn the most per week and leave no time for maintenance. Blocking one night a month for a deep clean and small repairs costs a night of income and protects the review score that the rest of the income depends on.