Host Guides
A turnover is the same job in the same order, every changeover. This is the checklist we work to between guests, written down so you can run it yourself, whether you clean your own listing or hand the reset to a company like ours.
A short let is not cleaned the way a home is. There is no clutter to work around, and yet the standard is higher, because every guest arrives expecting the rooms in the photographs they booked. The clean is not deep, it is exact: the same bed, the same towel fold, the same empty fridge, every time.
That repetition is the whole craft. A turnover done from memory drifts a little with every changeover, and the drift only ever shows up in a review. A turnover done from a written checklist is identical on the fortieth stay and the four hundredth, and identical is what a five star cleanliness rating is made of.
A guest does not inspect a property the way a cleaner does. They open the door and breathe in. They look at the bed. They step into the bathroom and run an eye over the shower screen. Then they fill the kettle. A handful of touchpoints, checked in the first five minutes, and the tone of the review is set before the bags are unpacked. Clean these five to a higher standard than everything around them.
A property that has been shut since checkout smells shut. Open the windows the moment you arrive and let the rooms breathe while you work, the bedrooms especially.
Smooth linen, squared corners, and not one stray hair on the pillowcase. A single hair on white cotton reads as unclean, whatever else you polished.
Glass shows watermarks and smears before anything else in the property. Finish both with a dry cloth after cleaning, so they are still streak free at check in.
The kettle is filled within minutes of arrival. Limescale inside it, or a tea stained sink beneath it, undoes an otherwise perfect kitchen.
Checked by every guest, enjoyed by no host. Under the rim, behind the hinges and around the base, not just the bowl, and finish with the lid down.
The Reset
The full reset, in the order that wastes the least motion. Work each room top to bottom and leave the floors until last, so nothing gets undone by the next task. On a property you know, the order becomes automatic, which is exactly the point: a routine you cannot accidentally shorten.
Even the ones that look untouched. Guests nap on top of made beds and remake them. While the mattress is bare, check the protector for marks and change it if it needs it.
Bag the used linen and towels and count what goes into the bag. If the property runs on two sets per bed, a pillowcase lost this week is a bed you cannot make next week.
Fresh linen, the same fold and the same cushion order every time, matched to the listing photographs. The bed is the first thing a guest looks at, so it is the thing to be pedantic about.
Toilet, basin and shower cleaned, the screen dried, the mirror and taps polished, fresh towels laid out the way your photos show them. Replace whatever the last guest opened: soap, and paper on the holder plus spares.
Wash and put away anything left out, clear and wipe the fridge, the microwave inside, the crumbs from the toaster. A guest will forgive a small kitchen. Somebody else’s food in the fridge is another matter.
Door handles, light switches, remote controls, lamp switches, the hairdryer, the iron, the keys themselves. These are the surfaces every guest handles and the ones a quick clean misses.
Kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms and the recycling, each with a fresh liner. A used liner, however empty, is one of those details a guest cannot unsee.
Tea, coffee, sugar, dishwasher tablets, bin liners, toilet paper, soap: topped up from the stock kept at the property, with a note of anything running low.
Walk every room looking for what has changed: marks on the walls, a chipped glass, a wobbly chair, a missing remote. Found now it is maintenance. Found by the next guest it is a review.
Hoover every room, then mop the hard floors, working back towards the door so you never cross your own work. Under the bed at least as far as a guest kneeling for a suitcase can see.
Cushions plumped, throws folded, curtains open, the welcome note where it lives. Set each room to match the listing photographs, because that exact frame is what the guest paid for.
A photo of each room from the doorway, then windows closed, heating set, key back in the safe. Two minutes of photographs turn the property’s condition at handover into a record instead of a memory.
01
Keep a written stock list at each property: what lives where, how many of each, and the level at which you reorder. Whoever cleans tops up from the stock on site and writes down what is running low, on every changeover. Without the list, restocking depends on somebody remembering what the cupboard looked like two weeks ago, and the first person to discover the missing dishwasher tablets is a guest, mid stay.
02
The changeover is the only moment the property is empty and someone is looking at it closely, so the damage sweep belongs inside the clean, not after it. Whatever is found can be photographed, dated and tied to a specific booking while that booking is still identifiable. One more stay, and nobody can say which guest chipped the worktop.
Look where luggage strikes, walls and door edges at case height. Count what breaks quietly, glasses, mugs and crockery. Test what has a battery or an element, remotes, lamps, kettle, hairdryer. And check the mattress protector every single time.
03
A set of doorway photos after every turnover costs two minutes and settles nearly every dispute a short let can produce. A guest says the property was not clean at check in: you hold its timestamped condition from hours earlier. You wonder whether a mark was there last week: the last set answers. The photos also hold the standard itself steady, because whoever cleans is composing the same frame every time and sees at once when a room does not match it.
04
Nothing on this page is difficult. What makes short let cleaning hard is that all of it has to happen inside a fixed window, between one guest checking out and the next one checking in, and the window does not stretch because a guest left late or a wash cycle ran long. One listing, and a host can do this to a high standard themselves. Two listings turning over on the same afternoon, in different parts of town, cannot be reset by one pair of hands, however good the checklist. That is the point where hosting stops meaning cleaning and starts meaning managing the cleaning.
05
This checklist is our own working method. Short lets are a core part of what BPE Cleaning Services does, and one lettings client alone has 80+ properties in our care. A standard turnover, with the linen change, the restocking and a written note of any damage, is a fixed price per property size, from €100 for a one bedroom to €300 for a four bedroom, so your cost per stay is known before anyone arrives.
Between seasons, or after a long stay, a listing also needs the clean this checklist deliberately leaves out: inside the oven and the fridge, limescale, grout, under the furniture. That reset is the Airbnb deep clean, from €220, and the difference between the two levels is set out in our guide to deep cleaning versus regular cleaning. Both price tables are on the Airbnb cleaning page, with everything else we charge on the price list.
We work seven days a week, 8:00 to 20:00, fully insured, with eco-friendly products. If you would rather spend the changeover window on your guests than on the shower screen, tell us about your property and we will send you a price.
All prices are exclusive of VAT. Your final price is confirmed before we book you in.