6 Spring Cleaning Tips for Vacation Rentals
Cleaning Tips for Vacation Rentals During the Springtime
The flowers are blooming, trees are showing their first signs of greenery, and pollen season has begun: it’s safe to say that spring is in the air, even in the mountains. Springtime is a season of new beginnings, and that makes it the perfect time to deep clean your vacation rental for the spring and summer months ahead. Not only will deep cleaning your rental make it look spotless and shining, but it will also help to prevent allergy attacks from rearing their ugly heads when guests come to stay.
Today, we’ll cover six of the best spring cleaning tips for cleaning your vacation rental. Follow these tips to ensure that your rental looks sparkling for the coming season.
#1: Create a Spring Cleaning Schedule
Before you dive into your spring cleaning tasks, take some time to write up a schedule of what you would like to get done. Because spring cleaning can feel overwhelming at times, especially if a lot of grime has built up over the long winter months, breaking down these tasks into a schedule can help them to seem more manageable. Some of these tasks also can eat up a good chunk of your time, meaning you won’t be able to do everything in one day.
So, rather than jumping straight into cleaning, sit down and write down the list of tasks that need to be completed, then break those down into smaller sections that can be done within a day’s time. This will help to keep your stress levels down, ensuring you can concentrate on cleaning the areas that you need to.
#2: Get Your Windows Looking Spotless
Although your cleaning crew is likely to already be focusing on your windows during their post-checkout cleans, that doesn’t mean your windows don’t need your attention.
There may be hard-to-reach areas that don’t get cleaned on a regular basis, or there might be streaks due to whatever cleaning product has been used. To get rid of any streaks, make sure that you utilize a microfiber cleaning cloth and not paper towels when cleaning. Water and microfiber are really all you need to get your windows looking nice, but if there's a lot of grime, a solution of vinegar, water, and rubbing alcohol will work in a pinch.
#3: Flip Over Mattresses to Lengthen Their Life
When you own a vacation rental, large amounts of wear and tear are expected, but one thing that often gets overlooked during deep cleaning is the life of your mattresses. Because they see so much use on a regular basis, it’s important to flip your mattresses at least once or twice a year to help lengthen their lives. This also helps to avoid any sunken spots, since they aren’t being used in the same place over and over again, plus it just keeps them feeling springier for longer.
#4: Pay Attention to Often-Ignored Spots
Deep cleaning is a time when you can truly get to all the ignored places on your vacation rental property and clean away all of the grime.
That’s why you should take some time to find the often-overlooked spots that normal cleans don’t typically touch, such as your walls, baseboards, doors, and door frames. While these places might not seem important on a daily basis, on a seasonal basis it’s a good idea to attack normally-ignored areas that can collect dust, dirt, and grime over time.
#5: Don’t Forget Your Ceiling Fans
Ceiling fans always collect dust and dirt, but they often go unnoticed until the problem gets out of control. Because they are typically out of reach and therefore out of sight, you might not see the accumulation of dust and dirt that happens on top of the blades. During your next deep cleaning of your vacation rental, pay close attention to the dust on top of your ceiling fan–there are even special tools that can help you in this endeavor so the dirt doesn’t spread everywhere and cause a bigger mess.
#6: Make Your Carpets Look Brand-New
Carpets might hide dirt well, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t lurking underneath. If your short-term rental has lots of carpeted areas that collect grime quickly, a deep cleaning should involve renting a steam cleaner to cleanse them. There are a ton of benefits to doing this–not only will your carpets look brand-new afterwards, but guests will be impressed with how well your property has been taken care of.
Can’t Deep Clean Yourself? Let LocalVR Take the Work Off Your Hands
Spring cleaning might not be the most fun thing to take on, but when you’re armed with the above tips, you’ll have no problem getting your property looking immaculate for the spring and summer crowds to come.
However, deep cleaning is an arduous process, and paying someone to do it can also be incredibly expensive.If completing all of the above tasks sounds like something you don’t have time or the energy for, look no further than LocalVR, a full-service property manager who offers deep cleans every quarter for our homeowners.
Searching for more vacation rental homeowner tips and tricks? Check out the LocalVR Owner’s Guides, like our guide to complying with local STR laws or our deep dive into how the real estate market affects the short-term rental industry.