[Ep 5] Cleaning for 5 stars with Julia Plourde

Superhost Unveiled

Are you confident that your house is cleaned for perfection and that it'll bring in a 5-star review for cleanliness? Cleaning is one of the most difficult aspects of running a successful vacation rental business. While it does need to be perfect for your guests, especially during a pandemic, cleaning isn't something that you should stress about. We talked to the head of our Turnover Team, Julia Plourde, to get her insight on cleaning for 5-star reviews. She's done it all from driving 5 hours to clean a property to managing a team of turnover specialists.

Tips for Cleaning Efficiently & Effectively

Back when Julia was running a one-woman show, she learned some tricks to cleaning efficiently and effectively. Her number one tip is to form a check-list so that you can stay on track, ensure that you don't miss any key areas where you need to clean, and so that you can create a routine that you can master with each clean so that the entire process gets more efficient. North Conway Property Management uses a 54-point check-list for all of our homes. Not only does the check-list help you stay efficient and consistent, but it will also help you train cleaners when you start hiring a team for your business. This will ensure that each cleaner on your team is cleaning the home exactly the same. Consistency is key.

Next tip for efficient cleaning? Use a cleaning caddy. Julia's caddy has gone through many upgrades starting from a simple show cady to her current 5-gallon bucket with side pockets. In her caddy, she has an all-purpose cleaner, window cleaner, scrub-daddy, toilet bowl cleaner, reusable cleaning rags, trash bags, duster, hand-vacuum for picking up hair in bathrooms. The pandemic created a huge lack of cleaning supplies so Julia needed to get creative with her cleaning strategy while still ensuring a disinfected, safe, clean home. She ended up using an all-purpose cleaner with bleach to clean the toilets instead of toilet bowl gel. She also had to stop purchasing antibacterial wet-wipes for the guests because they simply vanished off the shelves.

There are a few areas that are often overlooked by even the most experienced professional cleaners. Julia's most important overlooked area...the inside of the kitchen cabinets. You would never know how guests leave cabinets. Some shove pots and pans precariously in cabinets others have put back dirty dishes. You want to make sure that the kitchen cabinets are always orderly and clean for the next guests. Kitchens and bathrooms are the most important.

Acquiring your cleaning team

The first step to finding our cleaning team was trying to find people looking for extra cash through word of mouth. We found our first cleaners through a friend and they actually worked in the huts in the mountains. They are a week on and a week off so we thought picking up some cleanings would be great supplemental income for them. The problem with this was that they wanted to hike more than clean, who wouldn't, and their friends were all the same. If you are looking for professional cleaners, you need to actually look for professional cleaners, not people looking for some extra cash.

Indeed.com was not helpful for us either. The people who saw our listing were not experienced and again were just looking for some extra cash on the side. Our best decision was to post a job ad in our local paper. We found some amazing cleaners through this. You want to find people that take cleaning seriously. Many cleaners are independently building a business specializing in cleaning homes, you just need to find the right people!

READ MORE