We clean your rental between guests

Every clean between guests follows one order

A vacation rental clean between guests is the cleaning after one guest checks out and before the next one arrives. We work it in a fixed order. Trash comes out first, so a leaking bag never gets dragged across a clean floor. The kitchen is next, then the bathrooms. After that we dust each room from the ceiling fan down to the baseboards. Floors come last, because everything above them drops dust and crumbs as it gets cleaned.

When we finish, the next guest walks in and finds no sign of the last one. There is no hair in the shower drain and no coffee ring left in the pot. Guests open the fridge and the microwave early, so both get cleaned inside. Trash cans get emptied and wiped out, since a sticky can smells sour fast in Florida heat. An office customer mentioned that detail in a Google review: "He even cleaned our garbage cans!"

Skipped steps show up in guest reviews, and on a rental, that costs the owner bookings. The usual misses are small. Dust on top of the ceiling fan falls on the bed when the guest turns it on. Toothpaste spots on the bathroom mirror show up under the vanity light. None of it takes long to clean, and all of it is easy to skip when a cleaner is rushing between jobs.

• Kitchen cleaned, inside the fridge and microwave
• Bathrooms scrubbed from mirror to floor
• Trash cans emptied and wiped out
• Ceiling fans dusted, floors done last
• Furniture and curtain cleaning added on request

Empty rentals trap Florida humidity

Between bookings, a lot of owners set the thermostat high to save on power. The AC runs less, and the air here is damp most of the year, so moisture settles into the house. Bathrooms and closets feel it first. Mildew starts as gray dots on the caulk around the tub and along the grout lines, and closets pick up a stale smell. A few quiet days in August are enough for a guest to smell it at the door.

On a rental that has sat closed up, we start with the damp spots. The shower caulk and grout get scrubbed with a cloth that is used only there, so mildew is not carried to the sink. The AC return grille and the supply vents get dusted too. Dust on a cold, damp vent turns into dark spots on the ceiling around it, and guests read those spots as mold.

Air freshener is the usual shortcut, and it only covers the smell for a short while. The smell comes from the grout and the fabric, so once the spray fades, it is back while the guest is still unpacking. Curtains and sofa cushions hold that smell longer than any hard surface. When a rental has been closed up for weeks, adding furniture and curtain cleaning to the booking often gets the smell out of the room.

Concrete block houses and condos clean differently

Many rentals around Pinellas Park are older concrete block ranch houses, and plenty of them have terrazzo floors that sat under carpet for years. Terrazzo is made of marble chips set in cement. Vinegar and other acidic cleaners etch the marble and leave it dull. We use a neutral cleaner and follow the wet mop with a dry one. Skip the dry pass and the floor dries with streaks that show in the afternoon sun.

The same houses often have a Florida room or a screened lanai, sometimes with jalousie windows: narrow glass slats that crank open. Each slat has two faces and two edges, and dust and pollen settle on all of them. We wipe each slat on its own. A quick pass down the middle leaves a gray line on every edge that shows in morning light. Lanai tables and chairs get wiped down too, since guests eat out there.

Rentals closer to the Gulf, in Clearwater and Saint Petersburg, deal with sand and salt. Sand rides in on feet and beach bags and ends up in the sliding door track and the seams of the sofa. Salt air leaves a hazy film on the glass that plain water only smears around. We vacuum the door tracks before the floors get mopped, because a wet mop turns loose sand into grit that scratches tile.

Sofas and curtains need their own cleaning

A standard clean between guests covers hard surfaces. The sofa and the armchairs need more than that. Sunscreen and body oil build up on the arms and the headrests. The fabric gets a little darker after every stay. In rentals that allow pets, dog hair works down into the seams where a quick vacuum never reaches. Furniture cleaning is an a la carte option. You can add it to any booking for the pieces that need it.

The order matters here. We pull the cushions and vacuum the seams first, because scrubbing a spot with sand still in the weave grinds it into the fabric. Then we read the care tag. A tag marked W can take a water-based cleaner. A tag marked S cannot, and water on that fabric leaves a ring bigger than the stain you started with. Pieces with no tag get tested on a hidden spot under a cushion first.

Curtains are the easiest thing in a rental to forget. They catch dust from the AC and cooking smells from the kitchen. The side facing the window fades in the Florida sun. Near a sliding door, the hem often picks up gray mildew spots where it rests on damp tile. We vacuum curtains from the rod down first, and then the care label decides how the fabric gets cleaned. Tell us which windows when you call, and we add them to the job.