As an Airbnb host, your guests’ experience is paramount to your success. From the moment they step through the door, they expect a clean, comfortable, and welcoming environment.
This is where Airbnb cleaners become the unsung heroes of your business. These dedicated professionals ensure that each guest arrives to a sparkling clean and well-maintained property, leaving a lasting impression that can lead to positive reviews, repeat bookings, and, ultimately, financial success.
Maintaining a Smooth Operation
For over a year and a half, our Airbnb property ran smoothly with the help of contractors and a reliable cleaner. However, in the past few months, we noticed a decline in the quality of the cleaning. Dust bunnies, old clothes, and other items were left behind, carpets remained uncleaned, and trash was found in odd places. Despite paying for deep cleans each time, we were not getting the results we expected.
Unsatisfactory Cleanings
Usually, our cleaner would send us photos to ensure our approval before guests’ arrival, and everything seemed fine in the pictures. However, during a recent visit to our property, we discovered numerous cleaning issues. This became a cause for concern as we had limited time due to speaking engagements in different locations. Moreover, we had a booking from May 1 to June 16, and the property needed to be in top condition.
Financial Difficulties and Compromises
We became aware that our cleaner was facing financial difficulties. Understanding her situation, we agreed to provide her with upfront payment to help alleviate some of her immediate financial strain. However, this compromised our standards, and we found ourselves in a position where the cleanliness of our property was compromised.
Taking Action
Realizing that the situation couldn’t continue, we confronted our cleaner about the recurring issues and expressed our dissatisfaction. Unfortunately, her response lacked accountability, which led us to make the difficult decision of seeking a new cleaner. Despite differences in opinions between us, we understood the importance of taking action swiftly to maintain the quality and reputation of our business.
Finding a Reliable Solution
To find a reliable replacement quickly, Sharon took matters into her own hands and utilized a platform called Turnoverbnb. This allowed her to post our cleaning requirements, enabling multiple cleaners to bid on the job. After engaging with a few cleaners, we found one that impressed us with their professionalism and attention to detail. They even rectified the previous cleaner’s mistakes for free during their initial meeting.
Learning from the Experience
This experience taught us some valuable lessons. First and foremost, we realized the significance of acting swiftly when recurring issues arise. While giving second chances is important, it is equally essential to recognize when it’s time to move on. Building a reliable system, including finding trustworthy cleaners and handymen, is crucial for maintaining a successful Airbnb business, especially when we plan to operate remotely or expand into new locations.
Conclusion
Firing our Airbnb cleaner was a challenging experience, but it provided us with important insights. We learned the importance of maintaining high standards, swiftly addressing recurring issues, and building a reliable system that allows for location independence. By sharing our story, we hope to inspire fellow Airbnb hosts to prioritize the quality of their properties and the satisfaction of their guests.
Remember, sometimes making tough decisions is necessary to ensure the long-term success of your business.
Below is a transcription of the podcast. This transcription was taken from Otter.ai so it might not be completely accurate:
Sharon Tseung 0:02
This is the digital nomad quest podcast with Sharon Tseung. teaching people how to build passive income, become financially free and design their best lives. Hey, guys, it’s Sharon. And I’m Sean and today we’re gonna talk about how we fired our Airbnb cleaner.
Speaker 2 0:18
Now, this is a pretty tough video to make. Because, you know, we have been renting our property out on Airbnb for about a year and a half. And during that time, everything has been going pretty smoothly. We had systems in place, we had contractors to help us with minor work and we had a cleaner who was with us the entire time, who was pretty reliable when it came to cleaning our place for the next turn. But unfortunately, over the past few months, we’ve noticed a decline in the quality of work, you know, we would go check on a property after he was done cleaning it and we would find all bunch of dust bunnies old clothes and random stuff underneath the beds right carpets were in cleaned up properly, you could find trash in different places, I’m on the wall. So you know, we were paying for deep cleans every single time, but we just weren’t getting those results that we wanted to.
Sharon Tseung 0:56
So normally after she cleans the property, she will send us photos to make sure that everything’s okay, like we approve of it. And it looked pretty good in the picture. So when we visited the property to check up on our work a few weeks back, we noticed a lot of things weren’t cleaned very well. And just for context, we actually went to Vegas first to be keynote speakers at a conference. And then we only had three nights or so in the bay area to check on the property then had to go to Phoenix to speak at another conference, a real estate conference. So we didn’t have that much time in the Bay Area. So when we saw that things were going wrong, I was pretty panicked. I was freaking out because on top of everything the gas was coming in on the day that we were leaving to Phoenix, we had a booking from May 1 to June 16. So we had end of April to get that place ready because I would just look at different parts and kind of wipe different parts. And I’d see tons of black stuff on my napkin or checking the baseboards and then looking at the carpets and the rugs. And I was like wait, this isn’t even really vacuum. So when we texted the cleaner, she even said, Oh yeah, I didn’t have a vacuum cleaner on me. And I was like, that’s pretty unacceptable for someone to deep clean a property and not even vacuum the property. The first day aside from cleaning, we also had to stock supplies because we were kind of running a little bit low. And we wanted to make sure we had enough for the next few months because we have a midterm rental is not just a short term rental, like people are booking for a month at a time. So we had to do that we had to take out the trash. And we also had to throw out some things from the guests, we didn’t really have that much time we had an event that night. And we ended up spending a few hours like cleaning this property and making sure it’s okay now with this turn, though, we noticed that the cleaner might have been having difficulties financially. So we wanted to make sure she was okay. She was hoping to get half of the money first so that she could do a part one of the clean and then a part two of the clean so she could get some upfront money because she was running low. She wanted to even Uber to the property at night in order to have the property clean, so she could get some cash. And we decided, hey, let me just give you the money. And then you can clean it when you are ready. Like we didn’t want her to waste money on the Uber ride. So we were aware that you know, she had difficulties, we wanted to be supportive. But at the same time when you’re running a business, you can’t just allow everything to be a certain way where guests might complain, they might have a bad time at our property because it really affects us as well. So we already had given her a lot of chances before like Shawn mentioned, we noticed a lot of things under the beds before on different turns like we even had, like my dad come out there to check on the property multiple times to make sure everything was okay. Because a lot of the times we couldn’t trust that it was completely clean. But at this point, I was not really happy. Because if you don’t have a vacuum, that’s a huge red flag. You didn’t tell us about it, you should have let us know right, you should have let us know so that we could maybe buy you a vacuum cleaner for the future, which we ended up doing. We purchased a vacuum at Walmart and then put it in the closet for future turns in case any cleaners needed it
Speaker 2 3:43
nothing if she had a whole month to finish this project. And she decided to just half assing it which gives you a bad taste in our mouth, especially because we were doing our best to help her out. So initially,
Sharon Tseung 3:51
I wrote a text where I pointed out the different errors and you know if you need anything or here to help like let me know we said it pretty kindly. As things got more heated, I ended up sending a more strongly worded text where I was saying to be honest, I’m not very happy about this. This is kind of unacceptable to not have a vacuum on site when you are cleaning properties. We ordered deep cleans right and I sent even more photos of what was going on she replied to the first text, but then she didn’t reply to the second text, which got me kind of worried because I was like, hey, we need to get another cleaner because I don’t know if they’re going to be there for the next turn. Like I was kind of worried if they’re going to be unreliable now because I said those things so I started worrying like Is this something I should beat myself up about? Or is it something like we need to start moving on and looking for another cleaner we ended up kind of getting into an argument there because he was like you kind of started this whole thing you need to figure this whole thing out right? Whereas to me it was like hey, we learned our lesson we need to fire fast we need to move on and look for more help. So I was kind of like what you’re not going to support me on this what’s going on. So I decided to go look for the cleaner myself. I went on turnto so they Click on turnout, you can put the details of your property like how many bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage and put up that listing. And then cleaners are going to bid for your work. So once I put up the listing, a lot of cleaners started to engage. So we had multiple cleaner possibilities. Some of them were slow at responding, though. So
Speaker 2 5:17
yeah, after talking to a couple of cleaners, she ended up finding someone that you really enjoy talking to, and they’re willing to meet at the property on the very same day. And when you’re walking around, we met them, they’re very nice couple, they noticed a lot of issues with the cleaning. And actually, it made us pretty embarrassed because you already paid for this. And you’re like, Well, I pay for deep clean for this. There’s dust all over the place, the mirrors have all kinds of stains and smudge marks on it, this is not really acceptable. And he was actually willing to like clean it for us for free.
Sharon Tseung 5:41
He was like doing it while we’re talking to them. And we had spent hours after the paid cleaner to like clean it already. So even with both of our cleans, it was unacceptable. So by
Speaker 2 5:51
talking to them, we felt pretty confident. I mean, they have their own system to where even if they’re busy that contract with other crews can come and do the job for them. So obviously, they had their own system going on, and they could clean house very well. So we thought it was really nice to have them in our back pocket.
Sharon Tseung 6:03
And it was a good thing. I did this work that morning. And like really found these people who would meet me that same day, because we were flying out that night, we had no opportunity to meet with these cleaners before the next turn. So it was like wish you had supported me at that point. But it’s okay, I gotta figure it out. And basically, while we’re in Phoenix, we got a text from the guest saying they were unhappy with the clean, like they were feeling like it was dirty and all these things. And I was like, See, I told you like we should have been finding another cleaner. Yeah. So
Speaker 2 6:32
during that whole night, we were trying to coordinate with a gas cleaner to try to get them in ASAP to do a whole clean. But luckily, they were very responsive. And we were able to get them in the very next day in the morning. And they came in to the job and it was sparkling clean and the guests was very happy.
Sharon Tseung 6:45
So always make sure that your guests are happy. They’re very grateful in the end. So I was glad that it didn’t turn out to be a negative experience and that we have someone that we can rely on even you know when there’s like short notice like this, they could just come in and help us and I don’t know if that would have been the case with the other cleaner. So I think lessons learned from this again, fire fast like we mentioned in the other video, you can give them second chances. But once you see that it’s a recurring issue, you’re gonna have to move on. And I think one of our flaws is like when we need to train a new person and like find someone new we end up not wanting to do that work, but you need to do that work in order to build a reliable system especially like Sean mentioned, we’re going to be in Asia in the future we want to make sure that we have reliable systems set up so that we don’t have to be on the location and then in the future we’re going to be Airbnb out our primary home in Dallas and Airbnb being out another home that’s a few minutes away from us. So we need to make sure we have a good system in place for Texas while we’re out there. So another tip is make sure you have a reliable cleaner and a handyman when you are building your system for Airbnb because you want to make sure that you can be location independent and have something in place that you don’t need to be there for. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 7:57
the lesson learned is Sharon tells me something I should just do it.
Sharon Tseung 8:00
And then last tip like I mentioned, you guys should definitely check out turnout. It saved our butts for this turn. And if you guys are trying to build that Airbnb system, it’s a great one to check out. I’m gonna link it in the description below. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Please make sure to rate review and subscribe. It really helps our podcast grow. And thanks again. I’ll see you guys in the next one.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
