The Joys of Cleaning

I once checked into a house where the room was clean, but the rest of the house was cluttered and dirty. The kitchen was so gross I refused to even fill up my water bottle in it. The host was super nice and my room was clean so I gave her 3 stars, but I judged that as dirty as the host's house was, they only deserved one star.

The bathroom and room that your guest is renting can be as clean as a whistle, but if the rest of the areas your guests have access to need some work, they may rate your harshly for that. It doesn't matter how dirty your guest's house is, they expect your house to be as clean as a hotel. You can have a spider set up camp in your guest room between the time you clean the room and the time someone checks in and that guest will decide to stay somewhere else. TRUE STORY.

I mostly like to do the cleaning myself, but once I started to have two rooms on airbnb I needed some help. I hired HomeJoy on a weekly bases, to come in and clean my kitchen and bathrooms for me. It made it much more manageable and I figured running a bnb made it so I could afford the luxury of having a house cleaner (I hate cleaning bathrooms!!!). I like HomeJoy because they were affordable and they have a nice online platform where I can leave detailed instructions for my house cleaner.

Tip: Having a house cleaner can also be useful for when you go on vacation and you need someone to reset your room. Remember that what seems logical to you, might not be logical to someone else. If you want your house cleaner to set up your house exactly the way you like it, leave them very detailed instructions.