How much time you need between two stays, what a cleaning service does besides cleaning, how to handle linen and laundry, and why an empty day between bookings is the most expensive way to clean a house or apartment.
1. How much time you need between two stays
Guests usually check out by 10 am and the next ones arrive from 4 pm. That leaves six hours for the changeover, and everything has to fit into them: cleaning, beds, restocking and a check of the house.
How long the job takes does not depend on floor area alone. Just as important are:
- the number of bedrooms and beds, because every bed has to be changed
- the number of bathrooms
- glass walls and railings
- the terrace, barbecue and pool area
- the state the guests left the house in.
That is why a cleaning service sends a team, not one person, to a larger house. The house is cleaned on the day the guests leave, even when the next ones do not arrive that day. That way it is also ready for a last-minute booking.
Only confirm a late check-out or an early arrival to a guest after you have agreed it with whoever does the cleaning. Every hour you give the guest is taken from the changeover.
2. An empty day between bookings
The most common mistake owners make when they clean themselves: they block the day before or after every booking in the calendar, so there is time to do everything without rushing. That day looks free, but it is actually the most expensive part of cleaning.
20 to 30 nights a year
That is what you lose with 20 to 30 bookings and one blocked day next to each. It is almost a whole month.
The most expensive days of the year
Most changeovers happen in July and August, when one day is worth roughly three days out of season in price.
Up to a fifth of income
Added up, blocked days can cost the owner up to a fifth of the annual rental income.
The choice is not just “all by myself” or “all by a service”. If you want to clean yourself, you can get help for an hour or two on changeover day, or hand only the laundry over to a laundry service. That costs less than one night in season, and the calendar stays open.
3. What a changeover includes besides cleaning
Cleaning is only part of the job. Whoever does the changeover, you or a service, also has to do the following on the same day:
- Bed linen and towels. Strip the used ones, take them to be washed and make up the beds for the number of guests arriving.
- Consumables. Restock everything the house provides for guests, such as toilet paper, bin bags and washing-up liquid.
- Inventory. Check that everything is there and in its place: crockery, glasses, remote controls, sun loungers and their cushions.
- Special requests. A cot, a high chair and anything else the guests asked for in advance.
- Faults and damage. Check the house and report anything that does not work, is missing or is damaged.
The last item matters more than it seems. The person who cleans is the only one who sees the house between two stays. Anything not reported the same day can no longer be charged to the guest who has left, because the next guests are already in the house. Agree in advance what a report looks like: what is damaged or missing, in which room, with a photo, and who it goes to.
For stays longer than a week, changing the bed linen and towels also goes into the schedule. The requirements for each category set how often they are changed, but the regulations also allow them to be changed at the guest's request, if a notice about this is displayed in the property (Ordinance on the classification and categorisation of private accommodation, Art. 3(4)). In holiday homes, a weekly change has become the norm, and guests are happy with it. A holiday home is not a hotel: guests do not want someone coming into the house every day, and a daily change would not pay off for the owner. That is why the notice must be displayed in the house.
What happens next with a reported fault is described in our guide Servicing and Emergency Repairs in a Holiday Home.
4. How the cleaning service finds out about bookings
The cleaning schedule must not depend on whether you remember to send a message. One forgotten booking means guests standing in front of a house that has not been cleaned.
- A notification for every booking as soon as it is confirmed, with the departure and arrival dates. Ideally automatic, from the system where the bookings are kept.
- Their own access to the calendar. The service can see all bookings at any time, not just the latest message.
- Guest details. How many are coming, whether there are children and what they specially asked for.
- Cancellations and date changes arrive the same way as new bookings.
If you do not have such a system, the minimum is a shared calendar the service checks itself, rather than waiting for your message.
5. Bed linen, towels and laundry
Laundry is done outside the house. A domestic washing machine and dryer cannot wash and dry the linen and towels for a whole house in six hours, and they still need ironing. Cleaning services therefore have their own laundry or work with a partner one: they take the dirty laundry away and bring clean sets to the next changeover.
For this to run without hold-ups, every bed needs three sets of bed linen and towels:
First set
On the beds and in the bathrooms, with the guests.
Second set
At the laundry, being washed and ironed.
Third set
In reserve, in case the laundry runs late or something needs replacing mid-stay.
Linen hire exists as a service, but in practice it has not proved a good solution. The handover with the supplier is always a point where something goes wrong, the laundry has to be stored somewhere, and towards the end of the season worn towels and linen arrive more and more often. With your own linen, you decide when an item is no longer good enough and needs replacing.
- Condition. No faded, thin or torn pieces. Whatever wears out goes, and the set is topped up.
- Sizes. Covers must fit the duvets and pillows in the house.
- Marking. A laundry washes linen from many houses. A discreet sewn-in label makes sure you get yours back.
- Once a year, out of season. Wash curtains, rugs, pillows, duvets and blankets, and have mattresses and upholstered furniture deep-cleaned as needed.
6. Price and what to agree with the cleaning service
There is no price per square metre that applies to every house. Two houses of the same size can need very different amounts of work: one has three bedrooms and one bathroom, the other five bedrooms, four bathrooms and a glass wall along the whole living room. A serious quote therefore only comes once the service has seen the house or received these details:
- location and size of the house
- number of bedrooms, beds and bathrooms, and the maximum number of guests
- glass surfaces, terrace, pool, barbecue
- how many changeovers you expect and in which months
- whether laundry is needed too
- photos of the house or a link to the listing.
Before the first changeover, agree:
- What is included in the price of a changeover, and what is charged separately: windows, terrace, barbecue, oven.
- How laundry is charged: per kilo or per set.
- Who buys the cleaning products and consumables.
- What happens when guests leave the house in a state that needs much more work than usual.
- Who has the key and who steps in when the team cannot make it.
- What if something has not been cleaned properly. The service comes back and puts it right before the guests arrive. With a service that does good work, an occasional check after a changeover is enough.
If an agency manages the house, it usually handles the schedule, damage reports and checking the cleaning service. Make sure this is in the contract: Before You Sign with an Agency: What to Agree in Advance.
