How do you and your airbnb cleaner coordinate?

Amy111
Level 1
Portland, OR

How do you and your airbnb cleaner coordinate?

Hi Community,

 

We have built in a cleaning fee and have a cleaner who cleans after each guest. I am finding it takes a lot of time to coordinate changing calendars with her as quests book, unbook, etc. I would love some advice from others about how they do this - tips and experiences? Is there a way for our cleaner to see our calendar, but not have access to our whole account?

 

Best,

Amy

20 Replies 20
Gerry-And-Rashid0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

I don't know how unless you export your calendar and send it to her on a regular basis - but that's just as much work as you currently have.

 

We use ical on our phones and pc/laptops and have set up a separate shared calendar to share just AirBnB booking information between us and another person - however, you still have to enter details (eg name/date/check in and check out time).

I searched for this topic and couldn't find anything, so I posted my own but I've had the same question. 

 

Initially, I created a spreadsheet calendar and sent to her at the beginning of each month. When I'm fully booked, that seems to work. I'm able to include the dates, number of guests, and any notes I wanted (like early check-in, etc). However, lately, I've had some last-minute bookings due to open dates and a few cancellations. I have two apartments and I'm about to add two more to my listing, so this is going to be more difficult and the cleaning lady is not too tech savvy. 

 

Other than a spreadsheet, I'm not sure. Using a sync'd calendar sounds good but I'm not sure if she can handle that. I hope Airbnb creates a solution.

Sandra126
Level 10
Daylesford, Australia

Email regular screenshots?

Just send her an email once a week with what needs to be done and the dates.

It would probably take you about ten minutes to type up, and follow up with a quick phone call to make sure that she has seen it.

Jude7
Level 10
Rhinebeck, NY

My bookings automatically appear on a google calendar I set up for this purpose, which I then set up to share with another.

 

Jude

Hi Jude, could you walk me through the steps? I added to google cal via URL and once I did, i wasnt able to share it with anyone. I go to settings and there are no options under permissions to email or share a calendar with someone.

Scott41
Level 2
Portland, OR

As another host mentioned; google clanedar works for me. I'd have to dig back into it to find the right settings, but it is automatically synced and my cleaners can check in on dates there. I've only double checked with them a few times when there's been a short notice reservation.

Jeff-And-Sarah0
Level 1
Minneapolis, MN

We added our cleaner as a co-host. She has full access to the bookings calendar so she just lets us know what dates she can clean, and we take care of the ones she can't. She receives notifications of new bookings as well, so there is little to manage from our end.

Co-hosting works very well for this purpose.

I have done the same!  The cleaning fee is paid to her directly.  I am wondering though when I do a cleaning instead of her, do I simply turn off the sharing of the reservation?  Any tips would be greatly appreciated!  Thank you,

Fauna

Are there any useful apps out there that might be good for coordinating? What did you find to be the best solution?

Meg, we have 3 cleaners now and we've found that the easiest way to coordinate is to share a Google Spreadsheet. I enter the dates we need cleaning, and the cleaners just sign themselves up. We thought about getting fancy with calendar integrations and co-hosting access, but honestly the Google Sheet was the simplest and worked the best. We only have one property that needs 5-7 cleanings a month.

 

I take care of providing all the cleaning supplies and clean linens. We have  a large plastic bin on the front porch where we leave clean linens for the cleaner. The cleaner then leaves the dirty ones in the same bin, and I stop by sometime later to pick them up. 

How hard can it be if you have one room.

 

It's not like you are controlling Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport or something.

 

Maybe talk to the cleaner and see how they like to communicate. 

I started using Properly recently. I am only setting up my house right now so don't have a listing on AirBNB yet. With Properly I created lists for cleaning and I can upload photos and put pins on the photos and a description. This way the cleaner always can see how it needs to look. There is a calendar feature when you invite a cleaner to a "Job". They log in when they start the job and log out when finished. They can upload photos and comments. You can use the calendar in Properly to change or update bookings. I think it also syncs with the AirBNB calendar without allowing any further privilieges in AirBNB. I think it updates immediately if there is a change. If your cleaning person is not tech savvy then it probably won't be helpful. I like it because I'm remote and yet I can make sure the cleaner remembers to do everything. I can add lists for cleaning tasks that don't happen regularly for instance. So far I like it. It's only $5/month for the lowest version, or free if you only need to use it twice a month.