HYH-10 Keep it Clean! (Nuts&Bolts series)

Hosting Your Home - Airbnb host stories

Debi Hertert of HostingYourHome.com interviews two veteran housekeepers who take care of Debi’s three Airbnb vacation rentals on the Oregon coast. Bonnie (left) and Billie (right, with Makenzie) bring their wits and humor as they discuss what makes a good guest, funny situations that come up like having to help pack up some guests who were forgetting to leave, and of course the hard challenges of housekeeping. This is a different job altogether than house cleaning for full-time residents. Some Airbnb hosts already use professional cleaners, and some no doubt think about using them for turnovers or intermittently. Even if the space is different than the coastal properties discussed here, the critical requirements of housekeepers are the same:

• Reliability of meeting your guest schedule, and
• Feeling co-ownership in achieving great guest experiences

Debi’s beach rentals are hours away, so in that case, a third critical requirement is initiative. She is completely reliant on Billie and Bonnie to not only clean, but take the initiative to make sure the incoming guests have the best possible experience. Listening to the interview will convince you that no owner could think of all the things Bonnie and Billie do, much less demand they do them. Reliability is so key that one absence without backup during a back to back turnover could turn into a crisis and 6 hours of driving plus cleaning. Retaining a great housekeeper is one of the most essential challenges for hosts. The good news is that there is nothing different from retaining any other good employee. But we have to keep these job satisfaction indicators in mind or suffer losing our essential support:

• recognition
• challenge
• freedom to assume responsibility
• avoiding burnout
• compensation, and
• spending enough personal connection time to build a relationship.

Have fun hosting! Keep it clean! Here are links to Debi’s Oregon coast rentals discussed on the show: Seal Rock, Oregon (Gull House): http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/16446 Lincoln City, Oregon (Shearwater House): http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/34403 Lincoln City, Oregon (Romance of the Sea) http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/16431