Twelve details guests notice that a quick clean misses.

We keep a record of every complaint we receive, including the ones that turn out not to be about cleaning. Read together, they say something simple. Guests rarely complain about the obvious. They complain about the small things a fast clean walks past, and about things that are not cleaning at all but look as if they are.

These are the twelve details that come up most often in our own records, with names, places and dates removed. For each one, this is what we changed.

Who this is for: short-let hosts and owners in Oxford and Oxfordshire.
If you run your own turnovers, or are choosing someone to run them, this is the list to check against.

The twelve details

Bathroom & kitchen

1. Under the toilet rim. Guests photograph the toilet first, and they lift the lid. A bowl that looks clean from standing height can still carry marks under the rim. It is one of four places we film open at the end of every clean.
2. The shower drain and the corners of the niche. Soap scum and limescale read as neglect in a photograph. In hard-water areas, scale that has been left to build up is a job for a deep clean, not a turnover. Hard water can etch fittings beyond cleaning. We report that to the owner in writing.
3. Behind the bathroom door. A blind spot because the door hides it while you work. Close the door, check the floor and the skirting behind it, then leave.
4. Inside the oven. Grease left by a previous guest gets blamed on the last clean. If the oven is in the specification, it is opened, cleaned and checked, not judged by its door. An oven that has gone past a wipe needs a deep clean.
5. Fridge seals, shelves and door vents. Soil survives a fast wipe in the folds of the seal and at the back of shelves. Some marks are wear rather than dirt, so we note which is which instead of guessing.

Soft furnishings & floors

6. Hair on soft furnishings. Bedspreads, decorative cushions, sofa arms and headboards. Hair survives a vacuum and shows up the moment a guest sits down. We now run a lint roller over every fabric surface after the bed is made, not before, because making the bed is what lifts it. Fabric that is stained rather than hairy needs a carpet and upholstery clean.
7. Every seat, not only the sofa. Dining chairs, stools and window seats get wiped but rarely checked. Even good reviews mention seats. That kind of feedback is worth more than praise, because it tells you exactly what to fix.
8. Under heavy furniture. Dust gathers where a mop does not reach and where a guest’s eye does, at floor level. Low furniture gets a torch check.
9. A kitchen floor that feels sticky. A floor can look clean and still feel tacky underfoot, usually from detergent left behind. We are adding a clean-water rinse and a dry-touch check by hand to the end of every clean.
10. A smell at low level beside the bed. Odours settle low, behind and beside the bed head, where a standing person will not notice them but a sleeping one will. We added a smell check to every bedroom. Anything we cannot clean safely is photographed and reported the same day.

Not cleaning, but it looks like it

11. Insects on sills, in sinks and in corners. A single dead insect on a sill reads as an infestation in a review. They are removed every visit. A live or recurring problem is reported to the owner as pest control, because no clean can fix it.
12. Things that are not cleaning but look like it. Plumbing faults, missing inventory, linen below par levels, failed sealant, damp. A guest files all of these under cleanliness. The answer is a written inventory and par levels set against maximum occupancy, and a dated record of every defect reported to the owner before a guest finds it.

What we changed

Every lesson above is now part of how we work, not a note on a wall:

• A completion video at the end of every clean, lights on, filmed slowly, with the toilet bowl, oven, fridge and shower drain shown open.
• Defects photographed on arrival, before we clean near them, described as we see them and never diagnosed.
• Anything that could fall, shock, flood or burn reported to the owner in writing the same hour, with a recommendation not to use it until a qualified person has checked it.
• When something is genuinely ours, we fix it first. We do not lead with a discount, because a discount does not clean anything.

For hosts: a five-minute check before a guest arrives

• Lift the toilet lid and look under the rim.
• Open the oven and the fridge.
• Run a hand over one dining chair and one cushion.
• Walk the kitchen floor in socks.
• Count the towels against the maximum number of guests the listing allows.

If any of those fails, it will fail for your guest too, and it will appear in a review under cleanliness whoever is responsible for it.

Questions hosts ask

How long does a turnover take?

It depends on the size of the property and the condition guests leave it in, so there is no honest single figure. We quote per listing.

Do you provide linen?

We can. Linen is handled through our off-site laundry and priced per listing.

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