Why holiday let cleaning is different from home cleaning
When you clean your own home you know what happened in it since the last clean. A holiday let receives strangers — sometimes with children, pets, or both — whose habits you don’t know and whose impact on the property you don’t discover until check-out. The cleaning standard required is closer to hospitality than domestic.
Airbnb’s review system makes cleaning standard one of the most visible metrics on a listing. A single guest review citing unclean soft furnishings, odour in a bedroom, or a dirty patio can drop a listing’s score and affect bookings for months. The cost of a thorough clean between guests is significantly less than the commercial impact of a bad review.
The turnaround checklist — what needs doing after every stay
Bedrooms
Strip all bedding and wash on a hot cycle. Check mattress protectors — replace if stained or damaged. Check mattresses for staining. Any mattress staining should be extraction cleaned before re-making — a stain under the bottom sheet that a guest finds is a review-killer.
Vacuum all soft furnishings including bed base, headboard (if fabric), any fabric chairs or stools. Check under beds for items left by guests. Wipe all hard surfaces, door handles, light switches and plug socket surrounds.
Living areas
Sofas and fabric chairs accumulate guest contamination quickly in a holiday let context — particularly where guests eat and drink in the living room. Check all cushions front and back. Any odour or visible staining should be extraction cleaned before the next guest arrives, not wiped over.
Vacuum all upholstery and carpet. Wipe all hard surfaces. Check remote controls, game controllers, and anything guests handle repeatedly — these carry more bacteria per square centimetre than most surfaces in the property.
Kitchen
Full clean of all appliances inside and out. Check the oven — this is the most commonly cited cleaning issue in holiday let reviews. Dishwasher filter clean. Microwave inside. Fridge and freezer check — remove any food left by guests. Clean bin inside and out.
Mop floor. For properties with tile floors, a periodic hot-water pressure wash of the kitchen floor (quarterly as a minimum) removes grease build-up that mopping redistributes rather than removes.
Bathrooms
Full clean of all surfaces, fittings and fixtures. Check grout and silicone for mould — bathroom mould develops quickly in a holiday let that has been occupied and then closed up. Clean extractor fan grille. Replace toilet rolls, soap, shampoo to the standard you specify in your listing.
Shower glass and screens — check for soap scum and limescale. These are immediately visible to a new guest and frequently cited in reviews. A squeegee after every shower eliminates this as an issue; if previous guests haven’t used one, a limescale remover with dwell time before cleaning will clear it.
External areas
External areas are the first thing a guest sees on arrival and the last thing they see on departure. A dirty patio, algae-covered path, or stained decking is the first impression — and it sets the expectation for the rest of the property before they’ve walked through the door.
Pressure wash patios, decking, paths and external seating areas at least quarterly, or after any guests with children or dogs. Check garden furniture for bird mess, algae, and general contamination. Check bins for odour.
V-TUF pressure washers for external area cleaning → Outdoor cleaning guide →
The deep clean schedule — what needs doing periodically
Beyond the turnaround clean after every guest, a holiday let needs periodic deep cleaning that guest-to-guest turnover doesn’t cover.
Carpet and upholstery extraction — every 6 to 8 weeks
In a busy holiday let with regular occupancy, carpets and soft furnishings should be extraction cleaned every 6–8 weeks. This is significantly more frequent than a domestic home because of the volume of different occupants. A standard extraction clean with a spray extraction machine and dedicated sanitiser removes the accumulated contamination from multiple guest stays before it becomes visible or odorous.
For owners who self-manage the property, the V-TUF SPRAYEX 37L is the right machine for a single property. For owners managing multiple properties or letting agents handling a portfolio, the SPRAYEX 77L with its larger recovery tank and higher motor power handles sustained commercial use across multiple properties in a working day.
V-TUF SPRAYEX 37L → V-TUF SPRAYEX 77L → V-TUF VTC420 sanitiser →
Mattress extraction clean — every 3 months
Mattresses in a holiday let are slept on by a far higher volume of different people than a domestic mattress. Extraction clean all mattresses quarterly as a minimum. Where a mattress has been in use for more than two years in a holiday let context, consider replacement — the accumulated contamination volume is beyond what any cleaning process can fully address.
External deep clean — spring and autumn
Full pressure wash of all external hard surfaces at the start of the season (spring) and at the close (autumn). Softwash of any render, cladding, or masonry with biological growth. Clean gutters. Check and clear drains. This is also the right time to apply a biocidal surface treatment to patios and paths to slow biological regrowth through the season.
V-TUF D-Green moss and algae killer →
Managing pet-friendly listings
A pet-friendly Airbnb listing commands a premium and attracts a larger pool of potential guests — but requires a higher cleaning standard between stays. Dog hair in sofas and carpets, pet dander on soft furnishings, and the possibility of accidents on carpet all need to be addressed as part of every turnaround after a guest with a dog.
Add a thorough vacuum of all upholstery with a pet hair attachment to the post-dog-stay turnaround. Check carpets and soft furnishings for odour before making up the property for the next guest. Any pet odour should be extraction cleaned immediately — it will intensify if the property is closed up between guests.
Guide: removing pet smells and stains from carpets and upholstery →
Dealing with damage and significant soiling between guests
When a guest leaves the property in significantly worse condition than expected — a red wine spill on a light carpet, significant soiling of mattresses, or damage to soft furnishings — the extraction clean process for each is covered in detail in the stain removal guide.
Document everything with photographs before cleaning. If the damage is significant enough to raise a deposit claim, you will need photographic evidence of the state the property was left in before you restore it. A before-and-after extraction clean on a badly stained carpet is also useful evidence of the effort required to restore the property.
Guide: how to remove stains from carpets and upholstery →
Equipment that pays for itself
For a holiday let owner managing one or two properties, the cleaning equipment is a business cost that pays for itself in preserved review scores and reduced professional cleaning bills. A spray extraction machine used every 6–8 weeks eliminates the need for a professional carpet clean at £150–£250 per visit. A pressure washer used quarterly on external areas eliminates the need for a professional jet wash at £80–£150 per visit.
The equipment cost is recovered within a season. After that it’s a direct cost saving on every booking cycle.
The review score connection
Airbnb’s cleanliness rating is one of five categories guests score separately. It is also the category most likely to generate a written comment when negative. Guests who have stayed in well-maintained properties have high expectations — a sofa that smells of a previous guest, carpet that feels sticky underfoot, or a mattress with a visible stain will be mentioned.
The properties that consistently achieve 5-star cleanliness scores are those with a documented cleaning schedule, the right equipment to deliver a genuine deep clean rather than a surface wipe, and a commitment to addressing contamination between every guest rather than waiting until it becomes visible.
Products used in this guide
V-TUF SPRAYEX 37L Spray Extraction Machine →
V-TUF SPRAYEX 77L Heavy-Duty Spray Extraction Machine →
V-TUF VTC420 Carpet and Upholstery Sanitiser 5L →
V-TUF D-Green Moss and Algae Killer 5L →
V-TUF pressure washers for external area cleaning →
Also read: deep cleaning sofas, carpets and upholstery →
Also read: removing pet smells and stains →
