We check every room before guests arrive

We reset your rental for each guest

The clean between one guest and the next starts with a walk through the unit before anyone picks up a cloth. We look for anything the last guest broke or left behind, and we pull the trash from every room. The beds get stripped next. Used sheets and wet towels left in a pile will make a bedroom smell before the kitchen's done. So they get bagged early and set where you want them. The clean set you left for us goes on the beds after the dusting.

Guests judge the kitchen and the bathroom first, so those rooms get the most time. Any food the last guest left comes out of the fridge, and the shelves get wiped where something spilled. The microwave gets cleaned inside, and the coffee maker gets emptied and rinsed. In the bathroom we pull hair off the tile and out of the drain cover, then clean the toilet down to the base. A shower that looks fine from the doorway but has hair in the corner is the picture that ends up in a review.

Dusting runs from the top of the room down, from ceiling fan blades to baseboards, so nothing falls onto a clean surface. Floors always come last. We mop our way out of each room so there aren't any footprints on the wet floor. Then we set the unit up to match your listing photos, with towels folded and pillows placed the same way on every bed. The job ends with a second walk-through, where we look at each room the way an arriving guest would.

• Walk-through for damage and forgotten items
• Beds stripped and made with your clean set
• Fridge cleared of the last guest's food
• Mineral spots taken off shower glass
• Towels set out to match your listing

Older Los Angeles rentals need a gentler clean

Many short-term rentals around Los Angeles are older houses, or the guest units behind them. A prewar bungalow usually has original wood floors and built-in cabinets with glass doors. Those floors get a damp mop, never a soaking. Water settles into the gaps between old boards, and a wet mop used over and over lifts the finish and turns the edges gray. The cabinet glass gets cleaned inside and out, since guests open those doors when they want a mug. Deep window sills get wiped too, because dust piles up there first.

Spanish-style houses bring a different problem. Many have terracotta tile floors, which are soft and soak up whatever sits on them. A strong cleaner or a dripping mop dulls the tile and can leave a pale patch that never matches the rest. The bathrooms in these houses often keep their original small tile, and the grout between it is old and thin. Scrub that grout with a stiff brush and it crumbles out of the joints. We clean it hard enough to lift the dirt and stop there.

Then there are the small units, like a stucco apartment over a row of carports or a garage turned into a guest house. These bathrooms are tight, and many don't have an exhaust fan, so steam from every shower stays in the room. Mildew shows up as black dots on the caulk around the tub and on the ceiling above the shower. A clean that skips the ceiling leaves those dots for the next guest to photograph. Window tracks in these units fill with dust and dead bugs, and we vacuum them out before wiping.

Dust and hard water build up fast

Los Angeles stays dry most of the year. In fall and winter the Santa Ana winds push fine dust through every gap in an old wood window or a loose slider. A unit that sits empty for a few days between bookings will have a gray film on dark counters and nightstands. That's why we dust every time, even after a guest who stayed one night. In fire season, ash lands on patios and blows onto window sills. It needs a damp cloth, because a dry wipe smears it into long streaks.

Most tap water around Los Angeles is hard. It leaves white spots on shower glass and around the faucets, and every shower adds a new layer. Wipe the glass without taking the minerals off, and the spots stack up until they etch into the glass for good. Guests read cloudy glass as dirty glass, no matter how clean the rest of the bathroom is. So the mineral spots come off on every visit, before they get the chance to build.

Rentals near the beach in Santa Monica have their own mess. Sand comes in on shoes and towels and ends up in the couch cushions and the tracks of the sliding door. Sand left in a slider track grinds the rollers each time a guest opens it, so we vacuum the track before we wipe it. Salt air leaves a hazy film on windows and balcony glass that ordinary glass cleaner just smears around. That film has to be washed off with water first, then the glass gets dried clear.

Skipped steps show up in guest reviews

Reviews come down to what guests touch. They mention the pillowcase and the TV remote far more often than the baseboards. One hair on a pillow can cost a host a star on cleanliness, even when the rest of the unit looks perfect. So we check each pillowcase under a light before the bed gets made, and we wipe the remote and the door handles on every visit. Those are the spots everyone touches and nobody thinks to clean.

A rental clean is also the only time anyone checks the unit between guests. A cracked glass or a wine stain on the couch is easy to find when you're looking for it. When a cleaner skips that check, the host hears about it from the next guest instead. We tell you what we found before we leave the unit. That gives you time to replace the item before check-in or to raise it with the guest who caused it.

Rental cleans usually go wrong in the gap between checkout and the next check-in. When that window is short, a rushed cleaner drops the steps a guest will notice, like the shower glass or the second walk-through. We work Monday to Saturday: 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, and we're closed Sunday. Send us your checkout and check-in times when you book, and we plan the clean around them. A Sunday checkout needs a Monday clean or a later check-in on your calendar.