Posts Tagged ‘vacation rental cleaning’
As being a homeowner, and having carpet floors, you will at some point say “ should I just get hardwood floors. As beautiful as hardwood floors are, they don’t come cheap. Hardwood floors are often the most expensive to install, but they will have a long-lasting power and will be the best for your investment in the long run. However, having real hardwood floors can be a lot to maintain. The following is a guide for everything you need to know about maintaining your hardwood floors.
It can be super easy to forget about your floors, due to loads of laundry you have piled up, or your busy work schedule. Managing your hardwood floors should only take about 20-30 minutes per day depending on how much you have throughout your home. Wood floors are more sensitive than you think. To properly manage your wood floors, they need to be swept, mopped, and dusted on a regular basis. This is required to help maintain their shine. When mopping, be careful not to use any harsh chemicals or too much water. Chemicals and too much water will end up causing damage to your floors. Vacuuming is also a good way to manage your floors but you have to vacuum with caution. When vacuuming, don’t use your old vacuum cleaner, set your vacuum on to the bare floor setting to minimize your chances of ruining your floors.
Your next step is to clean your floors monthly with wood cleaner. A wood cleaner is meant to keep your floors healthy and shiny. Using certain wood cleaners will help maintain their strength and help them look absolutely stunning year-round. When cleaning your floors with wood cleaning, make sure you are wiping the same way that the wood grains run. This will increase the results by making sure you are getting all the dirt and oil out of the cracks and crevices in the flooring. The wood cleaner also helps prevent discoloration. You can also check for discoloration by lifting up rugs that you have laid out on your floors. You will be able to see a color difference, if you notice a color difference, then your floors have probably been damaged by the sun. To protect your floors from the UV rays of the sun, you can pull your drapes or blinds during the peak sunlight hours.
No matter how much you take care of your hardwood floors, you will always need to get some professional help sometime down the line. The reason you may need some help with your floors is due to your floors needing deep cleaning, a sanding, and even some refinishing treatments. Deep cleaning is used to attack dirt, oil, or grime that builds up over time. Sanding and refinishing treatments finish the job to make your floors look good as new. Some good habits to get into include when moving furniture, make sure you lift everything so you aren’t scratching your hardwood floors.
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The best way to make sure that you are getting the most out of your hardwood floors is to take good care of them every day. Use the wood floor cleaner guide above to help you create and stick to a good schedule to ensure that your wood floors are getting the right maintenance they need.
May Day…It’s actually a holiday – one of several celebrated each May 1st, depending on where you (and your head) are at in the world. Many of us hear the term “May Day” and think: distress call! It is, of course, that too. “Mayday”, the distress call, comes from the French term m’aidez, which translates to “help me” but has nothing to do with the holidays.
The Welcoming of Summer!
If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway. (In May, the Southern Hemisphere is getting ready for winter, so May Day as a seasonal celebration is, for the most part, a Northern Hemisphere thing.) May Day was originally an ancient pagan holiday celebrating the start of summer. In Gaelic traditions, it is known as Beltaine (or the Anglicized “Beltane”). Through the centuries, this celebration was adopted by different cultures and rituals modified to fit the beliefs within those cultures. Europeans and Americans most often celebrate in a secular manner, with traditions such as maypole dancing and wearing flower crowns.
International Workers’ Day
On the less-flowery, more serious side of things, May 1st has been celebrated as International Workers’ Day since the 1880s. (Think of it as sort of a world-wide Labor Day.) At the time, labor movements around the world were fighting for fair work accommodations such as eight-hour workdays and unionization. The date May 1st was chosen because it aligned with the anniversary of the Haymarket Affair in Chicago, where police killed four people at a peaceful protest after someone threw a bomb into the crowd. The Haymarket Affair had a huge impact on labor movements across the world.
Join Us?
Moxie Girl celebrates those who have fought – and continue to fight – for labor rights around the world. And we will wear flower crowns whenever we darn well please, because we’re Moxie like that. Looking to join a supportive, hard-working team that LOVES to have fun on a flexible schedule? Just click to APPLY!
If you’re a Phoenix-area vacation rental homeowner, find out how much easier your life can be with the Moxie Girl team working for you! Click for a FREE CONSULTATION!
The vast majority of internet users in the United States check online reviews before making decisions on just about anything. In the vacation rental home game, the volume and quality of your property’s reviews can boost it closer to the “top of the list” on your rental platform, too, increasing your rental potential!
So That Happened…Don’t Panic!
The bad review…No matter how hard you try if you’re operating a vacation rental home, it’s bound to happen at some point. Bad reviews can seem like personal attacks, even if that wasn’t the intent of the reviewer. And feeling personally attacked can cause all sorts of things to come out of our mouths – or our fingertips to our keyboards – that we wouldn’t say under normal circumstances.
DO NOT IGNORE IT, but don’t panic, either. Take a breath…or six dozen. It may take a bit before you’re able to objectively look at the situation from all angles. It is important that you address the review online, but only after you’ve had a chance to compose yourself enough to compose an appropriate response.
Acknowledge and Apologize
When crafting a reply to the bad review, do your best to sound professional, but keep it real. No one likes a “canned” response to a complaint – they want a person, not a spokesperson. Simply apologize for the bad experience they had and express your desire, as the owner of the vacation rental home, to “make it right,” and offer your contact info for follow up.
Once you’ve done this, you’ve very effectively put the ball in their court – and that should be the end of any online interaction on the matter. Any further communication on the matter should be done person-to-person, not in a public forum. NO ONE wins in a cyber-fight.
What Will Make It Right?
Put yourself in the role of the disgruntled guest writing the bad review. If whatever happened to them happened to you, what would YOU be comfortable asking for, to “make it right”? If and when the guest contacts you for follow up, ask them directly what THEY feel would make it right?
Hopefully, the two of you aren’t terribly far apart in what you think is a fair resolution. By the way, it’s quite possible that your guest was a little bit hotter under the collar when they wrote the review than they will be after a little sincere and positive interaction with you. If it turns out the guest is actually demanding less than what you had in mind to “fix this,” offering a little bit more may even cause your guest to remove or edit their review in your favor – especially if they had a very valid complaint.
What Did We Learn?
Always let the experience of dealing with a bad review be a learning experience. What exactly went wrong at your vacation rental home that led to the bad review? Whatever it was, if the complaint was valid, it’s now your job to figure out how to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Sure, there will always be the occasional guest who’s nit-picking or looking for way more of a settlement than seems fair. Some guests even make a habit of it, unfortunately. It’s okay to wave them off once you’ve done your part in trying to make things right by offering a reasonable solution.
Moxie Girl Can Help!
Operating a successful vacation rental home can be stressful! Putting the Moxie Girl team in charge of your between-guest turns is a great way to reclaim some of your time as a vacation rental homeowner. Click here for a FREE CONSULTATION!
Caring for over 100 vacation rental homes Valley-wide is a big job! Moxie Girl is continually striving to be the best in the industry, and our efforts start with understanding our client’s needs – and THAT starts with communication!
We know communication can be a struggle for some clients…many people just assume that their needs “go without saying” while others may be just plain uncomfortable stating their needs. Some clients may not even be sure WHAT they want. We wish we were mind-readers, but in lieu of being psychics, we work hard to be great communicators!
Ideally, our vacation rental clients will just express their “end game” right at the beginning of our relationship, but as we’ve learned over time, this doesn’t always happen. It’s Moxie Girl’s job to know exactly what our clients expect, and more often than not, that requires us to ask some questions.
Our Moxie Girls know that spending a few minutes asking the right questions (and follow-up questions if needed) can save hours of confusion – and ultimately frustration. Moxie Girl truly desires to get the job done efficiently and most importantly, to the vacation rental homeowners satisfaction (and beyond)! But we DO need to know what it takes to make that happen.
With Moxie Girl’s extensive experience in caring for vacation rental homes all over the Phoenix Metro area, we can help vacation rental homeowners new to the game as well as long-time vacation rental property operators – and it all starts with our communication skills!
It is Moxie Girl’s mission to give our clients peace of mind, knowing their guests will arrive at a property that’s looking – and smelling – its freshest and best! CLICK HERE to find out if Moxie Girl is a good fit for your vacation rental!
Are you a GSD (Get Stuff Done) type? Moxie Girl is always looking for those who share our work ethic and GSD personality to join our growing team of Vacation Rental Assistants! Moxie Girls (and boys) enjoy flexible scheduling, learn new skills and have plenty of opportunity for professional and personal growth. CLICK HERE to tell us about yourself – we look forward to hearing from you!
With the immense popularity of Marie Kondo’s Netflix series, “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo,” more people than ever are choosing a neater, more minimal lifestyle within their homes. It turns out many of us have a lot of unused (and useless) stuff just taking up space. What does this have to do with vacation rental homes, you ask?
Well…smart vacation rental homeowners have been doing this type of “tidying” on their rental properties for years! Vacation rental homeowners newer to the industry are using this tidy approach right from the get-go, setting up and stocking their vacation rentals in the least cluttered and most efficient way possible.
What Does Your Vacation Rental Home Really NEED?
There is much to be said for minimalism in a vacation rental home. Let’s face it, more stuff = more stuff to clean. More stuff also = a greater potential for damage (or theft) of that stuff. Two areas in many vacation rental homes which tend to be outstanding in the “too much stuff” field are the kitchen and the linen closet.
Moxie Girl has posted two blogs you may find helpful! Whether you are actually just setting up your vacation rental home or determined to make an improvement to an existing situation in your vacation rental, check out “How to Set Up A Vacation Rental Home Kitchen” and “Laundry 101 for Vacation Rental Homes” for some excellent tips!
The Benefits of “Kondo-ing” Your Vacation Rental
Vacation rental home guests have a tendency to use whatever is made available to them, so if your vacation rental home offers an abundance (especially an over-abundance) of usable items such as towels and dishes, chances are there will be much more to clean (and organize) once the guests depart. While you always want your vacation rental guests to have everything they need, don’t over-do! Having fewer stock items (such as sheets, towels and kitchenware) available to your guests will also help you – or your vacation rental cleaning crew – keep an eye on the inventory and condition of your items.
Don’t forget to extend your tidying to the decorative items in your vacation rental home, too. With cleaning in mind, how “rental-friendly” are your decorations? Moxie Girl recommends durable decorative items with smooth surfaces for your vacation rental. You know, things that don’t break easily, but can be easily dusted or wiped clean. (That awesome Native dream-catcher isn’t going to look awesome at all once it starts collecting desert dust and cobwebs – which are nearly impossible to remove. A PAINTING of a dream-catcher would make a vacation-rental-friendly alternative!)
Choosing the right items for your vacation rental home helps avoid the overuse of resources as well as dramatically cutting down the time needed for between-guests turns!
Folding Fun
Well before her Netflix series, Marie Kondo became famous for her folding techniques (Google her YouTube videos!) With all of the bath, bed and kitchen linens in your vacation rental home, consistent folding and storage will keep your vacation rental beautifully organized.
Moxie Girl loves creative folding, too! It’s not a Kondo thing, but several of our Moxies really know how to put the fun into it. Creative folding, especially with bath linens can give your vacation rental a look that’s a step above standard staging. Our Moxie, Rebecca, is known for her bath towel elephant displays. Now THAT sparks joy!
Moxie Girl Can Help!
Moxie Girl, your vacation rental specialist services successful vacation rental properties throughout the Phoenix area – even offering same-day turns to our valued clients! CLICK HERE to take the first step in putting your vacation rental home in the care of our local team.
Interested in becoming a vacation rental specialist? We are always looking for thoughtful, caring individuals to join the Moxie Girl team! Please TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF!
Ready or not, summer is on the way! If you’re a vacation rental home owner there are definitely more than a few things to think about. Summer in the Valley of the Sun does bring some special needs…
Dry or Not, It’s Still HOT!
First and foremost on everyone’s minds in summer here in the Phoenix area is air conditioning! Most people – especially those visiting from cooler climates – would find Phoenix absolutely uninhabitable at it’s natural temperature.
If you haven’t scheduled an annual maintenance service for your vacation rental home, it should be first on your to-do list today! There are oodles of heating and cooling service companies in the Valley, but even the biggest and the best of them are booked solid days – even weeks – in advance.
Regular maintenance of your cooling unit keeps it operating at its most efficient and can identify issues before they become emergencies, extending its life, overall. Extremely important, too, is changing the air return filters in your vacation rental home at least every month. A few crazy haboobs can really gunk up a filter!
For more tips on making your vacation rental home and systems safer and more efficient, check out our blog, “How to Prepare Your Phoenix Vacation Rental for Summer.”
Your Vacation Rental Home Oasis
If your vacation rental property boasts a private swimming pool and/or spa, you probably realize those features have their own set of challenges, year-round. But a vacation rental home with a pool is likely to be considered much more desirable by potential guests, especially in the Phoenix summer, so that’s a plus!
As a vacation rental home owner, hiring a professional pool maintenance service can reduce your headaches tremendously. Moxie Girl recommends Aquaman Pools. Aquaman has extensive experience in all phases of pool and spa care here in the Phoenix area, and services many of the vacation rental homes owned by Moxie Girl clients!
Moxie Girl has posted a plethora of tips regarding your vacation rental home pool! Check them out here:
5 Sizzling Summer Tips for Vacation Rental Home with Pools
Pool Perfection – Fireside Chat with Chad Nikkel of Aquaman Pools
Pool Maintenance 101 (for you DIYers!)
Towel, Please
Summer laundry, believe it or not, can bring some special challenges as well – more so if your vacation rental home has a pool or spa, private or community property. As we’ve previously noted (see our blog, “Laundry 101 for Vacation Rental Homes”) if you’ve got a pool, you NEED pool towels! You’ll also need to make sure they are visible and convenient to your guests.
We’ve also mentioned previously that it’s a great idea to provide your vacation rental guests with disposable make-up removing wipes. Guests tend to take advantage of “amenities” and a few pennies spent making disposable wipes available can really save your linens in the long run.
Since it’s summer, you may also want to consider providing larger, disposable body wipes for your guests to remove self-tanning and bronzing products. If you think a little mascara on a pillowcaseis a problem, just wait until you see what a body or two covered with sparkly bronzer can do to a whole set of towels and sheets! I have and it’s devastating.
Summer Fresh
Changing out a few decorative items in and around your vacation rental home can really give it a fresh look for the season. Summer is also a great time to visit your own vacation rental property and see firsthand what may need updating or repair. Read our blogs for some Moxie Girl thoughts on these subjects. (Yes, we know it says refresh for spring, but you can refresh for any season!)
Visiting Your Own Vacation Rental Home?
Refresh Your Vacation Rental for Spring
Could Your Vacation Rental Property Use a Vacation Rental Specialist?
Moxie Girl has a stellar reputation in Phoenix area vacation rental home care – even offering same-day turns to our valued clients! Find out how to make our caring team YOUR caring team – a FREE CONSULTATION is just a click away!
Summer is upon us here in The Valley and if you own a vacation rental home in the Phoenix area, you may think business is a goner until September or so. Some vacation rental home owners even go as far as to “close” their rental properties until the end of summer. Big mistake! For more on those particular subjects, check out these informative Moxie blogs: “Summer Vacation Rentals – Moxie Girl Debunks the Myths” and “Boosting Summer Vacation Rental Bookings”!
While it may not seem as popular during the summer months, there are still plenty of bookings to be had by making your vacation rental home more available to road-trippers! Phoenix is a frequent stop for those traveling to the Grand Canyon and other National parks, San Diego and lots of summer music festivals and other events in the Southwestern U.S. – even Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) Mexico.
Competitive Pricing
As we highlighted in our ‘Boosting Summer Vacation Rental Bookings,” you will most likely need to make some adjustments to your pricing during the hot, humid months. Most of the best resorts in the Phoenix area offer their rooms at rock-bottom prices in the summer, because, well, they figured out long ago that’s the way to drive your business in the “off” season – and something is definitely better than nothing.
Look at the competition around the location of your vacation rental home and aim to keep your prices in check, keeping in mind these fancy resorts are also probably sweetening their deals with “packages” that you just may not be able to offer. Yes, we know it seems heart-breaking to list your stunning vacation rental at less than half of it’s winter value, but again, something is definitely better than nothing – and you have expenses pertaining to your rental property all year long.
Increased Accessibility
Moxie Girl works with many vacation rental homes that have a 2-night minimum stay required and don’t usually offer last minute bookings. During the busy season, when throngs of visitors are making Phoenix their vacation destination, those policies are pretty standard and certainly don’t tend to deter bookings. But summer is a different animal – especially if you want to attract those road-trippers!
When an overnight in Phoenix is just a stop on the way to Disneyland, most folks are ready to roll first thing in the morning – having no intention of being here any longer than necessary, so a 2-night minimum may indeed have your potential guest scrolling on to the next AirBnb listing. It’s a good idea to, at the very least, lift your 2-night minimum Monday-Thursday nights since this is what the road-trippers will probably be most interested in anyway.
Since one-night-only road-trippers most likely want to get on their way in the early morning, you’ll generally have a few more hours to turn your vacation rental home than you normally would, which makes taking those last-minute bookings even easier!
Need Help with Your Vacation Rental Home?
Moxie Girl is the Valley’s vacation rental specialist! Our main focus is vacation rental properties of all sizes, throughout the Phoenix area. Our clients enjoy more stress-free living with Moxie Girl handling their between-guest turns – even same-day! Find out what we can do for you – just click for a FREE CONSULTATION.
Attention Arizona Vacation Rental Home Owners!
The business of operating vacation rental homes has skyrocketed in the past five years, with these short-term rentals increasing in number by well over 500% since late 2014 – and occupancy rates for these vacation rental properties are at an all-time high! Business is definitely booming if you’re the owner of a vacation rental home.
Vacation rental properties – or their guests, rather – also provide a steady influx of new visitors to businesses in the areas surrounding these rentals. That equals greater success to those business -and more money into city and state sales tax coffers! There are even business (Moxie Girl, for example) dedicated to serving the vacation rental industry, boosting employment opportunity in the Valley!
Other Side-Effects of this Boom?
Yes…Complaints, unfortunately. Many permanent residents of nearby vacation rental properties – especially larger ones – tell tales of woe. Noise, trash and increased traffic have been among the most common complaints. To those living next to “party houses,” short-term rentals have become a nuisance – and residents have not been quiet in making their feelings known to officials.
New Law Affecting Vacation Rentals Signed by Gov. Ducey on May 21, 2019
As the operator of a vacation rental home in Arizona, you need to be aware of the new legal requirements that apply, state-wide. Most importantly, regardless of what city statutes and license regulations may apply, anyone in the vacation rental game in our state must have an Arizona sales tax license to operate legally.
The new law also states that rentals may not be used for weddings, banquets or other special events that would otherwise require a permit. Certain occupancy specifics are also affected by the new legislation. Rep. John Kavanaugh, R-Fountain Hills, sponsor of HB 2672, says this measure addresses and aims to eliminate the “party house” issues at the root of many complaints.
There are also a number of new rules regarding providing vacation rental home owner contact info to cities and towns, as well as changes to violation process policies. With fines for violations ranging from $250 to $1,500+, you’ll definitely want to stay on top of your admin (and enforcement) duties as the owner of your vacation rental!
But is the New Law Enough?
Many Valley residents say the new law, which goes into effect 90 days after the end of the legislative session ends, doesn’t go far enough in curbing the disruptions they have been experiencing due to neighboring vacation rental properties. When the bill was first introduced, it included a much longer list of restrictions than the final version, signed into law this week. Rep. Kavanaugh was concerned that if included in the final bill, it would either not get enough votes to pas – or face a veto by Gov. Doug Ducey. Ducey, in signing the bill stated “In Arizona, we respect the right to do what we want with our property without undue government interference. I am open to corrective action if this bill is applied too broadly.”
Most cities already have noise, parking and littering ordinances, but officials say these rules are tough to enforce in many cases – especially in the case of vacation rental properties. Many are hopeful, though, that the new law will at least help take care of the worst violators.
You can read HB 2672 HERE.
Need Help With Your Vacation Rental Home?
Moxie Girl focuses on caring for vacation rental homes throughout the Phoenix Metro area, even offering same-day turns for our valued clients. Just click for a FREE CONSULTATION and find out how Moxie Girl can be YOUR vacation rental specialist!
