Owners as Cleaners

Owners as Cleaners

This topic is not about owners doing cleans after individual owner stays, but rather when an owner wants to effectively “be the cleaner” who cleans after all bookings at their home.

Over the years, we have had some owners who have managed the cleaning of their own home successfully for many years, and we’ve had some examples where it has not gone well at all. As an Owner, you can potentially clean your home better than even the best contractor cleaner. On the flip side, as an Owner, you’re likely to be more emotionally attached to how your home is left by guests, and dealing with that can be a challenge (see Owner Bookings – Going to your home before a cleaner does for more details).


Our Assumptions & Requirements 

If you are to clean your own home, we need to clarify what our assumptions are for all bookings:
  1. You’ll have access to, and utilise, the cleaner's portal in HomHero on a smart phone to monitor when you have cleaning jobs and indicate when they are done (we set you up with access and will send through some user tips).
  1. You make yourself available to do all cleans throughout the year. For example, if you go away on a holiday, we would prefer you arrange a replacement ‘cleaner’ for those dates.
  1. If you can’t find a substitute cleaner, you’d need to give us as much notice as possible to try and arrange one for you. This is not likely to be possible at the peak periods, especially in January, but also during other School Holiday periods.
  1. If a Guest adds the Optional linen on for a booking, it will appear in HomHero for that booking. In that case, please provide the Optional Linen for the specific beds mentioned in the HomHero App, and we will add $30/bed to your gross rental income for that booking. 
  1. Last minute bookings – consider your ability to clean your home at the last minute. If you need 24h notice to clean your home, let us know at the outset, and we can ensure that bookings are not taken with less lead time. This will potentially lead to slightly fewer bookings, but we’d rather set up the process to prevent guests arriving at a home that hasn't been cleaned.
  1. Back-to-Back bookings - consider your ability to clean your home if we have bookings checking in on the same day that a guest checks out. If you can’t guarantee this is always possible, let us know and we can ‘force’ a gap between bookings to give more time to clean. This will potentially lead to slightly fewer bookings, but we’d rather set up the process to prevent guests arriving at a home that hasn't been cleaned.
  1. Swings and Round-a-bouts: All our cleaners understand that sometimes guests will leave a home very well (about 5% of bookings), most times it’ll need a reasonable clean (89%), and sometimes guests seem to just ‘up and leave’ and the cleaning takes a bit longer (5%). In these instances (except for extreme circumstances, see below), we do not expect to have additional charges to pass on to guests.
  1. If you ever go to your home and the Guests have left the home extremely poorly, then we may be able to pass on additional cleaning costs to the guest. Please refer to Claiming Funds from Guests for a lot of detail on how this works.
  1. In addition, as the cleaner, we would need the following (which is our standard practice for contract cleaners):
  1. An invoice, with an ABN from a business registered to provide cleaning services; and
  1. Receipts for any costs associated with replacing items; and
  1. We ask you to upload photos on the Cleaners Portal, clearly showing the way the home was left; and
  1. Include a comment on how much the total additional charge will be.
  1. We would then submit this as a claim to the booking platform that the guest used and request the funds on your behalf.
  1. We recommend all homes with Owner/Cleaners have Linen/Consumable cupboards with coded access (rather than keys). We need a Plan B if a guest arrives at your home and there is no linen (whether they forgot to order it, or you forgot to leave it out). The best Plan B is for us to have access to the Linen/Consumable cupboard without you needing to travel to your home. If you can’t have coded access, then a second (backup) keysafe at the property with keys for the locked cupboard, would be required.

How to leave your home


The home should be left ‘guest ready’ when you finish the clean. This means you need to assume no one will come to your home before your next paying guests, and the home is ready for them to check in. This means:
  1. The home is cleaned to a suitable level
  1. Consumables are left out for the guests
  1. 2 rolls of toilet paper/toilet, 1 coffee pod per person your home sleeps, dishwashing liquid, clothes washing liquid/powder, etc. Please refer to Consumables for more details.
  1. Leave out Fixed linen but not optional linen:

      Fixed Linen

     Optional Linen

  1. Doonas & Doona covers
  1. Fitted & Flat sheets
  1. Pillows (without covers)
  1. Pillowcases
  1. Pillow protectors
  1. Bath Towels
  1. Mattress Protectors

  1. Tea-Towels

  1. Hand-towels

  1. Bathmats


Please refer to Linen for more details.



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