On June 8th Airbnb released its new cleaning protocol the guide is 38 pages
long and it has a ton of information inside there are some real practical
tips and procedures but a few things just a few of them seem to go a bit too
far there is lots of great information inside of it so let's go through it
together and be sure to watch until the very end where I outline some
potentially unsafe practices that are associated with the guide welcome to
another episode of Airbnb uncovered I'm Matt the creator of Airbnb uncovered
dotcom and Airbnb super host on this channel I uncover some of the best
capped hosting secrets as well as share with you everything that I've learned
after hosting over three thousand guests my tips tricks and best practices are
all focused on helping new hosts earn more revenue attract the best guess and
achieve super host status faster if you haven't yet seen or read the guide then
I've link to it in the description below be sure to review it and ideally do so
before you watch this video so that what I'm about to talk about makes a lot more
sense the guide starts with what I think is the most important point protecting
yourself you should always wear a mask gloves and even an apron or a gown when
cleaning I mean if you get infected with corona virus it's going to put you out
of business for at least 14 days and leave you sick as a dog and could
actually kill you so in my mind no reservation is worth any of that it also
makes a very clear distinction between cleaning and sanitizing Airbnb is
telling hosts to first clean away dirt and grime on everything with regular
cleaners and then go back and sanitize these surfaces this is bang-on in my
opinion but it does miss one critical step sometimes sanitizers leave marks on
surfaces especially shiny ones or ones made of glass I think an importance to
here is to go back a third time and polish or wipe out the marks the average
guest isn't going to realize that the marks are from the sanitizer and then
they may end up questioning your overall cleaning practices the guide also
recommends starting with the dirtiest rooms first and then working to the
cleanest ones so it goes the bathrooms the kitchen the bedrooms the living room
the outside area and finally back to the entry room this generally makes sense
except for the bathroom the guide says to do at first and I normally leave the
bathroom to last since I may need to use it while cleaning in line laundry is in
the bathroom so I'm in and out of that room a lot so with this in mind I would
start as I normally do by stripping the bed and collecting the rest of the
laundry to start washing it I would then move to the kitchen and
follow the guidelines set out in the guide which I'll talk about in just a
second I would change my gloves every time I went in and out of the bathroom
so that I'm not spreading germs from the bathroom two rooms that I've already
cleaned and sanitized again my strategy here would be to get all the dirty
laundry in the bathroom right from the start the guide gets very specific on
some items which I think as most hosts we were cleaning regularly but not
necessarily between every single guest and myself I'm included in this an
obvious one that I should have known better about is the shower liner in the
shower curtain don't get me wrong I definitely changed the shower liner
probably monthly maybe a little more often and I did wash the shower curtain
every couple of months but it depended on the number of guests and how dirty it
was but if there was anything very dirty on either then I would always change it
now the guide is recommending that we wash both between every guest and in
hindsight this makes sense I should have been doing it all along but given the
amount of laundry that this new method is going to generate I think that this
might be an area where I use two sets for every listing so I'd
bring a fresh set with me and watch the dirty set at home but I'd probably let
it sit in a bag for three days to kill off all the coronavirus before I handled
it in my house on the topic of curtains the guide recommends washing your window
coverings between each guest - yeah that's right
wash the curtains between every guest and I've tried to rationalize how this
is possible and honestly I can't the guy doesn't require that fabric couches and
chairs be laundered or shampoo between every guest and that's likely for
practicality reasons but it does recommend that they are disinfected so
personally I'm going to apply the same approach to my fabric curtains as I do
to my couches and that approach will be to just spray down these items with a
disinfectant spray in the kitchen the cleaning and sanitizing recommendations
seem pretty straightforward and they're what you'd expect with one exception the
guide is recommending that you wash every single dish glass bowl and utensil
whether or not it was used by the guests yeah this is definitely going to be
adding time to your turnover so be sure to account for it
I mean I get how these items can be a nasty source of contamination since
nearly all of them come into close contact with your face your listings
have a large number of these items then it's probably a good idea to review to
reduce the number right away I know I'll be setting my dishwasher to the quick
cycle on it during this part I'm guessing you can leave out any pots and
pans and bakeware since most of these will be heated and therefore sanitized
during the cooking process I consider myself to be pretty germ savvy and a bit
of a germaphobe but I will admit that there is one item on the kitchen list
that caught me by surprise and that's the silverware holder and it makes
complete sense this item could totally be a source of contamination every time
you grab a fork or a knife you're contaminating the holder because
you touch it I just never thought of it before so I'll probably throw mine on
the top rack in the dishwasher or sanitize it with chemicals but if I do
use chemicals I'll be sure I rinse it well afterwards followers of my
Instagram feed will know from some previous posts I always leave cleaning
products out in obvious locations for my guess I never want a guest to say that
they would have cleaned but they couldn't find anything to clean with the
guide takes this one step further and suggests that hosts leave disposable
gloves paper towels sanitizers and extra soap in plain sight
I've always suggested that you make dish soap tea towels sponges Twila pool
cleaner bathroom cleaner glass cleaner a vacuum and a mop readily available so
that guests can use them and store them in obvious locations so that they're
easy to find and I will as suggested add to this disposable gloves and sanitizers
out in the open form I guess since the breast is already in logical positions
as I mentioned at the top of this video I would share with you some safety
concerns that I found after studying the guide the biggest one that stood out to
me is the recommendation to disinfect your toilet brush with bleach after
you've cleaned the toilet bowl mixing bleach with other cleaners is a huge
nono and the vast majority of regular cleaners including most toilet bowl
cleaners are not bleach based unless of course they say so on the label and if
you mix nearly any one of these cleaners that are non bleach-based with bleach
you will end up creating toxic fumes which are very very harmful and very
toxic and I know this from the research that I've done but also from my own
experience at once mixed bleach and toilet bowl cleaner together thinking it
would be twice the sanitizing power but boy was I ever wrong the fumes were
enough to knock you over and I learn I also learned that you cannot make
Scrubbing Bubbles with ceramic bright glass cooktop cleaner either because it
causes the singing dangerous fumes so please please be careful when mixing
sanitizers and cleaners and always do it in a well-ventilated room until you know
for sure that they can be mixed it's been my experience though that you can
mix cleaners of the same label as long as they're not bleach based for example
I clean my toilet bowls with Lysol toilet bowl cleaner and then I washed
the rim and the cover of the toilet with Lysol wipes and neither of those create
the toxic fumes a couple things though to bear in mind above bleach one thing
is that when it's mixed and exposed to light it loses its sanitizing ability
the other thing to know is that when you use bleach to clean dirt and grime off
it's also again losing its ability to sanitize so you want to make sure that
you clean the dirt and grime off before you apply the bleach hosting during the
kovat 19 pandemic era is not gonna be without its challenges the new cleaning
guidelines from Airbnb both make it easier and harder for us as hosts the
underlying principle though making sure that our guests feel safe in our homes
is solid I think that in time we'll develop methods and procedures to make
them more time-consuming tasks from the recommendations quicker while still
preventing the spread of Kobe 19 and a good example here is using spray
disinfectant on drapery instead of laundering them between every guest in
the comments below please share any tips or tricks that you've discovered that
make cleaning and sanitizing faster and safer for our guests during the Cova 19
pandemic 10 let's all learn from each other I hope that you enjoyed this
week's episode of Airbnb uncovered and that you got some practical tips in
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specific question about hosting please leave it in the comments below and I
will personally get back to you thanks again for watching and I hope to see you
again next week bye for now
you