We clean and reset between every guest

We reset the whole unit between guests

The work starts the minute the last guest walks out. Before a single cloth comes out, we walk the whole unit to see what the stay left behind. Then we strip the beds and get the sheets washing if there's a washer, since laundry takes longest. While it runs, we work from the back of the unit toward the front door. That way nothing clean gets walked on twice.

Guests judge a place by the kitchen and the bathroom, so that's where most of the time goes. In the kitchen we wash and put away every dish, wipe the counters and the inside of the microwave, and clear out whatever the last guest left in the fridge. In the bathroom we scrub the tub and toilet, then the sink. Then the drain. One hair in the shower can cost you a review.

The last pass is the one a guest sees first. We make the beds tight with the linens you keep at the unit. We fold and set out towels, take the trash out, put fresh bags in the bins, and wipe the light switches. Anything broken or missing gets reported to you before the next check-in. You can replace a cracked glass we told you about. You can't do much about one a guest found.

• Beds stripped and remade with your linens
• Dishes washed and put away
• Bathroom scrubbed and fresh towels set out
• Floors vacuumed and mopped room by room
• Anything broken or missing reported to you

Guests notice what the last cleaner missed

A regular house cleaning can skip a room nobody used that week. A rental can't, because a stranger is about to open every drawer and closet in the place. So we check the spots a tired cleaner skips: under the beds, behind the couch cushions, the top shelf of the closet and the inside of the oven door. A stray sock under a bed turns into a complaint fast.

Hair is the other thing guests find, and it hides in two places. It collects along the base of the tub, and it sits in the corners of hard floors where a vacuum head doesn't reach. We go along the baseboards by hand after vacuuming. We also hold every pillowcase up to the light before the bed gets made. A few extra minutes. It saves the review.

A guest smells a unit before they see it. A place that sat closed between bookings can smell stale even when every surface is clean. We open windows while we work when the weather allows, and we empty the kitchen trash before anything else so it doesn't sit. We don't cover a smell with spray. We find where it's coming from and clean that spot.

Old Bronx buildings make rentals harder to clean

Most rentals around Riverdale, Kingsbridge, Fieldston and Spuyten Duyvil sit in prewar brick apartment buildings or wood frame two family houses. Neither was built with short stays in mind. The floors are often old parquet or original hardwood, and grit dragged across them leaves scratches. So we vacuum before we mop, every time. And we use a damp mop, never a soaking one, so water doesn't sit in the seams.

Bathrooms in these buildings usually have small hex tile on the floor and a lot of grout lines. Old grout darkens fast. A guest reads dark grout as dirt even after it's been washed. That's why we scrub the lines along the tub and around the base of the toilet on every visit, because those go first. If a stain is past what a scrub can fix, we tell you so you can book a deep cleaning between guests.

Then there are the radiators. Steam heat pulls dust up into the air, and it settles on the fins and on the floor right under them. A guest who turns the heat on in January gets a burnt dust smell if nobody wiped the radiator first. We clean the top and front of each one and vacuum the floor beneath it. The first heat of the stay should smell like nothing.

New York weather follows guests inside

In winter, guests carry the street in on their boots. Road salt leaves a white film on entry floors and rugs, and if it stays there it dulls the finish on wood. We wipe the entry and the path to the bedroom with a damp cloth to lift the salt, then dry the floor. A doormat soaked with salty water gets shaken out and dried before the next guest shows up.

Summer's the opposite problem. Humid air hangs in bathrooms with small windows, and a wet towel left on a hook for a day starts to smell. Mildew shows up first on the caulk line around the tub and at the bottom of the shower curtain liner, so we check both every visit. A liner that's gone pink or black at the hem gets flagged for you to replace. Wiping won't bring it back.

Window air conditioners are all over Bronx apartments, and guests run them hard. The front grille collects dust. The filter behind it clogs faster in a rental than in a home, because strangers run it all day and never think about it. We wipe the grille and rinse the filter when it pulls out by hand. Clean filter, cleaner air, and no musty smell when the next guest turns it on.