I employed Tidy Touch Cleaners, owned by Jocelyn Caulfield, for about 8 months. Jocelyn and her…read morecouple of friends are friendly young women trying to start a cleaning business, and even though I was her first vacation rental client and therefore worried about her lack of experience, I gave her a chance.
Unfortunately, Jocelyn would not consistently perform a final walkthrough with checklist as required when I hired her. This rule, in place to prevent issues, wasn't performed and resulted in a constant stream of missed items, overlooked cleaning, forgotten guest amenities, lack of communication on maintenance issues developing or inventory until something was completely out.
Left guest items were regularly placed in the linen closet with no communication about them. When asked if anything was found the answer was always no, only for me to find the items in the closet at a later date and have to fedex them back. The same occurred with guest packages delivered to the house - locked in the linen closet where guest could not access it and with no communication.
A few months into working at our house one piece of a set of three pieces of artwork went missing from the wall in our living room leaving a large obvious blank where it had been. Guests had noticed it missing but when Jocelyn was asked what happened said she never noticed it so didn't know it was missing! This was not a small detail to miss and we have not been able to replace it.
I regularly fielded calls from guests asking where disposal items were only to discover none had been left out for their use. Guest photos passed on to Jocelyn, taken at check-in, often highlighted missed cleaning tasks or issues. These were met with denial or excuses. Any feedback resulted in Jocelyn reacting defensively, immaturely, viewing it as personal criticism rather than a simple fact to note so it didn't happen again.
Examples of some reoccurring issues: long hairs left behind (she cleans with her hair down), garbage missed, no liners in bins, soap and other amenities empty, cobwebs and dust missed, items left in fridge that shouldn't have been (used butter for example), dirty duvet covers left on beds and turned over instead of being washed. Dirty seat cushions flipped upside down instead of being dealt with or communicated about, cleaning tools left in odd places rather than put away.
About a month ago she came to the house looking and moving like a zombie. I heard them talking about their drug use. Jocelyn strongly voices that it is her right to smoke as much pot as she wants and will point out that it is legal. However, this final piece completed the puzzle of why things were not getting easier with her, the number of reoccurring problems, the out of proportion reactions to small things and mixed up messages about times and situations.
Ensuring a vacation rental is guest-ready isn't overly complex. It does require consistent oversight and adherence to agreed-upon standards and that was lacking.