Ten questions, in the order a rental actually breaks: same-day turnover capacity, how a checkout becomes a scheduled clean, who covers when a cleaner is sick, key custody, the checklist and its photo proof, damage and missing-item reporting, laundry, restock, insurance, and how a turnover is priced. Ask them in that order.
The generic “questions to ask a cleaning service” lists are written for a house on a biweekly visit, where a day’s slip is an inconvenience. We have that version too: the questions to ask a cleaning service before hiring. A vacation rental runs on a different clock — the guest arrives at 4pm whether the clean happened or not — so the questions reorder themselves.
That’s the turnover in one piece. If you’d rather the calendar took care of itself between guests, tell us the unit and your checkout window and we’ll send a price per turnover.
1. Can you cover a same-day turnover — 11am checkout, 4pm check-in?
The useful answer names a crew size and a duration, not “we’ll try.” Ours is published: most turnovers take 1–2 hours with a 2-person team. Inside a five-hour window that leaves slack for a late checkout and for surprises. If a company cannot tell you how many people walk in and how long they stay, it is not sizing your window — it is hoping.
2. How does a checkout become a scheduled clean?
This is the question that separates an operation from a text thread. What our service page publishes: iCal sync with Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com auto-triggers a turnover from your booking feed, so the visit is scheduled well before the guest leaves; for one-off requests without iCal sync, book 24–48 hours ahead. A connected calendar makes the same-day gap routine. A text thread makes every checkout a fresh scramble.
3. What happens when the cleaner who knows my unit is sick?
Ask it about a Saturday in season, not a Tuesday. We do not publish how many cleaners are on standby, and we are not going to invent a number here; what is published is the structure: the visit is staffed as a 2-person team, every cleaner is background-checked, and the turnover lives on the company calendar synced from your feed rather than in one person’s phone. Our Terms also say what happens when we are the ones who move: we may need to reschedule for weather, safety, or staffing reasons — we will tell you as soon as we know, and you never pay a fee for a reschedule we initiate.
4. How will you get in — and who holds the key?
This is where trust stops being a feeling and becomes a procedure. Our Terms ask for reasonable access: a code, key, smart-lock invite, or someone home — the same four shapes you already use with guests. What you should press any company on is finer: who receives the code, can it be rotated between visits, and what happens if the crew arrives and cannot get in? That last one has a published answer and it costs money: if our team arrives and cannot access the property (lockout, no arranged entry), the visit may be treated as a late cancellation. In a tower, the answer starts before the door — front-desk registration and service-elevator rules.
5. What is on the checklist — and how do I know it got done?
“We leave it spotless” is not a checklist. Ask for the item count and the format of the proof. What we publish: a 20-item guest-ready reset — strip and remake every bed, refresh towels, restock toiletries and coffee, clean the kitchen and bathrooms, quick-vacuum the floors, wipe counters and high-touch surfaces, and stage the unit for the next check-in. And on every eligible completed turnover, a photo audit posted to your host dashboard within an hour of finishing. That is what turns “it’s ready” into something you can open from another state.
6. What happens if a guest wrecks it — or something is missing?
The answer you want is not “we’ll make it perfect anyway” — it is a procedure with photos and a phone call before extra money moves. Ours is published: turnover pricing assumes normal guest use; if a checkout goes well beyond that — heavy kitchen mess, stains, party aftermath — we document the condition in photos, tell you what we found, and flag whether the visit needs extra time or a deep clean instead. That photo record is yours if you need to raise the issue with your booking platform. And per the Terms, we will re-quote with you before doing extra work — never silently.
7. Who washes the linens, and when?
On a same-day window, the bottleneck is never the cleaning — it is the laundry. Two loads through one residential washer-dryer stack do not fit comfortably between 11 and 4. Our published model is the second-set model: linens and consumables work from the stock you keep at the unit — we strip and remake beds with your fresh sets and reset towels — so your check-in never waits on a dryer. We do not sell a linen rental; if your calendar has grown into an off-site linen service, that is your decision to make and the turnover schedules around it.
8. Who restocks the coffee, the paper goods, the toiletries?
A three-star review that says “no toilet paper” costs more than the clean did. Ask two things: who restocks, and who warns you before it runs out. What we publish: we restock toiletries and coffee from your supply, and we flag when stock runs low so you can top up before it becomes a guest problem. Listen for that second half — restocking is easy, and the warning is the part that saves the review.
9. Are you insured — and can you send a certificate naming my building?
In Miami this question often decides the matter, because so much of the short-term-rental inventory sits behind a front desk and many associations keep a vendor file. Our legal page publishes it: $2,000,000 general liability coverage · every cleaner background-checked; certificate of insurance available on request — email bookings@jascleaning.com with your subject line “COI” and the entity name, and most certificates are returned within 2 business hours. That is the response standard to hold anyone to. We have written separately about what you can verify on a vendor’s own pages before money moves.
10. How do you price a turnover?
Flat per checkout, not hourly — hourly billing moves the risk of a messy guest from the company onto you. Our Airbnb turnover page publishes the ladder: studio $179, 1BR/1ba $179, 2BR/1ba $209, 3BR/1ba $245, 4BR+/1ba $289+. And the buying order is in the Terms, in their words: we price before you commit — you request a quote, see it, and then request a time.
One company, or one person?
Run back down the list and you can see where the difference lands. A solo cleaner can answer questions 1, 4, 5, 7 and 8 beautifully — many answer them better than a company does, because they know your linen closet and how you like the unit staged. The answers that change shape are 2, 3 and 9: a connected calendar, coverage when someone is sick in season, and a certificate of insurance naming your association. That is structure, not virtue. One unit and wide gaps? Hire the person. Two units, back-to-backs in season, or a building with a vendor file, and depth stops being a luxury. The full comparison is in independent house cleaner versus a cleaning company.
The honest boundaries
Three things we will not claim. We do not publish a standby headcount, so treat any company that hands you one without explaining where it comes from with the same suspicion. The photo proof rides on eligible completed visits — it is a report, not a promise that no guest will ever complain. And there are conditions where we stop: the Terms let us refuse or stop service where conditions are unsafe for our team — such as mold, infestation, biohazards, or abusive behavior — with a partial refund for the unworked portion. A unit in that state needs a specialist before it needs a turnover.
FAQ
Which of the ten questions matters most if I only get to ask one?
How the clean gets scheduled. Everything else is recoverable; a turnover that was never on anyone’s calendar is not. A company that pulls checkouts from your Airbnb, VRBO, or Booking.com iCal feed is scheduling days ahead, and the same-day gap stops being a scramble. Without a feed, ask for the lead time in writing — ours is 24–48 hours for one-off requests.
Is a cleaning company always better than an individual cleaner for a rental?
No — it is better at the things a rental breaks on. One trusted cleaner who knows your unit can be excellent and cheaper, right up to the Saturday they are sick, the week they travel, or the month your calendar doubles. A company answers the coverage, insurance and certificate questions structurally. If you rent one unit and your gaps are wide, a solo cleaner may be the better hire.
What should I have ready before I call anyone?
Four things, and the call takes five minutes: the unit size in bedrooms and bathrooms, how many checkouts a month it runs, your typical gap between checkout and check-in, and how the building lets a vendor in — front desk, service elevator, keypad, gate. Those four decide the price, the schedule and whether a company can work in your building at all.