Keep your vacation rental home clean

Your vacation rental home has all the same appliances in it that your regular home has. Make sure you perform regular preventive maintenance on them, just as you would in your home.

Keeping appliances clean can make them last longer. Any appliance that can attract dust (through static electricity, or that has a cooling fan, like a computer) will benefit from being cleaned periodically. Any appliance that has a fan of any sort, like a dryer, furnace or fridge, will also have dust build up over time.

Here’s a list of a few things that should be cleaned regularly, in order to improve their performance (thereby saving on electricity and maintenance costs):

Clean out the screens on all taps and shower heads. It’s simple to unscrew the end of a faucet tap and rinse out the screen. Shower heads are a bit more tricky, but should be cleaned just as regularly, especially if you get your water from a well, or have hard water in your area.
Your fridge is a dust magnet. Most manufacturers recommend that you vacuum the condenser coils at least every 6 months…. more often can only be better.
Summer and winter have their own cleaning needs. Furnaces should be checked once a year by a licensed furnace pro, and air conditioners are no different. At least once a year.
Furnace filters only have one purpose. To collect dust from the air. They should be changed (or washed if you have a reusable one) at least every couple of months.
Clean your dryer lint trap and vent regularly. The lint trap keeps all that lint from just blowing outside. If it gets full, it can seriously affect the performance of your dryer, making it use much more electricity than if the trap is free of lint. It’s best to clean this either before or after every load. I do it before; put in the clothes, check the lint trap, turn it on.
- Your dryer vent is another story. It’s the big hose that goes from the dryer to the outside vent, and can get coated with lint that doesn’t get caught by the lint trap. It’s possible to unhook it from the back of the dryer and blow out the lint with a leaf-blower if you have one. If not, one of those long narrow dusters can be inserted and swirled around to get that lint out.
Hair can build up in drains faster than you think. It’s the #1 cause of slow or blocked drains, and is easily cleaned out by anyone. Long tweezers usually work well for reaching in an pulling out those clumps of hair (gross, I know. But it must be done on a regular basis).
Quilts, comforters and other blankets don’t really get too dirty (unless they’re spilled on), so they should be washed/cleaned a few times a year.

Keep up this kind of easy maintenance on your vacation rental home, and you should have lots of happy renters, and less calls in the middle of the night about a clogged drain or broken down fridge….