A 4 pm check-in after an 11 am checkout gives you five hours on paper. In practice — travel, laundry, and the guest who leaves at 11:40 — it's often ninety minutes of actual cleaning time. That's enough, but only if every minute is choreographed.
This is the running order our teams use across Belfast short-term lets.
Minute 0–10: strip and start
- Windows open the moment you're in the door
- Strip every bed and pull towels — first washer load on before anything else
- Walk every room with a bin bag: rubbish, leftovers, anything guest-abandoned
- Dishwasher loaded and running
Laundry and machines are your longest jobs. They run while you clean, never after.
Minute 10–35: bathrooms
Bathrooms drive reviews more than any other room. Guests forgive a dusty shelf; they never forgive a hair in the shower.
- Spray all surfaces first, let the product dwell while you do the mirror and chrome
- Shower screen squeegeed to clear glass; plughole checked
- Toilet cleaned in full — rim, hinges, base, behind
- Fresh towels staged in the folds your listing photos show
Minute 35–60: kitchen and living
- Surfaces cleared and wiped; kettle, toaster and microwave cleaned inside and out
- Fridge emptied of guest food, shelf wipe, door seal glance
- Coffee/tea/condiments restocked to your standard photo
- Cushions plumped and squared to the listing photos — guests subconsciously compare
Minute 60–80: bedrooms and reset
- Beds made hotel-tight with the second linen set (you own two sets per bed — the washer load is for the next turnover)
- Under-bed check: chargers, socks, worse
- Staging pass: welcome card, water bottles, whatever your brand ritual is
Minute 80–90: floors and final walk
- Vacuum every room working towards the door, mop hard floors last
- Bins fresh-bagged, windows closed, heating set, lockbox code checked
- Photo the staged rooms — your evidence if a guest claims otherwise
The two-linen-set rule
The single biggest unlock for same-day turnovers: two full linen sets per bed. You never wait on a dryer. The used set washes during the clean and travels with you to the next job. Every professional operator in the city runs this way.
A turnover isn't a small clean. It's a full reset with a photograph as the pass mark.
Hosting more than a couple of properties? Our Airbnb & Turnover service runs this playbook with same-day changeovers, linen management included — so a checkout in the morning never costs you a five-star review at night.