How often to deep clean a holiday let

01

Two cleans, two purposes

The changeover is guest-ready: surfaces, floors, beds, bathrooms, bins and restock. The deep clean is the work that does not fit in a checkout window: behind and under furniture, skirting and door tops, the oven interior, fridge seals, limescale, extractor filters, inside windows, grout, and the back of cupboards.

If you keep adding those jobs to every changeover, either the changeover runs late or they are ticked and not done. Name them as a deep clean, with a price and a length, and book a day for them.

02

Choose the gap from the property, not a calendar slogan

A house that turns twice a week needs the deeper work more often than a house with long gaps, because the traffic is higher even when each clean looks fine. A house that sits empty for a month needs a proper look before the next guest: stale water in taps, a musty cupboard, and bedding that should be washed again even if it was clean when you closed up.

Use the two-to-four-times-a-year range as a first plan. Bring a deep clean forward after a muddy-dog fortnight, a kitchen fire-alarm week, or any stay where the changeover notes keep saying 'oven' or 'limescale'. Stretch the gap only if the changeover notes stay quiet and you have looked yourself.

Some safety checks have their own timing, and they are not a deep clean. Gas, fire and electrical reading sits in Running a holiday let in the UK, with the official pages. Do not treat a cleaner's visit as those inspections.

03

What to include when you do book one

Agree a written list so 'deep clean' does not mean different things to you and the cleaner. A solid list is: move what can be moved and clean behind it, skirting, switches, door tops, oven and grill, fridge and seals, dishwasher filter, extractor, descaling taps and shower screens, inside windows you can reach safely, blinds and curtain hems, under beds, mattress vacuum, and outside furniture.

Leave out work that needs a specialist or a ladder you have not agreed: roof, gutters, chimney sweep, gas, electrics, and upholstery or carpet cleaning if you use a separate firm. Say who moves heavy furniture, and do not expect one person to pull out a full American fridge.

• Say how long you expect, based on a previous visit, not a guess from a forum.
• Be in, or have a trusted person in, the first time you use a new deep-clean list.
• Photograph anything you want a record of, such as the oven before and after.

04

Put it on a day the diary is empty

A deep clean needs the house empty and the linen off the beds. Look for a gap with no same-day arrival, and do not sell that night as a late booking once the clean is booked. If you connect an iCal feed, Changeover Master shows those empty days as part of the same diary as the changeovers, so the deep clean is not booked on top of a guest.

A photo of the finished deep clean can sit on the job, private to the workspace, if you want a record beyond a text that says 'all done'. The feed still syncs on a schedule, about every 15 minutes after a successful check, so a last-minute booking needs a direct message as well. You can start a free trial and look at the gaps in your own calendar.