Restocking supplies for your Airbnb or VRBO are on everybody’s mind. What are the industry standards for what to leave for your guests? And when restocking supplies for your Airbnb how many towels, paper products, coffee, tea, and bottled water do you leave?
Restocking supplies for your Airbnb also includes linens and bedding beyond the turnover service.
And if you restock cleaning supplies – the guests that are tidy and clean up as part of their daily routine will also tidy your vacation rental.
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Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.
Restocking Supplies for Your Airbnb
How do you go about restocking supplies for your Airbnb or your vacation rental? There are five different areas of restocking supplies. They are bedding and towels and paper products and drinks and cleaning supplies.
How to Arrange the Bedding in Your Airbnb
How do you arrange the bedding and what kind of bedding or linens do you need for your Airbnb? The rule of thumb is every bed should have linens. It should have a set of sheets, it should have a comforter of some sort and every bed should have two pillows.
You can include two extra pillows and an extra set of linens in the closet. Just in case somebody pees the bed while they’re there, and they want to change their own linens. They don’t have to call you to come over and try to redo the service while they’re there.
One extra sheet in the closet is a good idea and in the event that your house cleaner comes and doesn’t have time to do the laundry, then they can use the spare set and then bring back the other set to put in as a spare set.
Keep an Extra Blanket in the Closet
Putting a spare blanket in the closet is a good idea too as there are a lot of people that are always cold. So even though you may have a light comforter on the bed, they need an extra blanket to cozy up with.
They may take the extra blanket out, and use it sitting in front of the TV. So they’re a little bit more comfortable and can wrap up without taking the bed apart.
What Towels Do You Stock for Your Airbnb?
What kind of towels do you provide?
There are a few different types of towels. The first one is bath towels. Every person should have two bath towels because when they take a shower they would use one for drying themselves and one for their hair.
Now most people are savvy enough, and you can put these signs up that say you recycle your towels, so please hang it up. You’ll want to include hooks to hang up those towels so that they can reuse them for the next day. And if they only use one towel, and they’re there for a couple of days, they can use one and then use the other one.
People will also need hand towels because the hand towels will keep them from dripping water on the floor. Two hand towels per person for every bathroom that you have.
Have Hand Towels in the Kitchen as well
There are also hand towels in the kitchen and having one hand towel on a little hanger there is a great idea. Some people hang their towels over the dishwashing handle or over the oven handle, and they leave it there so people can dry their hands.
Place it somewhere they can see so they don’t use tons of paper towels. This is wasteful and it’s expensive when they could be drying their hands on a hand towel.
Having three discloths in the kitchen is a good idea too so that they can use to wipe up dishes.
Put some dark hand towels in the bathrooms that can be used for makeup removal. You use them when there is a dark stain, from makeup or anything else, and you don’t want to mess up your white towels.
Restocking Paper Products in Your Airbnb
What kind of paper products do we want to leave? The rule of thumb for paper products is you have one roll of paper towels underneath the kitchen sink. It’s available if you need it, but it discourages people from using it.
And if you have that other towel in the kitchen, that’s for them to wipe their hands on. If there’s an emergency and they cook something and there’s a grease spill or something, you don’t want them using your regular hand towel to wipe that up. And so if you dig under the sink and you find, oh look, there’s a roll of paper towels, they would use a few of those to clean up their mess.
So you want to have them available but you don’t want to encourage their use as it’s wasteful. You want to encourage the use of dark towels for messes but not paper towels.
How Much Toilet Paper Do You Restock?
How much toilet paper do you leave in the toilets? There are so many different Airbnb owners that have discussions, but there’s a lot of waste. So two rolls of toilet paper per bathroom is sufficient. And then in the hall closet, or your storage closet, keep an extra pack of toilet paper, about 12-15 rolls.
You certainly don’t want customers to take your spare toilet paper home with them so, leaving the spare in the storage closet and not the bathroom will discourage that. Because that also encourages waste and misuse. Put one box of Kleenex in every bathroom too. Kleenex is also good for makeup removal or if they have a cold or something and they need to blow their nose.
Have Makeup Removal Pads Stocked in Your Bathrooms
Makeup remover pads, are little round cotton pads or cotton balls. It’s a good idea to supply these as if someone has heavy eyeliner and makeup, you don’t want them to use a cloth. You want them to remove the makeup first, then wash their face with the dark cloth.
They can remove all the makeup first with the eye remover makeup pads and toss those away. And ideally, they would bring all that stuff themselves.
What Drinks Should You Provide?
What kind of drinks should be provided? The standard in the industry is coffee, tea, and water. Now there are a lot of Airbnb owners that have gone above and beyond and they provide wine and beer and all these things.
We live in an AA free society, lots of people are not drinking anymore. You do not need to be buying beer and alcohol. If you buy beer and alcohol, it’s great if you have it in an honor bar where guests can pay you for how much they drink. Whether that is by cash app or added to their charge is up to you.
Do You Have a Coffee Maker or Go at the Courage?
The coffee, tea, and water are free and there’s a big debate in the industry, do you go with a coffee maker or do you go with the Kuerig? The Kuerig is easier to clean. And what you may do, and lots of people do this, is they will take pictures of the coffee bar.
“This is our coffee bar, this is what is available to you. We have a starter pack of the coffee K-Cups and we have the packs of tea and then bottled water,” and it shows a picture of what they get per day. And so people can look at that and go, “Well that’s not the kind of coffee that I drink.”
And you can say, “This is what we provide. If you have special flavors and special blends that you choose, bring those with you so you can enjoy those on your stay.” Make it very clear that this is a starter pack and there aren’t loads of different flavors at your coffee bar. That way they know there will be coffee if they want it. But if they’re going to bring their own exotic flavors, they need to bring those with them.
Restock a Few Kinds of Tea at Your Airbnb
You can have a couple of different kinds of tea packs and they come in bulk. So you can buy boxes of like 96 tea bags or something for a few bucks. Not Expensive, but to have them available is nice.
You could also provide two bottled waters per person per day. These you can put inside a shelf or you can put these inside an area that says, “Hey, this is for your supply while you are here.” That way every time they leave the house, they can take them. They can manage them, they can budget them whatever they want. But when the supply is gone, it’s gone.
Let Guests Know What You’re Restocking
So if someone checks in to your listing, they can see all the different elements that you have available to them. And they’re going to go, “Oh wow, this is awesome.” And then they can plan what they’re going to bring around what you have available to you.
This way they’re not going to go digging through your private refrigerator. And they’re not going to be expecting that you’re going to be bringing them rolls of paper towels and all these things midway through their trip.
So you want to make it very clear to them. And then on your house rules, you can also say, “Hey, these are the things that we provide for our guests.”
“And if for any reason you need a different brand or you need more supplies, there’s a nearby store.” And that way they can go get their own supplies and they know that you’re not going to keep restocking for every day of their vacation.
What Cleaning Supplies Should You Have Available?
Most guests have already paid a cleaning fee so they’re not expected to clean up. But if you have cleaning supplies on hand, this will allow them to clean up after themselves if they make a mess.
If they spill a bunch of crackers and crumbs and pretzels all over your floor, they can vacuum that up if there’s a vacuum available. If they spill something on the kitchen floor, there’s a mop available to them. They’re not using all your cloths and all your paper towels to clean up an accident.
So you want to make sure there are cleaning supplies available to them. So what are the cleaning supplies? Available to every guest and you would keep them in a broom closet, or a cleaning closet, or whatever, and label it as such.
Keep a Cleaning Closet Labeled for Your Guests
In the cleaning closet, there’s a vacuum and there’s a mop and that is available to your guests. At every toilet, there needs to be one toilet brush and a plunger. If they block up the toilet, you want them to be able to have the tools they need to unblock it up.
Provide one bottle of all-purpose cleaner or one can of all-purpose cleanser. Now, this would be like a bar keepers friend or comment or something like that, so this way if there is a mess for some reason they can clean it up.
There are a non-scratch scrub sponge and a couple of cleaning towels if they want to clean up their mess. So it’s not required, it’s not mandatory, but it’s available to them in the event that they need that and they will thank you in spades.
Resources
LINENS
Sheets – https://amzn.to/2Inivgr
Comforter Sets – https://amzn.to/2Gt1cZo
Pillows – https://amzn.to/2DfPEqg
TOWELS
Bath Towels – https://amzn.to/2V6hZtk
Over the Door Hanger – https://amzn.to/2VbnlUh
Hand Towels – https://amzn.to/2VJIKRj
Washcloths – https://amzn.to/2XlJ4Gp
Dish Cloths – https://amzn.to/2UK0pf9
Makeup Remover Cloths – https://amzn.to/2DhGrhf
PAPER PRODUCTS
Paper Towels in Bulk – https://amzn.to/2Grc8q4
Toilet Paper in Bulk – https://amzn.to/2Xk50Si
Kleenex in Bulk- https://amzn.to/2Xizzry
Makeup Remover Pads – https://amzn.to/2KGCXuz
Cotton Balls – https://amzn.to/2GrM4vf
DRINKS
Coffee K-Cups – https://amzn.to/2Df6hm4
Tea Packets – https://amzn.to/2XfkS8s
Bottled Water – https://amzn.to/2Xk7G2i
Wine/Beer Mini Bar – https://amzn.to/2VbsewB
CLEANING SUPPLIES
Cotton Terry Cleaning Cloths – https://amzn.to/2XgHNjF
Non-Scratch Scrub Sponge – https://amzn.to/2XgHNjF
All Purpose Cleaner – https://amzn.to/2GpPQVK
Powder Cleaning Cleanser – https://amzn.to/2GuPLjX
Toilet Brush – https://amzn.to/2UorGPg
Plunger – https://amzn.to/2V0Mm4n
Bagless Upright Vacuum – https://amzn.to/2Pc1pCX
Mop – https://amzn.to/2V3UsJf
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