Overlooked Maintenance: Your team will not know to check

well here we are another week welcome back to the short-term rental riches podcast I was just over in Tennessee where I have a lot of properties in my portfolio and believe it or not I haven't actually been there in person in over a year and a half I know that sounds like a long time so I just want to point out to anyone out there any of those naysayers out there that don't believe virtual management is possible well I am living proof my properties exceeded my

expectations even after not seeing them for so long of course it does come down to having an excellent team and excellent procedures and practices in place something we talk about all the time that's what leads to great reviews and our team has thousands and thousands of those as you know if you're just tuning in for the first time our team's managed probably over 32,000 guests at this point and properties all over the place now across the US and also outside of the US uh so I'm

happy you're here again I want to give you my insight cuz there were a few things that were overlooked on some of my properties and I want to tell you why so the first thing is why would our team if they're doing such a great job be overlooking a few maintenance items and the first question or the first thought is well maybe they're not there when they need to be to see these maintenance items so I know that sounds a little confusing but let me give

you an example exterior night lighting so when are your housekeepers and your maintenance crew when are they normally at your property it's usually during the day right housekeepers I know our team Works our checkouts are between they start at 11:00 uh and our check-ins are at 3:00 p.m. so that is our window to get the properties cleaned and unless you're in Alaska and you're in the northern hemisphere somewhere where it's dark half the year it's very likely that your housekeeping team has not seeing the exterior

lighting when they show up and it's very likely that they're not seeing it at all and so that was one thing I noticed with quite a few of my properties is that some exterior lighting had gone out uh even these LED bulbs that are supposed to last 10 years whatever they happen to be the dusted on ones we've actually talked about lighting before in a prior episode uh those bulbs burn out too uh hopefully you have some sort of low voltage lighting on the exterior to

light your walkways and make a really warm uh bright welcoming for any guest that shows up but that is one thing that I'm sure is getting missed and quite a few properties out there so just double check that one uh the next reason our team might be missing some sort of Maintenance item and this kind of an oddball one is because the issue is not there when they're there now that sounds weird uh I'm talking about Creepy crawlies here you know so pests spiders those types

of things cobwebs so I know we have an our maintenance checklist to tackle those types of things I've got some other more common maintenance items that I want to list off here just kind of Rapid Fire I'll get to in just a second and then how we can make sure we're not overlooking any of these things but I just want to get back to this second point is that those creepy crawlies they come out when you're least expecting right when your guest checks in uh and

they're there comfortable in the bed and thenot doot little cockroach or whatever happens to be especially if you have properties in urban cities where there's sewers that have been there for hundreds of years these things are pretty hard to avoid 100% but we can avoid them by having routine pest maintenance and that's something I highly recommend if your property is affected by pests in whatever area you are and that's pretty much most of the world right so make sure you have some sort of routine Pest

Management uh in place of course there's a bit of coordination act that goes into that we don't want to be disturbing our guests and having a pest person come in and spray chemicals in there it's really something better to be done during an housekeeping turn or when a guest checks out uh so make sure you're doing that on a regular basis I'll get to some of the other ways to make sure we're not overlooking in this maintenance in just a second uh but those were some

of the big ones for me it was really exterior lighting uh and then just making sure our Pest Management was up to speed that's also seasonal too so sometimes you might get more pest during one part of the Season uh and you want to be prepared for that right now I've got a list of just some common maintenance items these are some of the more or the most common maintenance items that I see popping up the first one are linens of course we want pi our

team gets pictures of any soiled or dirty Linens when they get messed up so we make sure they never go back in a property but you want to double check all your Linens make sure that there's nothing uh that's getting overlooked there as well as throw pillows so throw pillows are something that's really easy to change out and actually can provide a lot of color and a really nice vibe to your property but they also get stains they also get worn out uh they also go

missing sometimes and so make sure you got a good set of throw pillows the next one are lights and I'm not talking about the exterior ones that we just touched on but interior ones that might be hard for your housekeeper to get to maybe they're in a fan that has an enclosure and it's high up and they can't get to it maybe it's in some sort of chandelier hanging over an entryway uh these are things though that they catch every guess side believe me if there's

three lights uh and one of the three are out it's pretty obvious right because the lights next to it light up the one that's burnt out right so make sure all your light bulbs are uh working and also make sure that all your light bulbs are the same color that is one of my personal pet peeves when I check into a property and there's two nightstands with lamps on each one and there's a different color bulb in each one I know it's a little thing but

it really just bothers me and it and it goes to show like that these things aren't being checked right luckily there are some light bulbs now where you can literally change the color or the tone of the bulb right on the bulb itself LED I know that cost go celis for example so if you found that you've got multiple color bulbs in your property buy these ones they should last for a long long time and then make sure you've got the right color in the right

spot you want like a 3,000k which is a nice warm tone also consider getting one of those uh light bulb changing extensions if you have light bulbs in some really hard to- reach places you know the it's basically a pole with a little uh thing on the end that can grab a light bulb spin it out and bring it down so if you do have light bulbs in hard to reach places and you find them burning out often then make sure you get one of those

handy for your housekeeper make it easy for them to help you change those out uh the next one this is undoubtedly one of the top maintenance items or inventory items and that is broken wine glasses or broken dish wear or silverware of some sort we want to make sure that our kitchens are complete right if we have a house for five people and we have four plates well then that doesn't work out too well what I would suggest is if you're operating a property remotely like

we do alliv ours and all of our partners properties then you have more than enough dishware knowing that it's going to get broken and knowing that you might not be replenishing it as often this leads me right into the next one and these are knives now it's not always that or knives or silverware and it's not always that we lose silverware but sometimes they just get damaged or they get bent or the knives are no longer sharp so get yourself a set of knives that actually

have the sharpener there and then make sure in one of your deep cleans or your semiannual inventory checks that you have a note in there to make sure the knives are sharp this next one is probably one that has gotten overlooked as well and that is not just a first aid kit but missing items in a first aid kit so hopefully you have a first aid kit in your property that's one of the safety items that most all the OTAs asked for remember it's a little

check that we put on our listing but we want to make sure that it's actually got stuff in there right so it's been quite a while since we checked on these and I was just scoping around checking out the properties going in and out just looking for little things and I noticed that quite a few of the first aid kits were missing like maybe all the Band-Aids got used or maybe you know the gauze or whatever it happened to be so those are super cheap make

sure that those stay stocked uh the next one are smoke detectors so we do luckily have ways to prevent smoke now we just installed a minute sensor which not only monitors noise but it also monitors smoke um you can check out all of our recommended Resources by the way the technology we use the items we use at rest methods.com there's a recommended resources it's free there uh it'll it'll be a big big help if you're looking for items for your property so um check that out

so anyways smoke detector so there's a couple reasons why these get taken down they're often not easy for your housekeepers to put back up either the first reason is if the battery was going dead they get that annoying alarm going off right and so guest will take these down and put them away because they can't sleep and the battery needs to be changed so they do have the smoke detectors now that last like 10 years uh if your smoke detector is not hardwired that's the ultimate

way but in a lot of older properties that's harder to do so uh spend a little EXT ra get those smoke detectors that are going to last you a long long time so that your guests aren't taking your smoke detectors down making it hard for your housekeepers to put them back up uh the other reason a guest might be taking your smoke detector down is because they actually want to smoke in your property so maybe not cigarettes right but maybe uh they're vaping or they're smoking

marijuana or something like that so smoke detectors especially in a big property uh where you've got one outside of every room basically in all the hallways uh we want to double check those and make make sure they're all where they should be so there we are there's the top three items I think that might get overlooked the first one is exterior lighting the second one are the little things like scissors and a wine opener if it's been a while since you've done an inventory count the

third thing that might get overlooked are pests and again that's seasonal and it's something that usually isn't there when we're there right so if you're getting any sort of feedback from your guest definitely make sure to up your Pest Control contr Services because this is a sure way to get a bad review some people can handle a few creepy crawlies but some people have a zero tolerance so just remember that and we went over seven common maintenance items that are sure going to be happening they

are the most common the first one are linens uh the second one I would say are throw pillows or not having enough or some that have a little bit of a stain so we want to have a lot of nice throw pillows and swap them out regularly interior lights or even just mismatched colors on interior lights hard to get two places make sure that we're checking on those regularly broken dish wear so we started with wine glasses but then we went to silverware damag silverware or

dull knives so we want to make sure our knives are sharp there's nothing worse than trying to cut through a nice fresh loaf of bread and the knife just doesn't do the trick right number six was first aid item so make sure you have a first aid kit in there remember this is really important and it's even more important when a guest actually needs it right it's usually some sort of emergency number seven smoke detector so there's a couple reasons why guests might be taking these

down either your batter's dying or they're actually smoking in your property hopefully not hopefully you have some sort of smoke detector installed if you've been having issues with that uh but those are also something that's hard for your team to put back up so what can we do all about all this well our team uses Breezeway I've talked about that quite a bit that's a software program set up just for short-term rentals it integrates with a lot of property management software programs and allows you to

track regular maintenance and any sort of Maintenance as well as your housekeeping to make sure you're never overlooking anything uh we have semiannual deep cleans set up in ours as well as a general inventory checklist that we might uh schedule periodically just to make sure those dish items aren't missing and everything else that goes along uh with a general inventory of a property so you can make it as comprehensive as you want but they have a really easy to use application this makes it easy for

our whole team don't forget your Pest Management your routine Pest Management which you can also schedule through an app like Breezeway if you're using that if you're not using a comprehensive checklist where or your housekeepers aren't open to um getting rid of exterior cobwebs for example maybe ask your landscapers if they don't mind you know sometimes they can just blow it off if they're there at the entryway um but we have landscapers work with us that also will do a little extra and get some of

those cobwebs down for us one other item this was mentioned in a prior episode with Jasper ribbers actually was an interview they talked about having an ammo box and that's a little box or a little basket or whatever it happens to be that we pretty much hide in our property uh and in that ammo box are for small maintenance things that might come up where guests might be able to fix them on their own and save us a maintenance trip from going out there and also

do it much quicker now of course we don't want to be asking our guests to be fixing maintenance items but just to give you an example one that might be okay garbage disposal gets clogged there is a little garbage disposal tool that you just stick in the bottom you crank it around and boom it frees up the garbage disposal so that's something your guest might not mind of course they don't want to do it no one wants something to break in the first place but those

things are helpful they can make it easier for both sides some of the items you might want to include is a garbage disposal tool if you happen to have one of those spare light bulbs spare batteries a multi-use tool so like screwdrivers and pliers maybe an allen wrench a lot of furniture these days has Allen screws in there so again these aren't things that we want our guests to be doing but it's something that can save us both a little bit of uh time and and

hassle make it easier for both sides lastly if your housekeepers are not showing up to your property or your maintenance staff is not showing up to your property at night time and you don't live nearby well maybe check your cameras to see if those night lights are still on if not schedule a trip uh maybe ask one of your housekeepers to go out there and just double check that all the exterior lights are on so that your guests have a nice warm inviting welcome so there

we are there's some of the top maintenance things some that you might have not have thought about but maintenance is just one of those things that we need to do right uh and it's a slippery slope when we start letting a little thing go then we start to get bad reviews with our guests and it just snowballs we don't want that not a good experience for our guest not a good experience for anyone so hopefully that helped you and hopefully your properties are in tiptop shape

but until next time I hope you have a fabulous week want to get on the fast track to Financial Freedom through short-term rentals well it all starts with the properties you acquire but you want to make sure that you acquire the right properties I want to give you my ebook that will show you how to do just that there is no charge it's my gift to you for being one of our subscribers just go to rest methods.com that's reest methods.com