12 Things Airbnb Hosts Forget to Put in the Supply Closet

You might be thinking, "My housekeeper has everything they already need. They bring it to my property. I already have it in a supply closet." Well, these are for items that fail between turnovers. There are things that pop up that your guests are going to need, but you don't necessarily want to just leave out there on the coffee table. Your guest checks in, they can't find the TV remote, and the garage door opener is missing because the last guest took it. This week, we have 12 things

that hosts forget to put in their supply closet. Not talking about an open supply closet for the guest, but a lock supply closet that your guest might need access to or your housekeeper might need access to. My team and I have managed over a 100,000 reservations. We've got this list curated just for you so you don't get caught off guard. Stay tuned. Okay, real quick before we get into the list, the question comes up, locked closet or not locked closet? We recommend having both. So, there's

a supply closet that your guests should have access to. This has some basic things in there like toilet paper, some sheets, but you don't necessarily want them to have access to your whole supply inventory. And that's where a locked supply closet can come in to really save the day when your guest needs something or when your housekeeper needs something. In our properties, we recommend having a little digital door knob that goes right on the supply closet. You can program it with a simple four-digit code. It's

30 bucks or so on Amazon. your housekeeper doesn't need a key and you can easily give your guest a code in case they need it. All right, let's get in the list. Item number one, and this is a big one. Many guests drive off, they leave your beautiful property and they arrive at the airport to return their rental car and they realize that your garage door opener is still sitting there on the visor. This just happens and so you want to be prepared and have spare

universal garage door openers in your locked supply closet. Now, you want to make sure that you pre-program these. They're really easy to pre-program, right? Most of the garage door openers these days, you can just click a button on the little garage door opener and it pairs up. And they're really only, you know, $10, $15 on Amazon these days. If you don't happen to have a backup in place already, well, I highly suggest having this in your house rules. In fact, I recommend having this in your

house rules regardless, just as one additional reminder to your guests to not forget the garage door opener. And you can have it state simply that if the garage door opener shows up missing that you have a charge for X amount of dollars. You decide, but it's because it's an inconvenience to the upcoming guest. It could mean that they can't get in the garage. And it's also an inconvenience to either have to send someone out there or to program a garage door opener if you don't have

one in place. Number two, and this kind of goes along with number one in the sense that it's related to access, and that might be an HOA pass, some pass to get into your gated community, or it might be a parking pass for your property if you live maybe in an urban area where it's hard to find parking. These can be difficult to get replacements, but I guarantee you a guest is going to take these at one point or another. And so what you can do

on the physical pass is print something out in big letters that says, "Please, please make sure to return this to the home before leaving the property. If not, we have a charge or there's a fine of $200, you name it, because it's going to inconvenience the next guest and we're going to have to go through a process to get a new permit." So, similar to the first one in that it's related to access issues, you also want to make sure you have this in your house

rules. If you haven't reviewed your house rules in a while, well, you can grab ours in the link down below. We've been doing this for a long time, and so it's a very thorough list. You can edit it and tailor it to fit your property. All right, number three, and this is one that a lot of hosts just do not have, and that is an ozone machine. An ozone machine, what is that? Let's say someone is smoking in your property, or maybe they were just busy

cooking up a big gourmet fish feast and it smells like fish in your kitchen. Well, if the next guest is checking in a few hours, a lot of times opening the windows to air things out isn't going to do the trick. An ozone machine is literally going to change the composition of the air and you got to be careful with it. Actually, you don't want to be in a closed space with the machine breathing at the same time. But most time you can leave it in

a space for an hour or two, it turns off automatically. You take it out and it's cleaned the air. These are pretty cheap these days. You can find them on Amazon for around $1, $150. Okay, on to number four. Someone shows up, they either click on the remote and the TV doesn't turn on or they can't find the remote at all. Maybe it slipped into the bottom of the couch and they couldn't find it there and your housekeeper couldn't find it. You need spare remotes. Luckily,

you can also get generic ones on Amazon these days, universal ones that work with a whole bunch of different TVs. Again, you want to make sure you program them beforehand. Leave them in your locked backup closet in case the housekeeper doesn't find it during turnover, they can leave another one out for your guest. Now, this list has a mix of things that your guest needs, but also your housekeeper. And your housekeeper doesn't also need access to your whole supply inventory. Depends on your housekeeping setup, right?

But I would say if you're working with a company especially, probably better just keep the bulk of your inventory locked in a separate space if you have that luxury, if you have a spare closet. Number five is a USB charging cable. And now this could be used for the guest, but also could be used by the housekeeper. If a guest forgets their charging cable for their phone or whatever it happens to be, well then you've got an easy spare for them. If your housekeeper needs to

charge your wireless cameras or maybe you have a noiseaware device mounted on your ceiling and they need to charge that. Well, it's good to have a backup for them as well. And also a backup if they forget their charging cable for their phone. These days, it's best to have a digital checklist at your property. And if their phone dies and they're not able to communicate with your team to see if maybe there was damage at the property, maybe there was something out of place, maybe the

guest left an item there and you need to notify the team as soon as possible. Always good to have a couple charging cables laying around. This is also one of those items that a lot of guests are just going to leave and they're not going to want you to ship it back to them. It doesn't cost enough. Just make sure your housekeepers are leaving a couple of these in your lock supply cabinet. All right, number six, spare batteries. But not any spare batteries. I'm talking about

the 9V batteries, the square ones, the ones that take that out of the smoke alarm or your carbon monoxide detector when the battery goes dead. A lot of guests probably just take those off the wall and then they leave them in some place and then maybe your housekeeper doesn't see it the next time they're in. So, good to make sure you have those spare keys. Also a good item to have on a regular quarterly checklist or a deep clean checklist to make sure a dying sensor

isn't disturbing your guests. Okay, number seven, a backup physical key. I hope that by now you have a digital lock installed on your property. It makes it so much easier for you and your team, your maintenance team, but also for the guest, and it also secures your property more. We've done videos on that in the past. If you're new to the channel, you can go to strriches.com. We have literally hundreds of episodes and my team and I have managed over a 100,000 guests now and so

we've learned a lot. This advice comes from real world experience. So go back, check out those videos. If you're shopping for a new digital lock, even if you have a digital lock, we always highly suggest having a lock box as well, a backup lock box with a physical key. And if a guest needs to access that, maybe because they couldn't get in, maybe because of user error, whatever it happens to be, sometimes they accidentally take the backup key, too. So, I would have a backup for

your backup in the locked supply closet. All right, number eight. I bet this is one that a lot of you don't have for your housekeeper, and that is a spare shower curtain liner. Now, it depends on the style of shower you have at your home, right? But most traditional homes in the US that have a bathtub have shower curtains and no guest likes to show up with a moldy shower liner. There are lots of them out there that say they are mold proof, but believe me,

they get worn out. They look a little nasty and instead of trying to clean them, just have a spare one for your housekeeper so they can swap it out real quick. Number nine, you don't really need to have in a locked closet, but you want to have it in a place that's not really visible, and that is the plunger. No one likes to see a plunger when they're in the bathroom because we immediately think of why we need a plunger in the first place, right? So,

I recommend putting it under a cabinet sink sort of far in the back so that it's not visible. Your guests aren't seeing it unless they really need it. These remaining items should also be open for your guests to grab. But number 10 is a pack and play. If your property allows children, these are really inexpensive these days and you can store it in the side of a closet. Make sure you have a pack and play. It's going to help your visibility on the OTAAS if you

accept children. Some of these pack and plays though are a little tricky to put back into their little bag. So, if you do have a pack and play, make sure your housekeeper either knows how to put it back together or you can send them a really quick video off YouTube showing how cuz I've tried to put these things back myself and they can be confusing. All right, spare sheets. Now, this one I really think you should have this in both places, right? We always want to

have a spare set of sheets for our guest in case they show up. Maybe the place is spotless, but for whatever reason, they want to change it themselves. Of course, if it's a longer reservation, then you might consider having more sheets available. But you also want to have backup towels. And really, all of your linens, you want a backup set in a locked closet as well. That way, when your housekeeper shows up, if there multiple stained linens, then they can easily pull one out of the

supply closet. We don't really want to leave all of these items out to our guests because when we do, they usually end up using all of them even when they don't need them. And so, make sure you keep some spares locked away in case the guest asks, in case your housekeeper needs them. Number 12, extra pillows, extra blankets. Same line of thinking here. If you have a whole bunch of blankets out, it's possible your guests use all of them and then your housekeeper spend a few

extra hours washing everything versus having extra available if they need it. You can simply give them the access code. If you're not quite sure what linens you should be putting in your property, we might want to go way back, check out episode 242. It's one of our most popular episodes where I break down the differences between linens, the thread count, and if it's really worth it to spend extra on linens. You can also find all of our episodes there at strriches.com. Or if you're interested in

letting go of the operation a little bit and having an expert team handle your property, well, our team and I would love to help you. You can find us at cororsley.com. at corg rzly.com. All right, let's wrap up with just some quick double check items to have on hand. You probably have these already, but you might want to keep some of them in the locked closet. Extra toilet paper, extra paper towels, extra laundry or dishwasher pods. We recommend pods cuz they're easier and it's easier for

your housekeeper to know how many to leave out at a certain time. Extra batteries, double A, AAA. We already talked about the 9V ones. Always good to have a spare light bulb on hand. And those are things that most housekeepers can change pretty easily. It's also nice to have a screwdriver laying around. And now some guests are more handy than others if they come across something that your turnover team missed. Maybe the bed's squeaking a little bit and there's a screw loose. Well, it's easy enough

to leave a screwdriver and actually a little just small set of tools in an open place that your guests have access to if they want. A highintensity spot or stain remover. Always good to have. Your guests might want to use this as well, so good to leave in the laundry area. good to have a flashlight as well as a first aid kit. And this is one of the items Airbnb and VBO has a specific check box for. You want to make sure you have one of

these and you want to make sure that you've checked that box because it helps your visibility. These OTAAS, these travel sites, want to make sure that you have a safe property. Last one, you decide if this goes in the lock closet or if you leave it out in the open, and that's a travel adapter. These are things that can go missing. If you have more international guests, then consider leaving some of these out. Again, they're not expensive. You can get these for 10, 15 bucks on

Amazon, but they go a long way when your guest needs them.