Hygiene and disinfection in your holiday apartment
All you need to know about disinfecting your holiday home & keeping it clean
June 2025
If you run a holiday rental, cleanliness simply has to be a priority. A dirty home can result in negative reviews, damage your business, and even cause health problems for your guests. Here’s what you need to know about disinfecting your holiday apartment & keeping it clean.
Hygiene regulations for your holiday apartment
Before renting out your holiday flat or home, hygiene should be the first thing you take care of. Depending on whereabouts in the world your rental is located, there may be a specific hygiene concept model for holiday apartments that you must follow. Even if your local jurisdiction does not have any official regulations, hygiene should still be a top priority.
Remember that a guest’s hygiene concept for holiday apartments may differ from your own. Regardless, your holiday rental should be as clean as a top hotel. One of the best ways to achieve this is by making a cleaning checklist and establishing some hygiene rules for your holiday apartment. After each guest leaves, you should complete all the tasks one by one and stick to your hygiene rules. Having a checklist prepared ensures that you won’t miss any steps, as you’ll have everything written down.
What should be on my holiday apartment cleaning checklist?
Of course, the exact tasks that you complete after each guest will depend on the nature of your home. For example, depending on whether you have carpets, tiles or hardwood flooring, there may be different cleaning steps involved. In general, though, the list should include some of the following:
General living areas and bedrooms
These are usually the first spaces that guests step into when they enter your holiday rental. Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Your rental should be clean, tidy and welcoming. Here’s how to achieve that:
- Cleaning: the inside of windows, screens, mirrors, glass surfaces, coffee tables, vertical blinds
- Sweeping: vacuum, sweep and mop the floors
- Dusting: skirting boards, surfaces, ornaments and decorations
- Folding: blankets and fluffing pillows
If your living area has a fireplace, you should also clean it. Make sure you sweep away the ashes and replenish the woodpile.
Kitchen
Cleanliness is important, and that’s particularly true when it comes to kitchens. Your guests will need to feel comfortable cooking in your holiday rental. If the kitchen is dirty, your guests will be absolutely disgusted. Be sure to spend plenty of time cleaning it, completing tasks like:
- Cleaning: work surfaces, backsplashes, cupboard doors, the insides of cupboards, toaster, cooker, oven, coffee maker and other small appliances, dishwasher (inside and outside)
- Deep cleaning: fridge, freezer
- Disinfecting: microwave, rubbish bin, sink and surrounding area
- Sweeping and mopping: floor
Bathroom
A dirty bathroom is sure to put your guests off. Get the bleach and the disinfectant out because you should take extra care in this area.
- Cleaning: mirror, toilet (including the base and underside of the seat), soap rack, glass surfaces
- Disinfecting: shower, bathtub, toilet, sink
- Sweeping and mopping: floor
- Removing hair: plugholes and drains in the sink, shower and bathtub
In addition to this, some things should be changed after each guest. Obviously, you will need to replace the toilet paper and thoroughly wash towels. You should also supply a fresh toilet brush for each guest after disinfecting the toilet brush holder.
Disinfecting the holiday home
When you’re cleaning, be sure to disinfect your holiday apartment as well. Use high-quality cleaning products and follow the instructions on them.
You may wish to emulate a hotel when it comes to disinfecting things —for example, you could place a disposable tag over the toilet seat to indicate that it has been freshly cleaned before each new guest arrives.
In the kitchen, you should replace sponges and washcloths after each guest. You don’t need to replace tea towels, but you’ll have to run them through the washing machine.
When it comes to disinfecting a holiday rental, you should also think about your towels, bed linen and other fabric pieces. Wash them in the washing machine on a hot cycle to ensure that all bacteria and germs are destroyed. Inspect them after washing. Stubborn stains may sometimes linger, even after something has been run through the washing machine. A stained towel or bedsheet is totally inappropriate for use in a holiday rental.
Hiring a professional cleaner
When you first start out in the holiday rental business, you may be tempted to do everything yourself. However, hiring a professional cleaner —or even a team of cleaners— is often a very smart move. There are several reasons to hire a cleaner:
- You might be doubtful about your ability to do a good job. After all, you’re not a professional cleaner. By relying on an expert, you can be confident that your property will be cleaned to a suitably high standard.
- You may not have enough time to take care of the cleaning. You’re busy focusing on other elements of the business — you have to deal with customer service, advertise your holiday home online, run the holiday rental website, and so on. Outsourcing the cleaning gives you more time for these things.
- Cleaning and disinfecting a holiday apartment is not everyone’s idea of a good time. You simply may not want to do this task, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
When hiring a professional cleaner, it’s best to choose someone with experience cleaning holiday rentals. Generally, standards of hygiene are higher in a holiday rental than in a private home. People who rent your holiday flat want to see it cleaned immaculately.
You will also need to make it clear to your cleaner that you expect a full, deep cleaning between guests. Again, someone who normally works in private homes may only deep clean every month or so. However, it’s essential that each guest sees your holiday rental in exactly the same way —as clean and pristine as it appears on the holiday rental portal when they’re making a booking.
Check your cleaner’s reviews and ask for references. Give them your cleaning checklist to follow. After the first few cleans, you may want to inspect the property yourself to make sure that your cleaner is meeting your expected standards.
If a guest ever comments negatively about the standard of cleanliness in your property —either in a review online, in your personal feedback form, or to you directly— this is something you should take very seriously. Don’t dismiss their concerns, and try to get to the bottom of the issue immediately, as your cleaner’s standards may be slipping.
Ensure that keeping up with standard hygiene rules for the holiday apartment is always a top priority. Doing so will give a better guest experience and prevent major problems from developing in your business. Whether you clean and disinfect yourself or hire a professional to handle it for you, hygiene and disinfection should always be a key part of your holiday rental enterprise.