Airbnb Hosts: Keeping the Loo as Fresh as a Daisy

The subtitle of this article could be ‘The Squeamish Person’s Guide to Cleaning the Toilet’.

Good hosts are pretty fanatical about cleanliness but if you asked hosts which are the worst jobs they have to do when cleaning their rentals, cleaning the toilet would be pretty high up there on the list. There are many wonderful aspects of having guests but cleaning the loo definitely isn’t one of them. Unless you use my somewhat bizarre, but effective, method.

Let’s be honest, what we’re dealing with here is an item that has remnants (and hopefully no more than that) of pee, poop and pubes. What’s more, it’s someone else’s p, p & p and absolutely no fun at all.

WHAT YOU NEED

• Rubber gloves. This could be latex disposables or your old Marigolds but you don’t want to touch that loo with your bare hands do you?
• Wipes. I use Clorox
• Paper towel
• An old supermarket plastic bag

And before we go any further, I know that none of the above products are environmentally-friendy but hey, we’re talking about cleaning toilets here – all’s fair…

You’ll also need:

• Sunglasses
• A drop of your favourite perfume, or a mint, or even a dollop of toothpaste at a push (all will become clear
• If you have it, a hand held vac
• For a really nasty toilet, bleach
• Toilet brush

OKAY GIRLS, GRAB YER MARIGOLDS AND LET’S GO

The first thing you must do when you go into the bathroom is slam the toilet seat down. You don’t want to see what’s lurking. Flush and, while you’re cleaning gobs of toothpaste from the sink or other delightful jobs, flush the loo at least three times before you tackle it.

Take your plastic carrier bag and hang it in a convenient location such as the flush handle, the doorknob or a towel hook. Now with your handheld vacuum, clean that strange little shelf behind the toilet seat where pubic hairs seem to congregate. In fact, have a sweep with the vac along the sides and base of the loo and the surrounding floor.

Make sure that you have your protective gloves on and your sunglasses. (They are important). If your sunglasses are old and scratched so much the better. The point of them is to diffuse any sights you might see. If you think that the toilet might be stinky, dab a touch of perfume, strongly scented lotion or even toothpaste below your nostrils. Or suck a strong mint.

Yes, you’ll look daft but never mind. This is a serious business!

Clean the outside of the loo with paper towel. Add a little bleach if you’re worried about its condition. Discard every piece of used paper towel into your handy supermarket carrier bag. Now, bravely, open the lid and have a good scrub around with the toilet brush and then flush.

Peering hazily at the bowl, grab your wipes. Clean the seat, the bit you sit on and the underside, and the loo rim. Again, chuck every used wipe into your garbage bag. If you’re feeling particularly brave, go around the inside of the rim too. (Come on, you can do it!)

Now for the moment of truth.

Remove your sunglasses and hopefully you have a sparkling, fresh-as-a-daisy, loo. Peer carefully for any stray pubic hairs and so on, but the chances are that you’ve ended up with a lovely lav. You might even want to Windex it to give it an extra sparkle. Dispose of your gloves into your garbage bag and you’re done.

It might sound like a bit of a palaver (sunglasses? perfume?) but it only takes about five minutes and is very gentle on your stomach as they say in the ads.

Now tie up the handles of the plastic bag to discard it, and leave the bathroom with a smile on your face knowing that your guests have a super-sparkly loo for their peeing pleasure.