Have you worked on short-term rentals before?

Not for a host, and it is better to say so than imply otherwise. There are no Airbnb or Vrbo jobs in the records. The work itself is the most established thing this company does — between-tenant turnovers for landlords and property managers are the single largest category in the job history, along with furniture assembly, detectors and lock changes. The trade is proven; the client type is new.

How much notice do you need for a rental repair?

More than a host usually wants to hear. This is a scheduled trade working weekdays with no on-call crew, so repairs belong in a gap you can see coming on the calendar — the midweek nights that did not sell, and the shoulder season. Building an operation on the hope that a contractor can come at once is how hosts end up cancelling bookings.

Why is it cheaper to send one list than to report things as they happen?

Because every visit carries the drive, the park, the walk-in, the look-around and the write-up, and on small items that overhead is most of the cost rather than a surcharge on it. Six items in one visit pays the overhead once. Six visits pays it six times, for the same six repairs.

Do you clean between guests?

No. Make-ready cleaning as part of a turn is normal here, but a recurring changeover-cleaning rota is a housekeeping business rather than a trade one. Repairs, guest damage and upkeep are what this is.

Can you tell me what license my short-term rental needs?

No, and be wary of any contractor who will. East Lansing, Lansing and Meridian Township each regulate short-term rentals differently and the rules have moved more than once; whether a property qualifies can turn on whether you live in it and how the parcel is zoned. That answer belongs to the city and to your attorney. What is taken on is the physical item an inspection flags — the detector, the handrail, the loose tread, the egress window.

Are you connected to Airbnb?

No. Not affiliated, not partnered and not approved by Airbnb, Vrbo or any other platform. Their names appear because that is what hosts call the work and how they search for it.

What is the first thing worth doing on a rental I do not live at?

Fit a keypad, ahead of anything cosmetic. Every visit to a property you are not at carries the cost of somebody having to let people in — a call, a time agreed, a person waiting, and a wasted trip if either end slips. A keypad removes that from every visit you will ever book across cleaners, contractors and guests.

The Drip-Feed Is What Short-Term Rental Upkeep Actually Costs

The same work, a different clock

A short-term rental needs nothing a long-term rental does not. The doors stick the same way, the toilets run the same way, the drawer fronts come off in the same hands. Between-tenant turnovers are the largest single category of work in this company's job history, and a nightly rental is that work with the calendar changed.

What is genuinely different is smaller than most hosts expect and more expensive than they realize. Five things.

1. The drip-feed, which is the big one

A long-term tenant lives with a fault and reports it in month four, bundled in with two others. A guest finds it on a Tuesday and it is in a review by Wednesday, so you want it fixed immediately, by itself.

Do that six times and you have paid for six visits. Each one carries the drive, the park, the walk-in, the look-around and the write-up — and on small items that overhead is most of the cost, not a surcharge on top of it. The same six items worked through in one visit from a written list is a fraction of the money, because the overhead is paid once.

Hosts pay the expensive way almost universally, and not through carelessness. Every fault genuinely does arrive alone, and each one genuinely does feel urgent by itself. The fix is unglamorous: keep a running list in your phone and send the whole thing. A note on your phone is the highest-return maintenance tool in hosting.

The corollary is the part hosts resist: some things have to wait for the list. A loose towel rail is not worth a dedicated visit, and treating it as though it were is how the budget goes.

2. Nobody here can be your emergency option

Worth being blunt, because the alternative is letting somebody down mid-season.

This is a scheduled trade working weekdays. There is no on-call crew and no dispatch desk, so a guest arriving tomorrow to a fault discovered tonight is not a problem we can promise to solve. Any contractor who tells you otherwise is either much larger than this one or is guessing.

What that means practically is that short-term rental maintenance works best run backwards from the calendar. The midweek nights that did not sell, and the shoulder season either side of summer, are when the work belongs. A host who plans into gaps they can see coming gets everything done and pays ordinary prices. A host who waits for faults to force the issue pays premium prices for a worse result, and occasionally cancels a booking.

3. Photograph the damage before anybody tidies it

This is thirty seconds that decides whether you have a claim or a story.

Guest damage gets cleaned up fast, usually by the person who finds it, often before anybody has thought about who pays. Once the broken trim is in the bin and the hole is behind a nightstand, the evidence is a description.

What to photograph: the damage itself, the same thing from far enough back to show which room it is in, and anything nearby that explains it. Then the repair when it is done. That sequence is what a platform's resolution process and your own insurer both ask for, and it costs nothing at the moment it is free.

4. A keypad is the highest-return thing you can fit

Not because of lost keys, though that helps. Because of coordination.

Every visit to a property you do not live at carries a hidden cost: somebody has to be let in. That means a call, a time agreed, a person who waits, and a visit that fails if either end slips. Multiply it across a season of cleaners, contractors and guests and it is a real number.

A keypad on the door removes that cost from every visit you will ever book, including ours. If a property has no keypad and no lockbox, it is the first thing worth doing, ahead of anything cosmetic.

5. The things that are only legal to ignore until an inspection

Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, handrails where there are stairs, a loose stair tread, egress from a sleeping room. These are the items that sit unnoticed for years and then appear on a list all at once.

They are also the ones where a guest is a stranger. A tenant knows the third step is loose by week two. A guest arriving at eleven at night with a bag does not, and the whole safety case for this category rests on that difference.

What nobody should answer for you

Here is the question this post is not going to answer: what license do you need, and is your property even allowed to be a short-term rental?

East Lansing, Lansing and Meridian Township each treat short-term rentals differently, the rules have changed more than once, and whether a given property qualifies turns on things like whether you live in it and how your parcel is zoned. That answer comes from the city's own office and from your attorney.

Be wary of a contractor who tells you otherwise. Somebody quoting you a rule from memory, to win a job, is not the person who carries it if they are wrong — you are.

What a trade can usefully do is the other half: the detector, the handrail, the tread, the egress window, the physical item written on an inspection list. That part is ordinary work and it is the same work whether the inspector came from the city or the complaint came from a guest.

And three things this is not

Not co-hosting. No guest messaging, no pricing, no calendars, no check-ins, none of your bookings and none of your money.
Not changeover cleaning. Make-ready cleaning as part of a turn is normal. A recurring cleaning rota between guests is a housekeeping business, and it is not this one.
Not affiliated with any booking platform. Airbnb and Vrbo are named here because that is what the work is called and how hosts search for it. There is no partnership, endorsement or approval of any kind.

And one more piece of plain dealing: no short-term rental host has hired this company. The work is thoroughly established — dozens of landlord and property-manager turnovers, furniture assembly, detectors, lock changes — but the client type is new, and the service page says so too rather than implying a track record with hosts that does not exist.

Book it

Book a free quote · call 517-505-7135 · or read more about Airbnb and short-term rental upkeep.
The same work for long-term landlords, which is where the track record is: rental turnovers. The inspection half: inspection corrections. What a turn really costs in time: the second trip is what a turnover actually costs. If the list has an inspection on it: your fail list is already a scope of work.
Serving Lansing, East Lansing, Okemos, Haslett, Holt and the rest of Greater Lansing.