Greater Lansing
Airbnb & short-term rental upkeep
A short-term turn is the same trades as a long-term one with the clock changed — a week becomes whatever sits between a checkout and the next arrival. The work is identical. What is different is that a sticking door stops being an annoyance somebody reports in month four and becomes a sentence in a public review for as long as the listing exists.
What is actually wrong
A short-term turn is the same trades as a long-term one with the clock changed. A between-tenant turn has a week; a between-guest turn has whatever sits between a checkout and the next arrival. Nothing about the work is different — what changes is that it has to be planned around a calendar instead of fitted into an empty unit.
The second difference is what a fault costs. On a long-term rental a sticking door is an annoyance somebody reports in month four. On a nightly rental it is in a public review, in writing, against your listing, for as long as the listing exists — which is why the cheap fix done early is worth more than its price here than anywhere else in this trade.
The third is that you are probably not there. Most hosts are managing a building they do not visit, which makes access, and somebody who will actually look at the thing next to the thing they were sent for, the whole service.
Where this stops
When it is not a handyman job
This is at the top of the page rather than the bottom because getting it wrong costs you a wasted visit. Insured, and no contractor license is claimed or implied — the Michigan residential builder license is not held.
- THIS IS A NEW SERVICE AND NO SHORT-TERM RENTAL HOST HAS HIRED THIS COMPANY. The records carry no Airbnb or Vrbo jobs at all. What they do carry is the work itself — dozens of landlord and property-manager turnovers, furniture assembly, detectors, deadbolts — so the trade is demonstrated and the client type is not. Nobody should read this page as a track record with hosts.
- NOT AFFILIATED WITH AIRBNB, VRBO OR ANY BOOKING PLATFORM. Their names appear here because that is what the work is called and how hosts search for it. There is no endorsement, partnership or approval of any kind.
- NOT a co-host and not a property manager. No guest messaging, no pricing, no calendars, no listings, no check-ins, no handling of your bookings or your money. This is the trade that fixes the building.
- NOT between-guest housekeeping. Make-ready cleaning as part of a turn is taken on; a recurring changeover-cleaning rota is a different business and is not offered.
- NO ADVICE ON YOUR LICENSE, YOUR ZONING OR YOUR OCCUPANCY LIMIT. East Lansing, Lansing and Meridian Township each treat short-term rentals differently and the rules change; that answer comes from the city and from your own attorney, not from a contractor. What is taken on is the physical item an inspector writes on the list.
- Licensed work is named and referred, same as everywhere else: new circuits, panels and service upgrades to a licensed electrician; gas connections to a licensed fitter; furnaces and air conditioning are licensed mechanical work and are not taken on.
The work itself
What actually gets done
Repair runs rather than single call-outs: the drawer, the blind, the loose towel rail, the toilet that runs, the door that sticks — worked through in one visit from a list.
Guest damage: holes in drywall, split trim, broken doors and hardware, cracked tile, the fixture somebody pulled off a wall.
Furniture assembly and TV mounting, which is most of what a new listing needs and is the thing hosts most often try to do in one weekend.
Locks and keypads — deadbolt replacement and keypad locks, so a lost key stops being an emergency and nobody has to be met at the door.
Safety items that get flagged: smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, handrails, loose stair treads, and like-for-like replacement of a dead outlet or switch.
Seasonal cover on a building you do not live at: gutters, lawn, leaves, snow.
Shoulder-season work that cannot be done mid-booking — paint, floors, the bathroom that needs more than a morning.
This work sits inside Rental turnovers, which carries the invoiced price bands for the trade with the sample size printed beside every figure.
What it costs
There is no price list for this, and here is what actually decides the number.
The same three words describe a twenty-minute job and a two-day one. Rather than publish a figure that is wrong for one of them, here is what moves it — so you can work out roughly which end of it you are at before anybody comes out.
How much notice there is. Work booked into a gap you already know about is ordinary scheduling; work that has to happen before a guest arrives tomorrow is not something this company can commit to, and it is better to hear that now than on the day.
Whether there is a list or an emergency. Six items in one visit costs a fraction of six visits, and hosts routinely pay the second way without noticing.
Access. A keypad or a lockbox means nobody has to be met; a visit that depends on coordinating with a person carries that cost every time.
Season. The same work booked in February is easier to schedule than the same work in July.
Whether anyone has looked at it. Photographs of the fault get a scope back without a trip.
How to get a real number
Somebody comes out, looks at it properly, and you get a fixed price in writing with the work set out line by line and the exclusions written down as plainly as the inclusions. Coming out to do that is not charged for, and neither is working out what is wrong. If something is found once a wall or a floor is open, it is priced as a written change order and you decide before the work carries on rather than after it is billed. Materials are supplied at cost with the receipt attached, first-time customers get 10% off labor, and labor carries a one-year craftsmanship warranty.
If this is happening right now
What to do in the next five minutes, and what happens when you ring.
Before anybody arrives
- Start a list in your phone now and stop reporting things one at a time. One visit for six items is far cheaper than six visits for one, and the drip-feed is the most expensive habit in this whole category.
- Photograph guest damage before anybody tidies it up. It is the difference between a claim and a story.
- If there is no keypad on the door, put that first. It removes the coordination cost from every visit you will ever book, including ours.
- Write down your own checkout and check-in times. That gap is the window the work has to fit, and it decides what is possible in a day.
Call the business line
(517) 505-7135Answered Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 18:00. There is no out-of-hours line and this page is not going to invent one — outside those hours, leave a message with the address and what is happening, and it is picked up in the morning.
On the call you get asked what is happening, what else in the building is affected, and whether it is still getting worse. That is how it gets decided whether this is our job at all — and if it is not, you get told that on the phone rather than after somebody has driven out.
- No trip charge
- No call-out fee or minimum
- No diagnostic fee
- No charge for a return visit
True across all 84 written quotes this company has issued. Most contractors in this market charge to turn up.
Or send the detailsWhen the right answer is not this company
- You can smell gas
- Leave the building and call the utility from outside. Not us, and not later.
- Water you cannot stop
- Your main shut-off first, then a licensed plumber. Every minute of this one costs money.
- Sewage backing up, or several fixtures at once
- A licensed plumber with a camera. That is the shared line, not a fixture, and a cable down one sink will not touch it.
- Sparking, scorching or a burning smell at an outlet or a panel
- Breaker off, and a licensed electrician. Electrical work here is repair and like-for-like replacement, and this is neither.
- No heat, or heating and cooling equipment that has failed
- A licensed mechanical contractor. That trade is not offered here at all, and knowing that in one phone call is worth more than a visit.
Questions people actually ask
Have you worked on short-term rentals before?
Not for a host, and that is worth saying plainly rather than implying 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?
More than a host usually wants to hear, and the honest answer is the useful one: this is a scheduled trade working weekdays, not a dispatch service, and there is no on-call crew waiting. So the way this works for a rental is that repairs get booked into a gap you can see coming on the calendar — which for most hosts means the midweek nights that did not sell, and the shoulder season. Building an operation on the hope that a contractor can come today is how hosts end up cancelling bookings.
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, and pretending otherwise would let you down in the middle of a season. Repairs, damage and upkeep are what this is.
Will you tell me what license I need?
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; that answer belongs to the city and to your attorney. What is taken on is the other half of it — the detector, the handrail, the egress window, the physical item written on an inspection list.
Are you connected to Airbnb?
No. Not affiliated, not partnered, not approved by Airbnb, Vrbo or any other platform. Their names are on this page because that is what hosts call the work and how they search for it.
Can you look after the place while I am not in the state?
Repairs, seasonal work and a keypad so nobody has to be met — yes, and that is the common shape of it. What is not on offer is standing in for a manager: no guest contact, no bookings, no money handling, no promise to be the person who notices something is wrong. Somebody still has to be looking.
Send the list, not the latest thing
Start a list in your phone and send the whole thing: one visit for six items costs a fraction of six visits for one, and the drip-feed is the most expensive habit in this category. Photograph any guest damage before it gets tidied up. Say what your checkout and check-in times are, because that gap is the window the work has to fit in. If there is no keypad on the door, ask about that first — it takes the coordination cost out of every visit you will ever book. Coming out is free and there is no trip charge.