Spring preparation of the holiday home: how the house is ready for the first guest

When spring arrives and the first booking approaches, the holiday home has to be woken up after winter. A house that has stood empty for months needs air, light and a proper going over before guests arrive. Here is the order that works, and the places it usually goes wrong.

Start with the air, not the floor

Begin by letting winter out: open windows and doors and air the place thoroughly, ideally over several hours. Turn the water and heating back on, and check that pipes, water heater and toilet work as they should, with no leaks. Let the heat run a while so the house dries and warms through.

The reason air comes first is simple: a closed house has been gathering damp all winter, and that damp sits in textiles, mattresses and cupboards. Clean before the house has been aired and warmed and you are working on a damp house, and the smell comes back. Heat and a through-draught do half the job before you have picked up a cloth.

Check for damp and winter damage while the house is still empty

Go through the house for signs of damp, mould or damage from winter frost and storms. Look in corners, behind furniture and at ceilings. Check that windows and doors close tightly and that no mice or moisture have got in. The sooner small things are found, the easier they are to put right.

What usually turns up on the first walk round:

• Black spots in window corners and behind curtains. Classic condensation mould, caused by damp and cold air rather than dirt.
• A damp smell in cupboards and under beds, where no air has moved.
• Mice. Look for gnawed packaging, tracks in drawers and small droppings along the skirting.
• Frost damage, typically at outside taps and pipes in unheated rooms.
• Loose roof tiles and full gutters after the winter storms.
• Sand and salt on the glass, which makes the house darker inside than it needs to be.

Photograph whatever you find. If the owner lives far away, or the house is let through an agency, photos are the fastest way to get a decision.

The order that saves a whole day

Cleaning a house that has stood shut goes faster in the right order.

Air it, turn the heat on, and leave it. Then put descaler in the toilet, shower and on the taps, and oven cleaner in the oven, so the products work while you do something else. Take out all the textiles: bedding, towels, throws and outdoor cushions. Then work top to bottom in each room, and leave the floors until last, in one pass.

Windows inside belong midway, not at the end, because water always runs down onto the sill and floor. Windows outside are a job of their own, and they are usually what gives the biggest visible lift after a winter of salt and rain.

What people most often skip

• Mattresses and toppers. Turn them, air them, and check for stains and smell. Guests lie down on them that same evening.
• The back and underside of the fridge. If it stood switched off with the door closed all winter, there is usually a smell.
• The extractor filter, which nobody thinks about in spring but has been sitting in last season's grease.
• Drains and traps. Dried-out traps smell of drains. Run water through so they fill again.
• The smoke alarm. Test it and change the battery while you are there anyway.
• Garden furniture and the terrace. Green algae on timber is slippery and gets noticed at once.
• Toys, games and books that have gone clammy in a damp cupboard.

The final details

Stock up on consumables, check that everything in the kitchen is there and works, put the garden furniture out and give the terrace a going over. The small things, fresh towels, clean glass and a cloth on the table, are what make a house feel looked after rather than merely cleaned.

Finish by walking a round as if you were a guest. Come in the front door, put a bag down, use the bathroom, open the fridge. That is the order a guest does things in, and it is where you notice what you have stopped seeing yourself.

How long does it actually take?

The short answer is: longer than people expect, and it is almost always the airing and the textiles that eat the time. An ordinary holiday home of 90 to 120 square metres that has stood shut since autumn is rarely done in two hours, however tidily it was left.

The reason is that spring preparation is not the same job as a changeover clean. At a changeover the house is in use: it has been aired, the heating is on, and there is only a week of use to remove. In spring you start with a house that has been cold, closed and damp for months, where everything has to be opened, emptied, checked and started up again before the cleaning itself even begins.

So it makes sense to put the preparation at least a couple of days before the first guest, not the same morning. That leaves room for whatever turns up: a dripping tap, a mattress that needs another day of air, or a window that needs a second pass outside. Squeeze it into a few hours and it is always the final details, the ones a guest notices, that get dropped first.

What to do yourself, and what is worth handing over

Airing, tidying, garden furniture and shopping are things most people manage easily, and they are the enjoyable parts.

What usually wrecks the timetable is three things: the outside windows, a thorough kitchen and bathroom pass for limescale and grease, and the textile round. Those are also exactly the three things a guest judges the house on. If the first booking is close, they are usually the ones worth letting somebody else take so you can spend the day on the rest.

If the house has been shut all winter, the first clean may need to be a deep clean rather than an ordinary one. After that, regular changeover cleaning is enough to hold the standard.

Shall we take the spring preparation?

We are a small fixed team based in Bork, and we get holiday homes ready for the season in Hvide Sande, Sondervig, Henne Strand, Nymindegab, Blaavand, Bork Havn and Hemmet. A fixed price agreed in advance, the same team every time, and a walkthrough at the end where we tell you if we find damp or damage. Send us the address and when the first guest arrives and get a fast quote.