How have you found a great cleaning team for out-of-metro STR...?

[Robert Schwenkler]

Hey gang, I'm a first time property manager, running a ranch house on 53 acres ~75 min outside of Austin.

It's going great overall, but by far the biggest challenge I've had is finding a cleaning service that A. Services STRs and  B. Will work 65 miles out of town.

I tried Turno and after a couple mediocre-to-poor experiences found someone we are reasonably happy with. Only problem here is lack of redundancy – if she gets sick or an emergency comes up we're out of luck. In other instances I've already had to staff 2 cleanings on VERY short notice (like same day). NOT fun.

I've also tried a couple of cleaning agencies. One of them does an ok job, but their cleaners don't speak English so it's hard for our onsite manager to communicate well with them, and overall they haven't been as detail oriented as we want. The second sent a team for the first time yesterday, but one cleaner didn't show up and the one who was there did the poorest cleaning we've had yet.

It's been a big challenge to solve for both redundancy (hiring teams as opposed to individuals) as well as consistency (ability to communicate and improve over time).

We are bringing 8 more units online on this property next year so these challenges will only amplify if we don't get some things figured out.

Our service provider here are much more limited than they would be if we were closer to Austin. I'm a little unsure how to approach this, but I have to imagine that others have figured this out. How?!

Any input and advice welcome, thanks!