Pre-arrival inspection checklist

When to use

Walk this list after the turnover clean and before the check-in message. {arrival_date} is the stay you are about to open. {hot_water} is the test you actually do: “kitchen tap ran hot within a minute” or “tank set to the usual mark and the guest bath ran warm.” {lock_check} is the door method for this stay: code tested, key in the box, bolt thrown. {leftover_check} is the fridge, the nightstand, and under the bed. {property_name} keeps you from inspecting the wrong unit in a building where the hallways match.

The host does this, or a co-host you trust with keys. It is not a second clean. The cleaner already had a list. This one catches the things a clean can miss: a code that was not programmed, a sign from last season, a steak in the freezer from a guest who checked out two stays ago.

If a box fails and you cannot fix it, the check-in message changes. Do not send a perfect door note and hope. {lock_check} failing means you do not send the door code yet. Hot water failing means a sentence in the thread before they shower at midnight.

Timing tip

The evening before is the best time when {arrival_date} is the next day and you live close. The morning of arrival is the right time when a code is programmed that morning. Doing it three days early misses the lock you change on arrival day and the milk the cleaner left “in case.”

Same-day turns compress the list. Do {lock_check}, {leftover_check}, and hot water even if you skip nothing else. Those three cause the messages that arrive in the first hour. Signs and Wi-Fi can be confirmed if the clean was rushed, because a wrong password is the second message you will get.

Write the time you walked it in the margin if you share the sheet with a co-host. “Checked” with no time is how both of you think the other person did {lock_check}.

Common mistakes

Inspecting from the car is the first one. {hot_water} requires a tap. {lock_check} requires the door. A camera in the hallway does not see a key missing from a box. If you are remote, a person on site has to walk the list and tell you which boxes failed, in words, not as a single thumbs-up.

The second is a new punch list of improvements. A scuffed wall you have decided to live with is not a failed box. This page is “can this guest sleep here safely tonight.” Save renovations for a maintenance day. If you mix them, you will delay a check-in over a picture frame.

The third is sending the three-day message with parking and then failing {lock_check} on the morning of arrival without an update. The inspection is the gate for the door message. If you finish it late, send the door message late and say when the code starts. Silence plus a bad code is the review.

Damage found on this walk

If {leftover_check} turns into broken glass or a stain that was not in the cleaner’s note, pause and write it down for the incident report before the next guest’s shoes grind it into the floor. Photograph what you need, then decide whether the stay can still start. The last checkbox says the note happens before the code goes out. That order matters. A code sent, then a cancellation, is a worse morning than a code held for twenty minutes while you think.

This list does not assign blame to the previous guest by itself. It records the condition you are about to hand over.