Mike Bayer
You're listening to the Vacation Rental Success Podcast. With over 1.5 million downloads, this is the place to be for all your short-term rental knowledge as part of the Vacation Rental Formula business school. This episode is brought to you by the kind sponsorship of PriceLabs, who will help increase your revenue and occupancy with their dynamic pricing and revenue management tools. PriceLabs have just launched their 2023 breakthrough release of the next generation of revenue management. This brand new cutting-edge solution leverages hyperlocal data to optimize rates and increase your revenue like never before. Visit the link in the description of this episode for more information. Without further delay, here's your host, Heather Bayer.

Heather Bayer
We know that the number one criteria on every guest list for a great vacation is a spotlessly clean property, but the topic of cleaning seems to be relegated to an afterthought. Well, today it's front and center with Sean Kemper, the founder of ETI Solutions, talking about all things cleaning. Stay tuned, this is a great conversation and you are going to learn a lot.

Heather Bayer
This is the Vacation Rental Success Podcast keeping you up-to-date with news, views, information, and resources on this rapidly changing short-term rental business.  I'm your host, Heather Bayer, and with 25 years of experience in this industry, I'm making sure you know what's hot, what's not, what's new, and what will help make your business a success.

Heather Bayer
Well, hello and welcome to another episode of The Vacation Rental Success Podcast. This is your host, Heather Bayer, and I'm super excited to be back with you once again as we explore the ins and the outs of the rental industry and share valuable insights and strategies to help you succeed in this really ever evolving market.

Heather Bayer
Not a day goes past without reading something else that's changing in this market. It's interesting, it's exciting, it never fails to keep us on our toes. And one thing should be keeping us on our toes is cleaning. I know it's not a topic that everybody wants to be thinking about. We're all so interested in marketing and social media, etc, and the new tech that's coming out and how to use that. But today we are coming back to basics and talking about cleaning and sanitation. You are going to find this interesting, I promise you. This has always been such a critical aspect of running a successful vacation rental property.

Heather Bayer
As I said right in the introduction there, it's the number one criteria on every guest's list for a great vacation. They want a clean property. Our guest today is going to tell us all about this. It's Sean Kemper, and he's the founder of ETI Solutions, which is a company which has a mission to revolutionize cleaning practices and education within the short-term rental business. You know how dear education is to my heart. When I had a chat with Sean prior to doing this recording, it was very clear that he has this mission to educate hosts and managers into the right methods of cleaning, using the right products, etc.

Heather Bayer
In today's episode, we're going to dive deep into the importance of cleaning in short-term rentals and explore the challenges faced by everyone involved in this business, property managers, hosts, etc, and we're going to talk about how education can truly make a significant difference. Sean is going to share his insights and his experiences and solutions in more than one way that can help transform the way you approach cleanliness in your vacation rental properties. If you are looking to enhance your property's cleaning standards and stay ahead in this competitive market, you don't want to miss this conversation, so let's jump right in.

Heather Bayer
I'm super excited, and I actually am so excited to have with me today Sean Kemper from ETI Industries, because we're going to be talking about cleaning. I have to say, Sean, that prior to talking to you the other day when we had a discussion about this podcast, and what we're going to talk about, I hadn't really thought about cleaning too much. It was sort of that afterthought'y thing. Cleaning products, we'd just go buy them from Home Depot or the supermarket and then we use them and that's it. But we had this discussion and I came away and my life hasn't been the same since.

Sean Kemper
Hopefully for the better!

Heather Bayer
First of all, thank you so much for joining me. I know this is going to be a great conversation, because if I get passionate about something, then it's always a good conversation. I have to say, I think I'm almost passionate about cleaning products now. So super to have you here. Let's just kick off with, you're a chemical specialist. How did you get into the vacation rental business? What's the story?

Sean Kemper
Oh, yeah. Well, my cleaning started years and years ago. I actually started with a company called Ecolab out in New Orleans, and we basically trained and educated all the fast food restaurants on how to properly use our cleaning products. So I did that for several years. I was up in Chicago as a DM for them, and then came down to the family business. Dad asked me to come down here and get this thing going down in south Alabama, which is where we're located.

Sean Kemper
One of my first distributors I picked up was Liberty Linens, and they were down on the beach in Orange Beach. And after working with them and helping them, supplying them with products and seeing what they were doing, I was like, Wow, this is an industry.... and this was 15-16 years ago, if not longer. I was like, This is an industry that's missing a lot of education and training. So right there, I started my career with the vacation rental [industry]. From there, I helped them pick up their customers down along the beach area. I then, through them, heard about VRHP, and we joined the Vacation Rental Housekeeping Professionals.

Sean Kemper
So I continued to pick up more distributors down along the Florida Coast and doing the same thing, educate and train those folks. And then we've reached the Outer Banks now, we've got some out in Washington State. So just trying to be the expert in the industry and to be there to help everybody.

Heather Bayer
That's fantastic. And of course, yes, it's not something I've really thought about a great deal because in the hotel business, I guess, it's easy. The same cleaners go in every single day, they use exactly the same products. And of course, in this industry, it's individual hosts, it's property managers and even with the property managers, they've got different people going in. Unless they've got their housekeepers in-house, where they have control, they really don't have much control over what's going into the properties.

Sean Kemper
No, it's hard. It's tricky.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. So you talk about the 'art of clean' and I love that, because it's mixing art and science. What do you mean by that?

Sean Kemper
Well, I developed that probably five years ago, because there is an art to it. You've got to understand why we use the products we do. When I educate on that, I spoke at VRMA last year in Vegas on the art of cleaning. And I just want people to understand why we are grabbing these products off the shelf. There's acids, there's neutral products, there's alkaline-based products. Why do we use each one of these? Why do we need all of these? There's safer chemicals, there's hazardous chemicals. So we need to understand our chemistry and choosing safer, better products.

Sean Kemper
But say, just an example, a shower glass door. It's funny because I've been into some properties where they're like, Oh, that glass is haze, it's supposed to look like that. I'm like, No, that's a mineral buildup. So I can go in there and show them by using an acid-based product, and the acids are safer. Sometimes they have a pungent odor that people get turned off by. But typically, they're a phosphoric or citric acid, so they're very safe because I think citric acid is in Coca-Cola. But anyways, if you use an acid on that shower glass door, you will help remove that mineral buildup, your calcium lime, your rust.  If you grab a degreaser or a Fabuloso-type product, it's not going to cut that mineral buildup. So understanding the right product makes a big difference.

Heather Bayer
I remember years ago in a home I had, that I'd struggled forever with that shower door and I tried everything, the bleach and CLR and anything that I could find on the supermarket shelves. That brings me back to this whole thing about products. You go into the supermarket or you go into Home Depot and there is a whole isle of cleaning products.

Sean Kemper
Overwhelming.

Heather Bayer
It is overwhelming. So I tackled my cleaner at home yesterday when she arrived and I said, Okay, I want to see what... Poor girl... I said, I want to see what's in there. And she pulled out and said, Well, I always use this stuff. It's from the Dollar Store, it's the [Totally] Awesome Cleaner. And she said, It really is awesome. Let's just explore Awesome Cleaner and that type of product, Sean.

Sean Kemper
It's interesting. There's so many products out there, and you got to look at the retail products. A lot of the time when you're buying those things off the shelf, they're not commercial grade, because they do have to water them back a little bit more so they're safer for people at the house using kids, moms, dads, whatever it might be. So you've really got to be careful. Those products usually expect a lot more elbow grease to get the job done. I guess it's a good product. I've never used it, but I do see it out there in restaurants and other places. I know it's cheap, or maybe you think it's cheap. I know you get a small bottle, a little slender looking bottle at the Dollar Store, and if it's a buck something or whatever, but that's probably a pH of around 10. So again, as I talked about those mineral buildups, it's not going to be able to do everything, but it could be an okay, all-purpose product.

Heather Bayer
Okay, I think we're going to have to go into the chemical and the science of this in a second. But let's just take a broad overview. What is it that owners and property managers should actually know about the products that are being used in the properties that they own or manage?

Sean Kemper
Definitely. I love this question. And they need to take a little ownership in it, and I've seen throughout the years that it was always like, Oh, that's not my problem. It's the contractor or it's somebody else down the food chain. But if you understand a little bit of the chemistry and while they're using those products, you can save some damage. Some products could hurt marble, granite, natural stone countertops. If they use an acid, that's going to break it down and remove that nice finish that it has on there.

Sean Kemper
On fabrics, acids will hurt fabric. It'll break up the fibers in the carpet. But obviously, bleach will bleach out stuff as well. And bleach is corrosive. It's got a pH of 13. It's actually not even approved by the EPA to remove mold and mildew, because it doesn't do anything but bleach the flower. There's a root in there. There's a deeper problem going on. So we just need to understand there's choosing those right products. And if the property owner could go off that, the property manager seeing these things out there, they can say, That's the wrong product, or maybe, The labels aren't on there right.  You've got to have properly labeled bottles. So there's some things they should be educated on as well, just to make sure.

Heather Bayer
So where can they get this education?

Sean Kemper
Well, I mean, I offer the education. I'll be speaking... I'm doing a couple of panels at VRMA this year [Orlando - Oct 23-25]. I did one for Thanks For Visiting - the girls over there with an Airbnb host group. I'm always trying to evolve my business - ETI is Educate, Train, and Innovate. I'm offering consulting. I've done some Zoom calls with other companies. I'm looking at a cleaning service company right now that's on a nationwide growth, and I'm going to do a cleaning portal with them, so we could go over floors and the black-foot syndrome, mold and mildew, maybe just something as simple as cook-top stoves, or even body oils in a sink and a tub. So just helping everybody educate is what I'm here for.

Heather Bayer
Okay, so we've just got half an hour or so. We're going to cover off a few of these things and try and get some of this education out there. So you just mentioned the black-foot problem. Can you talk about that? What is it and what can we do about it when they know what it is?

Sean Kemper
Again, that's where it comes in that chemical training and industry and understanding. So basically what's going on with your black-foot is either... there's a couple of things....

Heather Bayer
What is black-foot?

Sean Kemper
Black-foot is a heavy buildup on the tile and grout floor. So when you're walking in your white socks or if a baby's crawling around, then they look at it and they've got just that black stain all over. And then you get your complaints and you're like, I was just there; I mopped it. I swear. So then there's a little bit of an issue between the cleaners and the management. But what they need to understand is choosing, definitely during our busy season, is to choose a neutral product and make sure you're diluting it properly. I know people like Fabuloso, and believe it or not, that's a neutral product, but they try to use too much of it. And all that fragrance in that product makes the floor sticky. So, you're attracting the dirt and the grease from the kitchen and wherever getting down on that floor, and it's just putting that heavy buildup. So you come in there and mop it with that type of product, think it's clean, but there's a micro layer buildup that we can't see. So using the right product, neutral during the busy season. And even sometimes, I know this is crazy because I'm a chemical guy, but you can come in there with just hot water.

Sean Kemper
I know some people transition to a steam mop sometimes, but there's already so much soap and build up on there that sometimes hot water just helps remove a lot of that.

Heather Bayer
Would you recommend that every so often, just to go in and just do hot water? And now you're talking about tile floors. What about hardwood floors?

Sean Kemper
Hardwood floors are sealed. So they've got a coating on them that's sealed. So all that is just simple surface. There's nothing going into the ground causing those issues. So again, that's where it's key to get that dilution properly, because if you put too much chemical on the floor, then you get a funny little hazing and it doesn't look as right and then it'll obviously collect more dirt and grease.

Heather Bayer
And does that go for the Swiffer products?

Sean Kemper
I have a tough time with those, because I've used them at the house before, but sometimes they have the little bucket that has the little pads in there and there's so much soap in those things, and they've got to soak them. I just don't feel that there's a proper dilution in there. So when you slap that on the Swiffer and start to mop, the first area you do is going to have a ton of chemical and build upon it, then as you go down the floor and work your way around, you get less and less chemicals. So I'm just not a fan of that cleaning method.

Heather Bayer
So what's the simplest thing for a floor?

Mike Bayer
I mean, I still love the microfiber pads because they absorb a lot. And if you're armed with two or three, I train people to have a little charging bucket. So you could put a light solution, or a diluted solution, and then just have, I don't know, have 10 or 12 of these microfiber pads on there. So as you're cleaning properties, you can swap them out a little bit and you'll have a fresh pad every time. We've actually designed a new mopping program, which I'm glad to introduce. It's called the Drop-n-Go Mopping System. So with my Drop-n-Go cartridges, it's a perfect accurate dilution every single time. This is a sturdy aluminum-built frame with the microfiber pads. And so it can just put out the perfect amount of chemical diluted right, and it takes all that guessing out of it, and it really gets the job done quick.

Heather Bayer
Tell me about... I've got a Robot vacuum cleaner, because I've got a dog and it's made by Shark. It's called Bruce, of course. Bruce runs around and picks up all the dog hair. It doesn't take the place of a darn good vacuum, but at least I'm not seeing it all the time. But I've seen some of these Robo things that are... You put water in them and they do the mopping. What can you say about those?

Sean Kemper
Those are good, but it's tricky in the vacation rental/short-term rental space because you got so much more foot traffic. And I haven't personally seen one of those works, so I can't say. But I mean, it's a good concept if it's something there to help. But I don't know how that would....

Heather Bayer
Right. Yeah, that was really for my benefit....

Sean Kemper
...I mean, it probably does good. You and your husband and a couple of dogs maybe, it could do good. At least it's helping a little bit.

Heather Bayer
Well, absolutely. Let's go a little bit more specific. You've talked about neutral products. You've talked about acid-based products, and I'm still a little bit unsure about how I go about finding these products if I'm not buying them directly from you. Let's talk about the specific products that you perhaps use in different parts of the home, maybe in the kitchen or the bathroom, exteriors, on the appliances. Are you going to have this huge product line that you're carrying around, different things for different places?

Sean Kemper
Right. When I'm educating and training, one of my jobs is to help lighten the load. And I want to eliminate some of these products. I just got a list from a company a couple of weeks ago, and they were asking me to help look at the list of cleaning products. Why are we using these? What's going on? I love this, because these owners need to know this and they're taking some great initiative. But they had a list of almost 20 products. And I'm sitting there going down the list. I'm like, Wow, that does the same thing. This is all-purpose, this product, this product. And so there was five products that I could eliminate there with just one of our Drop-n-Go's or just one of a product that they like using. They were all basically all-purpose products. A couple of them smell different. But that's where you've got to take control as the property management team is like, Hey, we don't need if you have your in-house cleaning because you really can't tell the contractors typically what to use, you could prefer and recommend. But eliminate some of those products, so you save money, so you make training easier.

Sean Kemper
I mean, you've just really got to dumb down the system sometimes, because there's just too many products and everybody's going to complain about something, but you just got to be stern and say, Hey, this is what we're going to use. We know it works. It eliminates four other products and a lot of money.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, because you go once again, into the supermarket, on the supermarket shelves, you've got something for the kitchen and then you've got something else for the bathroom.

Sean Kemper
And that makes sense, because obviously in our kitchen, if you think of our soil loads, they're greasy. You're cooking, you've got raw chicken or something like that on there. So we've got to see the bacteria and things that we can't see. So we've got to know that we have a disinfectant or a sanitizer is fine. But you got to clean those greasy soils typically first and then come back with your sanitizer. Obviously, in our bathrooms, we've got mineral buildup and calcium lime and rust with our water. So you can typically use an acid based product or something a little bit lower on the pH scale. So we just need to understand our areas, which was a good point to make. And the floors are different, the countertops are different and the bathrooms will be different. So we just need to make sure we have those right products.

Heather Bayer
Okay, I want to touch on a topic, 'cos I'm sure people are thinking this, those who love natural products and they're thinking chemicals, I will never use chemicals in my home. Everything's got to be natural. Can you talk about the... is it myth of natural cleaner that it doesn't have any chemicals in it?

Sean Kemper
I mean, you've got to have something in there, even with your natural products, your essential oils and things like that. I mean, there's a chemical makeup in there of how those oils are extracted and everything else in the natural. We use tea tree in one of our products, and we love it. It's a mold and mildew product. And if you do some research on it, it's got to be Australian tea tree. It can't be Chinese or different or something about the certain areas where this is grown that it makes it a better antimicrobial-based product. But the tea tree oil will actually remove every single strand of mold and mildew out there. And we did this years and years ago, because I'm down on the Coast of Alabama, so we have hurricanes. And when hurricanes come in, you've got mold, mildew, all kinds of toxic and foul stuff coming into the house. So we developed Spor-Go, did a lot of study and tests, and this product is actually neutral, but it removes all the mold and mildew, and it has a pleasant fragrance. And it's safe for us, which is tremendous.

Sean Kemper
And even our Drop-n-Go products, those have the Safer Choice label on it, which means they're less toxic, they're better for us, they're better for the environment, and then we're also leaving a lesser carbon footprint because of the packaging that we designed for that program.

Sean Kemper
So sometimes people might just go to the health store and buy an essential oil. But you've got to understand how to dilute it properly, because if you use too much of those essential oils, they have VOCs in them, which is volatile organic compounds, which could be not good for us breathing it, especially if you're cleaning multiple houses for eight hours a day. That's something you don't want to breathe in every day. So we've got to be careful with the natural products too.

Heather Bayer
That's a really interesting point.

Heather Bayer
I want to delve a little bit deeper into the whole issue of mildew, because up here in Ontario, everybody thinks we live in the snow. But in fact, in the summer it's incredibly humid.

Sean Kemper
Really?

Heather Bayer
Yes. And a lot of wood houses. So mildew is a big issue. They sit empty all winter, often because they're inaccessible during the winter. So it just seems that when I was going out to look at properties, that mildew was probably one of the biggest problems that they faced. So give me the story of mildew, because I know you've talked about flowers and roots and things. So explain that a bit more.

Sean Kemper
Just understanding there's so many different types of mold and mildews out there. I mean, there's probably about a thousand. But just to go in our showers and tubs, and you start to see that little bit of a pink buildup, that typically isn't a mold or mildew. It's actually a bacteria caused by soap scum. But by utilizing your disinfectants, or your Spor-Go type products, these will help remove and eradicate the mold. But again, when you think of mold, it's a flower. So my hands [on video] are the flower, and then you've got the stem, and you've got the roots. Those are all growing into the tile and grout. So when you use your bleach, it does what it's supposed to do. It bleaches out. So it disappears that color, which is fine. It's quick, it's easy, everybody likes to use it. But when you disappear that flower, there's still that stem and root in there. So you got to have a product that actually penetrates to eradicate the problem. And there's products out there. Our Spor-Go's one of them, but there's several other products out there. But if you get into that root and totally kill that thing, then it's not going to grow back as quickly.

Sean Kemper
I mean, like you said, you're in a humid climate, so it's going to always be there. But by using something, a better type product than bleach, you're going to get rid of the problem quicker. And also in these places that are closed up for a while, Spor-Go can be sprayed on carpet and it's safe on all your fabrics. So it'll remove a lot of those mold and mildews to help the property stay fresher throughout a tough season like that if nobody's in there.

Heather Bayer
All right, interesting.

Heather Bayer
I'm going to take a short break just now to hear about our sponsor, PriceLabs, directly from one of their clients. We're going to be right back with more from this great interview in just a few moments.

Jon Farber
I got into real estate through a strategy called house-hacking, where I lived in a property and I rented out the other rooms to live for free. That was my first exposure to real estate. So now I have eight short-term rentals, and we also have an in-house property management team. We didn't have any sophistication around changing pricing for weekdays and weekends, and different bundles, and high season, and low season; we were just guessing.

Jon Farber
We're in an area that has a lot of events going on from time-to-time. And we realized quickly that using just Airbnb for pricing or Vrbo for pricing, it wasn't accurate. We were losing money by not being able to have a calendar that would update, without us thinking about it. So we were just looking into different options, different ways that we could have better pricing. And we just did a demo with PriceLabs. And PriceLabs became easy for us. We learned better ways to use it. I think the setup at the beginning is the most probably important part, because once you set it up properly at the beginning, it can really run pretty much without too much manual input.

Jon Farber
And in some areas, if you set it up properly at the beginning, it doesn't require much manual input at all after that. I would say at the beginning, we were doing multiple trainings. I think we even reached out to PriceLabs Support and we were doing demos just to make sure that each property was set up the right way, because, for the most part after it's set up properly, you don't have to tinker with it that much.

Jon Farber
I also felt like we were leaving money on the table. In general, things just became way more organized and I felt like we had a better handle. I also just don't like the feeling of losing money, even if I don't know how much it is. And I felt like that's significantly gone away.

Heather Bayer
Thank you so much for that testimonial. It was great to hear how PriceLabs is working so practically with their clients to help them achieve success.  So let's go on right back now to our interview.

Heather Bayer
There isn't a diploma in cleaning, I bet you wish there was. Maybe you're building a diploma in cleaning. We've covered quite a few of these things, but how do we know that a cleaner or a housekeeper, and you've touched on this, when you've got an outside cleaning company going in, how do you present this to them? Find out what products they're actually using? Also when you're hiring somebody, how do you put it across to them? How do you ask the right questions to figure out what it is that they like to use and whether they're going to be open to using something else?

Sean Kemper
Yeah. And as you and I discussed earlier, it's awesome for these property managers and management team operations to have a strong knowledge too, to ask a couple of key questions, because there's so many independent contractors out there and make sure they are educated. Tell me a little bit about an acid; why would you use that? Just something so simple as that. Or, what do you do with a carpet stain? Or maybe even, how do you treat your floors? Because floors, like we talked about the black-foot syndrome, it's all across the board. I mean, everybody seems to have that issue. So it's just so critical to help with all these educations and understanding. We're looking at doing an education portal where people can get online and look at certain little classrooms or certain techniques to use for the various areas of cleaning.

Heather Bayer
So what about cleaning cloths? I mean, you touched on microfiber. Is there any other specific type of fabric for different cleaning tasks that you recommend?

Sean Kemper
There's different levels of microfiber. They actually have a glass one that is a little bit smoother and it's made for glass, which is neat. A lot of times glass is tricky. You don't necessarily need a lot of glass cleaner. Sometimes you can get away with just a microfiber rag, and you can buff the glass off real quick. But if you are going to use a glass cleaner with a microfiber rag, be very, very, very minimal. You do not need a lot of chemical. I would do one little mist and then just do the whole mirror or whatever you're cleaning. But a lot of people don't like using microfiber. I've got a casino down here in the Mississippi Coast I work with. And if you put a microfiber on her hand, it catches it, drags a little bit from your dry skin maybe, and that just freaks her out. So she won't use it, which is interesting. A lot of people still use paper towels, and that's fine too, but it can be a lot of excess waste and costly. But I mean, I still think the microfiber is one of the better cleaning cloths out there.

Heather Bayer
And are there different grades of microfiber? Because you could go into the Dollar Store and there's a ton of options.

Sean Kemper
Yeah. If you look at the blends, because there are different blends. There's an 80-20, there might be a 70-30. And depending on what materials they're putting in there as basically a filler, it might not be the best absorbent and might cause other issues too. So you do want to get a decent quality.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. I want to turn to fragrance now. I mean, you mentioned tea tree. I mean, I do love the smell of tea tree, but manufacturers make products with these smells that are meant to be attractive. Some are better than others, for sure. I specifically like a neutral, no-smell type of fragrance. Can you just talk to the fragrance that are in these products? Is it necessary? I had an owner once who had a cleaner who would put the blue cleaner in the toilets before leaving and just leave it there because she wanted the guests to come in and smell the disinfectant. They had been cleaned - that's basically the message that she was trying to get across.

Sean Kemper
Definitely.

Heather Bayer
And then wondered why there were complaints from guests who said they walked in and the place smells like a toilet.

Sean Kemper
The smell, yeah, it's bad. I know our grandparents, everybody loved Pine-Sol back in the day, but certain fragrances turn you off. I don't like the pine smell. They do say in our chemical industry that 'smell sells', because our senses, if you smell something that's pleasant and lovely to you, you're going to want to buy it. And if it works, that's even better. But something that smells good to you might not smell good to the next guest. And that's why Fabuloso is so overused and so heavy fragrance, we do want a little bit of a fragrance to freshen up the air. And there's cooking odors and smoke, and there's other things in the air. So, like you're saying, choosing a neutral scent is really nice. Ocean Breeze-type smells. We've actually worked with our fragrance companies, and they really get nerdy into it. They go by demographics, by different nationalities love different types of smells. And it's really tricky. And they'll show us studies of people and have this maybe an apple or a cinnamon or an orange, grapefruit, whatever these scents are, and they evolve and change over time too.

Sean Kemper
So you've got to really make sure you get a decent smell that the guest likes.  You have something clean when you walk in, but you don't want it overpowering with chemicals and everything else.

Heather Bayer
I do a short course actually, called 'The First 10 Minutes', which is about arriving at a property, standing at the front door, opening the door, and then the senses, what happens with the senses when you open the door. That first impression can have such an impact on the rest of the stay. And that's where being very, very careful about the smell... I've talked to people who say, Well, I've got the plug-in air fresheners. And I've said, Take them out.  Take them out.

Sean Kemper
Right. You walk in and your eyes are burning. And again, it smells good to you. You like that fragrance, but maybe somebody else doesn't. And that'll turn somebody off too. What are you covering up?

Heather Bayer
Yes, exactly. What are you covering up? Just on the topic of odors, what do you recommend for hanging around odors? Sort of things that everybody encounters. Guests have had a big fried breakfast half an hour before they left. So there's that smell of bacon. Maybe the smell of… I love the smell of bacon, that can stay around forever. But maybe the smell of really spicy food. And then, of course, if somebody happens to... Then somebody happens to smoke indoors, when of course they shouldn't, but they do. And then pet odors, perhaps. What should they do about neutralizing odors?

Sean Kemper
Yeah, there's a couple of checkpoints and things we can do mechanically. When you go into that property, if the weather is decent, you can always open up the windows and get some fresh air coming in. Leave the front door open if you can, and that will help blow the air throughout the property. Changing out air filters [they] will harbor a lot of the cooking oils and pet danders and things like that. Obviously, you need a couple of products. You need an air attack, which is an odor eliminating for the air that'll lock up odors if there's foul stuff in there. And then also... I love to use bacteria type products for the floors, because they break down greases and other odors. And so that will really freshen up the property.

Heather Bayer
So you just mentioned something called air attack.

Sean Kemper
When I introduce our products, I say there's an air attack and a ground attack. So we have an odor eliminator that I'm calling the air attack. And then the mopping product or the carpet product, that would be your ground attack. So you're attacking odors at all levels.

Heather Bayer
Okay. Is there something that you could just buy off the shelf for odor eliminating?

Sean Kemper
I mean, Febreze has been out there forever, but I've heard people over the years say it doesn't work like it used to. When they first came out with it, it was probably an awesome odor eliminator. But as they started selling to the millions and millions, they've weeded back the chemical and maybe have more fragrance in there. We always just manufacture a simple commercial-grade product that's going to deal with the 10-20 people you have in your property. We've got a product called Odor Sorb that we recommend. And then our Kem-Zyme cleaner, which breaks down stuff on carpet and you get somebody sitting on a sofa, they spill food or they got body oils on there, that Kem-Zyme really breaks down a lot of those odors and oils. So there's good products out there.  Work with your local supply house or whoever you might network with for your chemicals, and they should help you and point you in the right direction. But if you want to reach out to me, I'm always available too.

Heather Bayer
That's excellent. Is there anything we haven't covered here, Sean?

Sean Kemper
Oh, God, sure there is. I mean, there could be outside, there could be grills, there could be balconies, salt air.

Heather Bayer
Grills. Yeah, let's talk grills, because every property in Ontario, where I am, every single property has a grill. You won't get anybody renting a property if it doesn't have one. Then, of course, grill cleaning is a big issue for the cleaners. It used to be one of the complaints that we had when people got to a property and the grill hadn't been cleaned properly.

Sean Kemper
Grills are tough. I mean, my buddy, my safety man, Justin Ford, The Prince of Darkness....

Heather Bayer
I was just going to say, you called him a safety man, you had another word for him.....

Sean Kemper
Right, The Prince of Darkness. I don't know if he likes that or not. He hasn't hit me yet, he's bigger than I am. But there's that grease bin underneath the grill that all the drippings go into. And that is so critical to clean out and empty because it will spark a fire if it gets too close to the flame. That's critical. You've got to use an aggressive alkaline-based product. We talk about alkalines, degreaser-type products to really degrease the inside and get those grill grates cleaned. You need a good wire brush, but you've got to be careful on the wire brush. You need one with short bristles, and you want it to be well-built, because sometimes those little stainless steels can get off on the grill, and then you might have somebody ingest that. So that's a little scary. But cleaning the outside of your grill, a good stainless steel cleaner, polishing it helps protect it, cleaning those grates inside. And again, emptying out that little grease bucket that all those drippings go into is really critical. And don't put it up against the walls or wood, have it out somewhat, a two-foot radius around materials.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, I've got my safety certificate, my Safety Inspector Certificate via Breezeway. So I've done all that stuff.

Sean Kemper
Good for you.

Heather Bayer
Yes, do not put barbecues against railings or against walls.

Sean Kemper
Or vinyl siding.

Heather Bayer
Just go back on the actual grill itself and cleaning that. What do you recommend for that?

Sean Kemper
They've got the grill brushes. I love the grill brushes. It's got the tough green pad on it. And another critical thing is if you turn that grill on a little bit for maybe 2-3 minutes, the heat really helps with your degreaser product to melt those cooked on carbons and fats and things like that. And then when you scrub it, it makes that scrubbing a heck of a lot easier. And we really don't have time to take out the grates and soak them.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. Exactly. Unlikely. But I know my housekeeper or my housekeeper at one of my properties used to do that. That was the first thing she did. She would walk in, she'd turn the grill on and then go in and do a little bit of checking through the house then go out.

Sean Kemper
That's smart.

Heather Bayer
It was easy clean then. But I'm really glad you mentioned the brushes, and I think it was Justin probably who brought up one of those nastier cases where somebody did ingest a bristle from a cheap brush - do not buy those brushes from the dollar store - and he died. That's the ultimate. But you certainly don't want to be the owner or the manager of a property where something similar to that happens.

Sean Kemper
No, we've got to be careful.  We've got to really be diligent and have all those safety things in place and also educate and teaching about that to our cleaners and make sure everybody's aware of it. Communication is huge.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, exactly. Okay, so I hope that we've excited everybody now about cleaning and getting the right cleaning products. I'm thinking even for my home, when I come down to Gulf Shores, we shall meet up and....

Sean Kemper
Yeah, we'll have lunch. I'll take you there....

Heather Bayer
...and I will get some cleaning products from you to bring home.

Sean Kemper
I would love to. I'd love to give you a couple of samples of the mold and mildew.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, that sounds very good. I'd like to come up and try them out in some of the properties up here. You could get a whole new market up here. So how do people get in touch with you, Sean, and find out more about your education and about the products that you offer, the Drop-n-Go products particularly?

Sean Kemper
Yeah. The email address is easy, sean@etisolutions.co.  You've got to remember that - '.co', not '.com'. So sean@etisolutions.co. And we've got a great designed website for the Drop-n-Go cleaning products. And it's basically the word drop and then just do the 'n' instead of 'and', dropngocleaningproducts.com. You'll see a lot of our tools and equipment and things that we also offer. But I've got blogs on there. I've got some podcasts like you and I are doing that are on there too, that can help educate and then learn from some of our sessions that we've done. I'll be at VRMA this year doing two panels. One will be Wednesday at, I think, 10:45, which is going to be one of the last ones, so hopefully everybody's not dead-tired and ready to continue learning. But I'm doing that one and then Durk Johnson and I also will have one, I believe, on Tuesday. I'll be down there, ask me questions, pull me aside. I'm here to help.

Heather Bayer
Well, I will be there and I will probably come and ask you some more questions. So we will meet up then. I'll make sure that all the information on Drop-n-Go is on the Show Notes, so that if you're interested in finding out more, you can go take a look at the Show Notes and check that out. Anything else you want to add, Sean, before we depart here?

Sean Kemper
No, I think we're good. I appreciate your time and allowing me to help educate and talk about this process, because it is critical.

Heather Bayer
Well, you've inspired me and hopefully you've inspired everybody else that's listening as well to at least take a look at what they are using and the products that they have. Hopefully not under the sink.

Sean Kemper
Yeah, exactly. Don't leave them out there.

Heather Bayer
Yes. But yes, that's inspired me. So I hope it has inspired everybody else. Thank you so much for joining me. It's been way, way more interesting than I expected.

Sean Kemper
It can be fun. Thank you, Heather.

Heather Bayer
Well, I never thought that the topic of cleaning would actually excite me, but I'm looking forward to trying out some of these products that Sean has been offering.

Heather Bayer
Over the years, I used to live in base housing when my husband was in the Royal Air Force in England, and we moved countless times. For anybody who's ever lived in military housing, I'm sure it's the same everywhere, you have to really leave those places so spotless. I know it's different now and now you can actually get cleaning teams in. But then you were not allowed to do that. You had to do it yourself. I remember trying absolutely every type of cleaning product to get those places clean. Over the years, I think I've used everything there is. I'm quite interested in trying out some of these Drop-n-Go products. If you're interested, Sean was going to mention it and we didn't get around to it, but if you're interested in the products and you go to dropngocleaningproducts.com, using the discount code, VRF23. That's VRF23. It will give you a discount. So go over to dropngocleaningproducts.com and take a look and see what is available there.

Heather Bayer
And for sure, get in touch with Sean if you've got any questions at all. He's inspired me, as I said, and I'm sure he'll inspire you to get that much more knowledge about cleaning methods and cleaning products.

Heather Bayer
Okay, that's it. I think I'm done with cleaning. I feel the urge to go and clean a window or two now. Since as I'm recording this, we are experiencing just record breaking temperatures. It's in the high 80s outside, and I'm recording this in the early part of October, which is crazy. I'm sure it'll be snowing next week, but the reason I mentioned that is that it's nice to go outside and clean my outside windows and frames, and I quite feel the motivation to go and do that now.

Heather Bayer
I hope you enjoyed this. I hope you got a lot out of it. I certainly did, and that you'll get in touch with Sean if you've got questions, and if you're going to VRMA, to the conference in Orlando at the end of October, then you'll have the chance to go see Sean on those panels.

Heather Bayer
Don't forget our Tipping Point episode that now goes out every Monday.  These are proving really, really popular and they're just seven to ten minutes on a single topic and it's more of an education piece than an interview. Although we are bringing in some experts to actually give their insights. So if you haven't yet checked out The Tipping Point, try going to our YouTube channel. I'll put the information on that on the Show Notes as well, because all these Tipping Point episodes, they have slides and graphics, so it's a little bit like a presentation as well. So if you like that visual side of it as well as the audio side of it, then that might be your way of consuming that information. Go check out The Tipping Point on YouTube or on your preferred audio platform, it will come out every Monday morning.

Heather Bayer
I think that's it for me today. I'm off to clean.  I hope you're going to have a great rest of your day and I'll see you again next week.

Mike Bayer
We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast. Don't forget to check out our sponsor, PriceLabs, and their dynamic pricing and revenue management tools. Click the link in the description of this episode for more information.

Heather Bayer
It's been a pleasure as ever being with you. If there's anything you'd like to comment on, then join the conversation on the Show Notes for the episode at vacationrentalformula.com. We'd love to hear from you and I look forward to being with you again next week.

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