5 Cleaning Tips to Steal from These Airbnb Hosts with Homes at the Beach

I once went on a staycation with some friends at an Airbnb on the beach in Malibu. The house was beautiful and the view was ridiculous. We had amazing time, but we did have one gripe: the sand! It would ultimately end up everywhere — on the floor, on the couch, and even in our beds. It wasn’t our host’s fault, of course. The house was perfectly clean to start! How’d it get that way?

Still curious a few years later, I did some reporting. I figured that people who owned houses in beach towns must have some special cleaning tips. I asked a handful of beach-loving homeowners for their best tips and tricks. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that their advice was mostly about sand. Let’s take a look!

Every homeowner I spoke with agreed that the first rule is to clean the floors last. Zach Blenkinsopp, owner of Digital Roofing Innovations, has a beach home in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and says that it’s important to always work from the top to the bottom. Because there is no sense in cleaning the floors twice! If you clean the floors and then wipe down your counters, you’re just going to end up with stuff on your floors again!  

I also heard a lot of praise for steam mops. “A steam mop with an environmentally friendly and hypoallergenic cleaner will take care of scuffs and sand,” says Shawn Richards, expedition coordinator at Ultimate Kilimanjaro and owner of a beach home in Naples, Florida.

Sand, dirt, and debris are bound to end up in hard-to-clean nooks and crevices (like deep in your rug and between couch cushions). To properly clean these areas, Richards and Mario Cacciottolo who is the PR and Branding Manager of SBO and an owner of a beach home in Islamorada, FL, recommends investing in a strong vacuum. The editors at Apartment Therapy have done extensive vacuum testing and you can’t go wrong with any of these winners.

Towels and linens are notorious for hanging on to sand, which is why Blenkinsopp recommends good detergent like All. Before washing anything, however, he says it’s important to shake items off outside to reduce the amount of sand that ends up in your washing machine and dryer.

Doormats not only look nice — they’re also functional. “These are great for trapping sand as you walk into the home before it gets everywhere,” says Andrea Woroch, a money-saving expert who owns a beach home in Panama City Beach, FL. You can easily shake yours off each morning (maybe when you’re on your way out to the beach?) and it’ll be ready for when you get home.

Do you have any tips to add? Leave them in the comments below!