Property cleaning and maintenance on the Costa del Sol
Two different jobs sit behind one word. The cleaning we do ourselves, with our own employed cleaners, our own machines and hotel supplies, whether the property is rent out or simply waiting for you. The maintenance we coordinate: the plumber, the electrician, the air conditioning engineer and the pool contractor are specialists we work with rather than people we employ, and what you are paying us for is that somebody calls them, opens the door, stays while they work and goes back to check it afterwards. It is a paid service and you can order as little of it as you want.
Three different cleans, and which one you actually need
A clean between two guests, a clean before the owner flies in, and the clean a property needs after a season of sun, sand and closed shutters are not the same job. They take different amounts of time, they use different equipment and they cost different money, so the first useful thing this page can do is separate them.All three are done by our own cleaners. That is not a slogan about quality, it is about who answers the phone: we run the cleaning operation ourselves rather than passing it to an agency, so when a flight lands early or a guest leaves at eleven instead of ten, we are rearranging our own people rather than waiting for somebody else to call us back.
| The clean | When you would book it | What is actually in it |
|---|---|---|
| Between stays | Every guest changeover, if the property is rented | The full turnaround: bathrooms and kitchen, floors, all the beds stripped and made with fresh linen, towels changed, consumables restocked, everything reset to the state the next arrival sees in the photographs. This is the clean our own rental operation runs several times a week. |
| Before you arrive | A few days before you or your family fly in | The same work on a property that has been shut rather than lived in: the dust that settles on everything in an empty flat, the drain traps run through, the terrace washed down, beds made and towels out, the fridge on and cold. You walk in and the place is ready instead of spending your first afternoon on it. |
| Deep clean, seasonal | End of the renting season, after works, or once a year | The one that needs machines. We own a furniture cleaning machine and a pressure washer, so sofas, mattresses, dining chairs, terrace tiles, railings and shutters get done properly rather than wiped. Ovens, extractors, the inside of the fridge, limescale, window frames and the tracks the sand collects in. |
| Linen and towels | With any of the three | Handled as a laundry operation, not as a washing machine running in your kitchen. Bed linen and towels go out and come back pressed, which is the difference between a property that looks let and a property that looks looked after. |
Can you clean after building work or a renovation?Yes, and it is a deep clean rather than an ordinary one. Construction dust gets into every track, every hinge and every soft surface in the property, and it keeps reappearing for weeks if the first clean is done with a cloth and a vacuum. That is what the machines are for. Book it after the trades have finished rather than between them.
How long does a clean take?A turnaround on a two bedroom apartment is a few hours with two people, and a deep clean with the machines is most of a day. That matters mainly for scheduling: a same-day changeover between a ten o’clock checkout and a four o’clock arrival is normal for us and is planned around, but a deep clean on the morning you land is not something we would agree to.
Where the free contact ends and the paid job starts
Our homepage says the ordinary help and the contacts stay free, and that management, cleaning and short-term rental are the paid service you can order or not. On this page that line runs right through the middle of the word "maintenance", so it is worth drawing exactly.The free half is knowing who to call. We have spent years finding tradesmen who turn up, quote properly and do not disappear halfway through, and you get those numbers because you are our client, not because you bought a service. The paid half is time and presence: somebody has to agree a slot, be at the property with a key, stay while the work happens, and come back later to check that what was described is what was done.
Free, and it stays freeThe paid service
- You get the number of a plumber we use and trust, and you call him yourself
- We call him, agree a time that suits the property rather than his van, let him in, stay while he works, and check the repair again afterwards.
- You send us a photo of something that looks wrong and we tell you what it probably is
- Somebody stands in the room, photographs it properly and gets a written quote, so you are deciding on evidence rather than on a picture taken at an angle.
- We tell you the community already pays for the pool, the gardens and the common areas
- We deal with the contractor who works inside your own four walls, and we are the ones who say it is not right and have him come back.
- We tell you a defect on a new build is probably still under warranty and who to write to
- We meet the developer’s technician at the property, photograph what he does, and confirm the fix in writing rather than over the phone.
- You ask us which cleaning products are safe on that stone floor
- Our cleaners come with the products, the machines and the linen, and the property is ready when you open the door.
One thing does not change either way: saying no to the paid half does not make the free half worse. The contacts stay yours, and if you would rather ring the plumber yourself and meet him at the property on your own trip, that is a perfectly sensible decision and we will say so.
Can I just get the phone numbers and organise it myself?Yes. That has always been free and it stays free, whether you ever pay us for anything or not. It works well when you are on the coast anyway, when the job is small, and when you are comfortable agreeing the work in Spanish. It works badly when you are two thousand kilometres away and somebody has to be at the property on a Tuesday morning.
The tradesmen, and what we actually do with them
None of these people work for us. They are specialists we use ourselves, on our own managed properties, week after week, which is a different thing from a list of numbers collected off the internet. What we bring is the relationship: they answer us, they come sooner than they would for a stranger, and they know that if the work is poor they will hear about it from somebody who will still be here next month.The homepage puts it plainly enough that it is worth repeating: you do not have to start every problem by looking for somebody unknown online.
| Trade | What owners here call them for | How it runs |
|---|---|---|
| Plumber | Leaks under sinks, dripping tanks, blocked drains, water heaters, the pressure dropping. | The most common call by a distance, and the one where a week matters. He is booked, let in and the work is checked on a later visit. |
| Electrician | Trip switches, sockets, lighting, the board after a storm, anything the previous owner improvised. | Same route. On a new build we check the warranty position first, because an electrical fault inside three years is usually the developer’s problem, not yours. |
| Air conditioning | Servicing before summer, gas, drainage into the terrace, units that blow warm in July. | Worth booking in spring rather than in the first week of August, when every engineer on the coast is three weeks out. We do the booking. Treat it as an annual job in the calendar rather than a reaction: an engineer checks the gas, the drainage and the internal condition once a year, which is a different thing from the filters our cleaners clean on every visit. Units here run hard for four months and then sit for eight, and that is exactly the pattern that kills them early. |
| Pool | Your own private pool: water, chemicals, the pump, the filter, cleaning. | Referred, and not ours. A communal pool is already paid for through the community fee, which is worth checking before you pay anyone. |
| Garden | Irrigation, pruning, the garden going brown while nobody is there. | Referred, and not ours. We hold the relationship, let them through the gate and tell them when it is not right. |
| Locksmith | Changing the locks on a resale property, a lost key, a seized cylinder, a safe. | The first job on almost every second-hand property, because nobody can tell you how many copies of the old key exist. |
| Painter and larger alterations | Repainting, a new kitchen or bathroom, taking a wall out, a full renovation. | A different scale of job with quotes, drawings and permissions, and often an architect. We introduce and we keep an eye on it; a full renovation is project management and we say so before it starts. |
Does maintenance include the pool and the garden?Not from us. Both are contractors we bring in, and we say that plainly rather than renting the word "maintenance" imply we do everything. What we do is hold the relationship, let them in, look at the result on our own visits and deal with them when it is wrong. If your pool and gardens are communal, they are already covered by the community fee and nobody should be charging you again for them.
When something breaks and you are in Czechia
This is the part that owners underestimate before they own something here, and the part they call about most in the first two years. The repair itself is rarely the problem. Getting a person with the right trade to the right door at a time when somebody can open it, agreeing a price you understand before the work starts, and knowing afterwards that it was actually done: that is the work.
- You tell us, or we find itA message with a photo is enough. If we already clean the property or check it on a schedule, it is often us telling you: a damp patch at the back of a cupboard, a shutter that has stopped, a tap that has started dripping since the last visit.
- Somebody looks at it properlyBefore anyone is called out, we want to know whether this is a five minute job or a trade. Half of what gets reported is a filter, a valve, a tripped switch or a blocked drain, and calling a plumber for it costs you a call-out fee for nothing.
- We check who should be payingOn a new build the warranty may cover it. On any property, the community may be responsible for it. Sometimes it is your insurer. We would rather spend twenty minutes on that question than send you an invoice for something somebody else owed you. It has its own section further down this page.
- A price, in writing, before anything happensThe tradesman quotes, we pass it to you with what it means, and nothing starts until you say yes. The single exception is water that is actively causing damage: we stop it first and call you second, because a stopcock does not wait for a reply.
- Somebody is there while he worksThis is the part you are paying for. We let him in, stay while the work happens, and lock up afterwards. Nobody is left alone in your property, and no key is handed to a stranger.
- It gets checked again afterwardsA repair signed off on the day it is done is a repair nobody has tested. We go back, look at it again on a later visit, and photograph it. A ceiling that was wet needs to be dry a week later, not five minutes after the pipe was tightened.
- You get the photographs and his invoiceBefore, after, what he did, and what he charged. His invoice comes to you at his price with nothing added by us, and our time is a separate line you can see. Over a few years that pile of records becomes the maintenance history of the property, which is worth having on the day you sell.
How do I approve a repair from a thousand kilometres away?By message. You get the photographs, the quote and a plain explanation of what would happen if it waited, and you reply yes or no. We do not start work on the assumption that you would have agreed. The only thing that happens without your answer is stopping active water damage.
Who pays the tradesman?You do, on his invoice, at his price. We do not mark his work up and we do not take anything from him for the introduction. Handling it for you carries no hourly fee from us; when a job needs someone of ours at the property, we agree that with you in advance.
Before you pay anybody: whose job is it?
A surprising share of what owners here pay tradesmen for was already covered by somebody else. On a new build the developer is on the hook for years after handover. In an apartment block the community fee is already paying for the pool, the gardens, the lift and the common areas. Occasionally it is an insurance claim rather than a repair at all.We check this first, every time, and we would rather tell you a job is not ours to invoice than take the work. It is also the single most useful thing on this page for somebody who never hires us.
- The developer, on a new buildA new property carries ten years on the structure, three years on the installations and one year on the finish. A cracked tile, a failing air conditioning unit or damp coming through a wall inside those windows is a warranty claim with a paper trail, not a job for a man with a van. Getting it dealt with means writing to the developer properly and documenting the defect, which is worth doing before the window closes.
- The community of ownersThe community fee, somewhere between 900 and 6.000 € a year depending on the complex, already pays for the communal pool, the gardens, the lift, security and the maintenance of the common areas. If the leak is coming from the roof or the corridor, it is a community matter. Paying twice for the same thing is quietly common and nobody is going to point it out for you.
- Your insurerWater damage, storm damage and a broken pane are usually a claim, not a repair, and a claim needs photographs from the day it happened rather than a memory of it. Bear in mind that many policies restrict cover once a home has stood empty for 30 to 60 days, which is a conversation to have with your insurer before something breaks rather than after.
- You, and that is the restWear, age, anything you or a guest broke, and everything on a second-hand property with no warranty behind it. On a resale property the seller is only liable for hidden defects he knew about and concealed, which is a much narrower thing than most buyers assume. This is the part where a tradesman is genuinely the answer, and it is the part we handle.
How do I know whether a defect is still under warranty?By the date of handover and by what has failed. Ten years covers the structure, three years covers the installations, including electrics, plumbing and anything affecting how habitable the property is, and one year covers the finish. Send us the handover date and photographs and we will tell you which of the three you are in, and that costs you nothing.
What it costs
Cleaning is priced per job, not per month, because that is how it is actually used: a changeover, a clean before an arrival, a deep clean at the end of the season. The number depends on the size of the property, on how much outdoor space there is to do, and on whether linen is part of it.If we run the short-term rental on your property, the ordinary changeover clean is charged to the guest as the cleaning fee, in the way every holiday rental on the coast does it. You are not invoiced per clean on top of that.
| What | Indicative | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Turnover or arrival clean, one or two bedroom apartment | 55 to 85 € | The usual job. Linen and towels on top, at cost. How much terrace there is makes more difference than the number of bedrooms. |
| Three bedrooms, or a townhouse over two floors | 85 to 130 € | More bathrooms and more beds, which is where the time actually goes, plus stairs. |
| Villa with terraces, a pool area and a garden | from 120 € | Quoted after we have seen it. Outdoor space, glass and the number of bathrooms move this far more than the floor area does. |
| Deep clean with the machines | 190 to 350 € | Sofas, mattresses, chairs, ovens, extractors and limescale. Most of a day, two people, our own furniture cleaning machine. |
| Terrace and exterior pressure wash | 90 to 160 € | Tiles, railings and shutters after a season of sand and salt. Usually booked with a deep clean rather than on its own. |
| Linen and towels | around 12 to 15 € a person, at cost | Firm, and it is what the laundry charges us for a set of towels and bed linen. We pass it through rather than making a margin on it. |
| Handling a tradesman for you | No hourly fee from us | His invoice at his price, nothing added by us. When a job needs someone of ours at the property, that is agreed with you in advance. |
| Inside a rental mandate | The guest pays the clean | Firm. The changeover is charged to the guest as the cleaning fee, so there is no separate per-clean invoice to you. |
Do I have to commit to a regular schedule?No. There is no subscription and no minimum, and plenty of the cleaning we do for owners is three or four jobs a year booked when they are needed. A written rhythm is worth having if the property is rented or if you want the same weeks every year, and even then it is not a lock-in.
Cleaning a property you never rent out
An empty apartment does not stay clean, it just stops being used. Dust settles on everything within weeks, the drain traps dry out and the flat greets you with a smell of drains in July, salt and sand from the levante grind into the terrace tiles, and anything soft holds the damp of a coastal winter. None of it is dramatic and all of it is waiting for you on the afternoon you arrive tired with your family and your luggage.So the common pattern is not a cleaner every week. It is a clean a few days before you fly in, so the beds are made and the fridge is cold when you open the door, and a deep clean once a year to undo what the season did. Some owners add a mid-winter visit for a property standing empty through the wet months. That is the whole of it, and it does not require you to buy anything else from us.
It also works the other way round, and this is worth saying because it is the honest version. If you are here often, or your property is small and lived-in, you may need us twice a year rather than monthly. We would rather tell you that and clean twice than sell you a rhythm you do not need.
How much notice do you need?In July and August, a week or two, because our own changeovers fill the calendar and a clean the day before a family arrives is not something to improvise. Out of season it is usually a few days. We would rather tell you a date we can hold than take the booking and move it, so if we cannot do the day you want, you will hear that rather than a maybe.
What is actually in a clean
Every cleaning company on this coast says "professional cleaning" and none of them publishes what that means, which leaves an owner comparing prices with no idea what they are comparing. So here is the list we work to. On a turnaround between guests it runs end to end; on a clean before you arrive the guest-facing parts drop out; on a deep clean the machines come out and the whole thing takes most of a day.| What we do | Why it matters on this coast | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen | ||
| Kitchen surfaces, hob, sink and the tap | Hard water here leaves limescale on everything within days, and it is the first thing an arriving guest or owner runs a hand over. | Descaled rather than wiped, with hotel-grade products rather than whatever is under the sink. |
| Inside the fridge, the oven and the extractor | A fridge left on and full is the classic thing forgotten on the way to the airport, and an extractor filter in a holiday kitchen collects a season of oil. | Fridge emptied and cleaned on a changeover, oven and extractor on a deep clean or on request. |
| Dishwasher, kettle, coffee machine, the cupboards | Appliances left with water in them in a closed flat is how a kitchen starts to smell, and the machines fail early because of the limescale. | Run empty, descaled, and left dry and open where they should be. |
| Bathrooms | ||
| Bathrooms, top to bottom, including the screen and the grout | This is the single most common complaint in a holiday rental and the fastest thing to look neglected in an empty property in a humid climate. | Descaled glass, disinfected surfaces, and the grout and silicone actually looked at rather than sprayed past. |
| The traps and the drains run through | Dry traps are exactly why an unoccupied apartment smells of drains when you open the door in summer. It is a two minute job that nobody is there to do. | Every tap run and every toilet flushed, on every visit, whatever kind of clean it is. |
| Living space and bedrooms | ||
| Beds stripped, linen changed, beds made properly | On a changeover it is the whole product. In an empty home it is the difference between arriving and settling in and arriving and starting work. | Fresh linen from the laundry, made up, with the spares left where you can find them. |
| Floors, vacuumed and washed | Sand travels a long way here and it is abrasive: on stone and on wood it does slow damage rather than just looking untidy. | Every room, under and behind what can be moved, not only the visible middle of the floor. |
| Dust on the high and the hidden surfaces | Wardrobe tops, skirting, light fittings, air conditioning grilles and the backs of shelves are where the dust in a closed flat actually accumulates. | On the list rather than on the deep clean only, which is the usual place these quietly move to. |
| Outside, glass and the things that only happen here | ||
| Terrace, furniture and the railings | A terrace is the room people actually use here, and it takes the salt, the sand and the dust the levante brings. It also greys off faster than anything indoors. | Washed down as standard, pressure washed on a deep clean with our own machine. |
| Glass, frames and the shutter tracks | Sea air marks glass quickly and the tracks fill with sand, which is what stops a shutter or a sliding door running and eventually breaks the mechanism. | Cleaned and cleared, inside and out where they can be reached safely. |
| Air conditioning filters, and the smell | A unit that has been shut for months smells the moment it is switched on, and a blocked filter costs efficiency and eventually the unit. | Filters cleaned, and a note to you when a unit needs an engineer rather than a cloth. |
| A look at anything damp | Coastal humidity works on wardrobes, mattresses, cupboard backs and shared walls before it appears anywhere you would see it, and found early it is a cloth rather than a builder. | Checked while cleaning and photographed if there is anything, with the date on it. |
| The rubbish out, and into the right container | A bin left behind in a closed flat in August is a smell that stays in the kitchen units. The street containers here are separated and are not always where a departing guest would think to look, and anything bulky cannot legally go in them at all. | Everything out on every changeover and every owner clean, into the correct containers. Bulky items cannot legally go in the street containers at all, so if something like that is standing in the property we tell you rather than leaving it beside the bins. |
| What comes back to you | ||
| Consumables restocked | Toilet paper, soap, bin bags, dishwasher tablets. Trivial until the first evening of a holiday when the shops are shut. | Restocked on a changeover, and to whatever list you want on an owner clean. |
| The snag note back to you | The cleaner is the person who is physically in your property most often, which makes them the earliest warning you have for anything going wrong. | Anything broken, dripping, cracked, stained or missing is written down and sent to you, with photographs, the same day. |
| Left locked, shuttered and secure | An empty property that looks empty from the street is a different proposition from one that looks used, and the shutters also keep the sun off the furniture. | Windows shut, shutters set the way you want them, alarm on, door locked and confirmed. |
How it starts
The purchase is fifteen steps and it ends with the keys. This is what happens if you want us cleaning or maintaining the property afterwards. If you bought through us, the first two steps have effectively already happened.Step 15 of 15, and then onward
- Tell us what the property is and how you use itOne callWhere it is, how many bedrooms and bathrooms, how much terrace, whether there is a pool or a garden, and whether it is rent out, used by the family, or standing empty. That is enough for us to say what a sensible rhythm would be and roughly what it would cost.
- Somebody sees itBefore making an offerWe do not price a clean on a property nobody has stood in. The visit is where the real scope appears: the state of the grout, how much glass there is, whether the terrace has been washed in three years, and whether anything needs a tradesman before a cleaner is any use at all.
- The scope and the price, in writingBefore anything startsWhat is in a clean on your property, what the linen costs, what a deep clean would include, and what we charge when we handle a tradesman for you. No subscription and no minimum. If the honest answer is that you need us twice a year, that is what the paper says.
- Keys, access and the first cleanDay oneWe need a way in that does not depend on you being in the country, and the property photographed as it is before we start, so that everything afterwards is measured against something. The first clean is usually the longest one, and on a property that has been shut for a while it is closer to a deep clean than to a changeover.New buildThe first clean on a new build is a builders’ clean: cement dust in every track and on every surface, protective film, stickers on the glass and grout haze on the tiles. Do it before the furniture arrives if you can. It is also the moment to write down every defect you find, because the warranty clocks started at handover and a photographed defect with a date on it is worth more later than a memory of one.ResaleChange the locks first, then clean. On a second-hand property the first clean is where you find out what the previous owner was living with: the state of the oven and the extractor, limescale that has been there for years, and the silicone in the bathrooms. It is worth doing properly once, so that everything after it is maintenance rather than catching up.
- It runs, and you hear from us when there is something to hearFrom that point onwardCleans happen when they are booked, the photographs and the snag note come afterwards, and you hear from us in between only when something needs a decision. Most of the time there is nothing, which is what you are paying for.
Organising it yourself, or not
The same property, the same year, two ways of keeping it in a state you would want to walk into.| Yourself | With Arevont | |
|---|---|---|
| Who cleans it | An agency you found online and have never met, a cleaner recommended by a neighbour, or nobody until the day you arrive. | Our own employed cleaners, the same people each time, with our own machines and hotel supplies. |
| What "clean" means | Whatever the person decided it means. There is nothing written down to compare a price against. | The list published on this page, agreed for your property before anybody starts. |
| How you know it happened | You do not, until you open the door. | Photographs after every clean, plus a note of anything broken, dripping or stained. |
| Finding a tradesman | Searching for somebody unknown online, in Spanish, and hoping the reviews are real. | People we use on our own properties every week, who answer us because we will still be here next month. |
| Renting him in | You fly out, or you give a key to a neighbour and hope they are at home on the Tuesday. | We do, and we stay while he works, with no hourly fee for the handling. Anything that needs a special trip is agreed with you in advance. |
| Knowing the repair was actually done | Nobody checks. The invoice arrives and you assume. | We look at it again on a later visit and photograph it. A ceiling that was wet has to be dry a week later. |
| Knowing who should pay | You pay, because nobody tells you the developer’s warranty or the community fee already covers it. | We check the warranty and the community first, and tell you when a job is not ours to invoice. |
| The language it happens in | Spanish, with the cleaner, the plumber and the community administrator. | Czech with us, Spanish by us with everybody else. |
A year on an apartment the family uses twice
This is not a client story and we are not presenting it as one. It is a model year on an ordinary two bedroom apartment that is used at Easter and in August and stands empty the rest of the time, put together from the things that actually happen to properties here, so that "cleaning and maintenance" turns into something you can picture. The only price in it is the one that is firm.- March, four days before the family flies inThe clean before arrival. Four months of dust off everything, traps run through so the flat does not smell, terrace washed down, beds made, towels out, fridge on and cold. The snag note afterwards mentions that the second bathroom tap is dripping, which nobody would have noticed from Prague.
- March, the dripping tapThe plumber gets it before the family lands: a quote by message, a yes from home, and somebody of ours at the property to let him in and stay while he works. His invoice at his price, our handling of it free, and nothing added by us on top of his bill.
- July, before the second visitThe same clean again, plus the air conditioning filters, because a unit that has been shut since April smells for the first hour. The note back says the terrace furniture is going grey and that the shutter on the bedroom is stiff, both of which are cheaper to deal with now than in November.
- September, the deep cleanThe end of the season, with the machines. Sofa and mattresses done with the furniture cleaning machine, the terrace and the railings pressure washed, oven and extractor, limescale off the shower screens, shutter tracks cleared of sand. It takes most of a day and it is the reason the apartment does not slowly get worse each year.
- December, the damp patchThe photographs from the last visit show a mark at the back of a wardrobe on the shared wall. The property is four years old, which puts it inside the three year installation cover if it turns out to be a pipe and outside it if it is condensation. We photograph it with a date, and that photograph is worth more than the conversation about it.
In three years, you will not need to look for someone to call.
How it is paid for
- YouOne invoice for the cleaning that was done, with the laundry passed through at cost and any time we spent handling a tradesman as its own line. Nothing to pay to start, no subscription, no minimum.
- TradespersonInvoices you directly, at his price, itemised. We add nothing to his work and we take nothing from him for the introduction, which is the same position we take on the law firm we recommend.
- ArevontThe price of the clean, and any attendance we agree with you in advance when somebody of ours has to be at the property for a job. That is the whole of it. Nothing arrives from anywhere else.
If we also run the short-term rental on the property, the changeover clean is charged to the guest as the cleaning fee in the ordinary way, so it does not appear as a separate invoice to you. Anything outside a changeover, a deep clean or a repair, still comes to you.There is nothing to cancel. Cleaning is booked job by job, and if you want a regular rhythm it is written down and you can stop it whenever you want.Everything you already have from us stays exactly where it is. The contacts, the answers and the ordinary help after the keys do not have a price and never will, whether you order a clean or not.
You continue to receive ordinary help and contacts from us free of charge.
What we are not, and when not to book us
We are not tradesmen. We do not do plumbing, electrics, air conditioning or building work, and we are not going to pretend that coordinating a trade is the same as practising it. The homepage puts it exactly right: we stay your contact for these things. What we sell is our own time, our own cleaners and the fact that the people we call answer us.We do not do the pool and we do not do the garden. Both are contractors we bring in and check on, and both are marked on our homepage as things we do not do ourselves. If your pool and gardens are communal, they are already paid for out of the community fee and you should not be paying anyone twice for them.We only work from Manilva to Marbella: Manilva, Casares, Estepona, Benahavís and Marbella. Cleaning is the most physically constrained service we sell, because somebody has to be at the door with a key and the machines have to come out of a van. Outside those five towns we say no, and we mean it.A property that is used often, or small, or lived in by somebody most of the year does not need much of this. Two cleans a year and a phone number may be the whole of the correct answer, and we would rather say that and do two cleans than sell you a rhythm you do not need. Owners who let their property out are a different case, because there the clean is the product.We do not advertise a 24 hour emergency line, because we have not built one and promising a response time we cannot hold would be worse than not having a page. We are on this coast rather than in a call centre, which in practice means somebody with a key is twenty minutes away, and that is a different thing from a guarantee.And the awkward one. We were free to you through the whole purchase and here is a page asking you for money. That is exactly why it matters to us that you bought a property that works: a home that is a problem is a home we would be dealing with too. If you read this and decide you do not need it, say so, and nothing else about how we work with you changes.
Frequently asked questions about cleaning and maintenance
- Do you clean if I do not rent the property out?
- Yes, and it is a normal thing to ask for. The usual pattern is a clean a few days before you fly in and a deep clean once a year, sometimes with a mid-winter visit for a property standing empty through the wet months. There is no subscription and no minimum, and you do not have to take property management or anything else to get it.
- Who washes the bed linen and the towels?
- A laundry does, and they come back pressed. It is run as a laundry operation rather than as a washing machine going in your kitchen, which is the only way a changeover between two guests on the same day is possible at all. It is charged at cost, around 12 to 15 € a person for a set of towels and bed linen, and we do not take a margin on it.
- Can you clean the property before we arrive?
- Yes, and it is the single most common thing owners book. Beds made, towels out, terrace washed down, traps run through so the flat does not smell, fridge on and cold. Tell us the arrival date and we will fit it a few days before, not the morning of, because a flight that lands early should not be a problem.
- What does a deep clean include that an ordinary clean does not?
- The machines and the time. We own a furniture cleaning machine and a pressure washer, so sofas, mattresses and dining chairs get cleaned rather than vacuumed, and terrace tiles, railings and shutters get washed rather than swept. Ovens, extractors, limescale, window frames and the shutter tracks come with it. It takes most of a day with two people and it is usually a once a year job at the end of the season.
- Do you use your own products and equipment?
- Yes. Supplies come from Diversey, which is a hotel cleaning brand, and are kept in our own storage rather than bought at the supermarket on the way over. The furniture cleaning machine and the pressure washer are ours. That is one of the reasons the cleaning is in-house at all: an agency turning up with a bucket cannot do half of the list on this page.
- Do you take a commission from the tradesmen you recommend?
- No. Nothing, from any of them, ever. His price is his price, his invoice comes to you itemised, and we make no money on a repair at all; handling it is part of the service. It is the same position our homepage already states about the law firm we recommend, and it is the reason we can tell you honestly when a job is not worth doing.
- What happens if your cleaner breaks something?
- We tell you, with a photograph, the same day, and we replace it. The awkward version of this question is the other way round, and it is worth answering too: when something is already broken or stained when we arrive, that also goes in the note with a photograph, so nobody is arguing about it three months later. The note exists to protect both sides.
- Can you clean a property in Fuengirola or Málaga?
- No. We work from Manilva to Marbella, which means Manilva, Casares, Estepona, Benahavís and Marbella, and everything east of that is outside what our own cleaners and our equipment can reach on the day. We would rather say no than send somebody an hour and a half up the coast and charge you for the drive. If you are outside the area, ask us anyway and we will tell you honestly whether we know anybody there.
