Safety Tips for a Summer Rental

A few weeks ago, I rented a Summer house in Michigan with friends. The stay at home order had been lifted in Michigan and Illinois and it was my first time leaving Chicago since March. I have been at home mostly for the past three months and rarely ventured outside except for a walk to the bakery.

We were the first people to rent the house since the stay at home order had lifted just a few days before so that made me feel a little better. The rental property made sure to do extra cleaning to the house due to Covid19 and they left a list of the target areas they covered in the additional cleaning on the counter for peace of mind.

As people move around a bit more this Summer, I wanted to share the extra things I did for safety for renting this Summer. I read a few articles and asked my sister and mom who always beat me in the cleanliness/germ category and I think I am pretty high up there 😉

Bring Your Own Sheets

Check the rental listing and find out the bed size and bring the proper sheet size. I made this mistake but found a solution. Plus, our pillows were terrible at the rental and I wish I would have brought one or two from home for a much better night’s sleep. I did change the pillowcases. If packing sheets don’t make sense, I would run them through the laundry. Our rental property had a great washer/dryer station in the basement and it was easy to run loads throughout the week of towels and whatever we needed.

Wipe Down All Surfaces with a Bleach Cleaner. I messed up a sweatshirt in the process that ran into the bleached counter but it’s all ok. Bleach wipes are hard to find, but we did manage to find Bleach Cleaner at a local store. The whole kitchen/bathroom/tv room was cleaned before we settled in.

Run the Dishwasher

There wasn’t a crazy amount of dishes, the place we rented was a rental property and not someone’s full time home. I threw in the plates, cups, and silverware right away so it could run while we cleaned the rest of the place.

Clean out the Fridge

I did a quick wipe down of the fridge before we put the groceries in. I moved the food that wasn’t ours to a different location in the fridge so it was easy to tell what we brought.

Grocery Shop Before Your Arrival

We packed two huge coolers with meats, cheeses, condiments, and fruits/vegetables. I did a local grocery run and cleaned out the fridge with what needed to be eaten in the next week. Once the rental fridge was cleaned with bleach, we were able to stock a full fridge. I personally didn’t want to run to the local grocery store unless we needed it. I did end up going once or twice but I wasn’t happy about it as they were much more relaxed on sanitation than my local store.

Do you plan on doing a Summer Rental? Did I forget anything?