Restocking an Airbnb after a 28-day guest: the full supply audit I run before the next check-in

Restocking an Airbnb after a 28-day guest: the full supply audit I run before the next check-in

My first 28-day booking was at the Brighton flat, back when I was about eighteen months into hosting. A contractor renovation project in the area, sensible guest, no complaints during the stay. Left the place clean-ish.

But I walked in to do the post-stay check and found the kitchen cupboard essentially bare. Half a roll of kitchen paper. One dishwasher tablet. The toilet roll stash — normally kept at eight rolls per bathroom — was down to a single roll. The bin bags were gone. The washing-up liquid was a dribble at the bottom of the bottle. Even the spare lightbulbs I keep in the bathroom cabinet were missing (presumably the bathroom bulb had gone and the guest helped themselves, which is fine — that's what they're there for).

Nothing unusual had happened. The guest had simply lived there for a month. Four weeks of daily use gets through an amount of supplies that my normal turnover process isn't sized to handle. I'd budgeted for a turnover clean and hadn't thought beyond that.

What changes with a 28-night stay

Airbnb treats bookings of 28 nights or more as monthly stays. Payment works differently — instead of getting paid per booking after check-in, Airbnb pays hosts monthly during the stay. The cancellation terms are different too: a specific long-term cancellation policy applies, and refund calculations change. I'd known all that going in.

What I hadn't thought about was the supplies maths. A typical three or four night booking uses maybe 6-8 toilet rolls, half a bottle of washing-up liquid, a few dishwasher tablets, a roll of kitchen paper. A 28-day stay multiplies that by roughly seven. That's a fundamentally different scale of consumption — and if you're not set up for it, you'll either run out during the stay (which generates messages and potentially bad reviews) or you'll arrive at checkout to a property that needs a full restock, not just a clean.

My normal turnover model is built around the assumption that every booking leaves me starting from a reasonably stocked baseline. The 28-day stay broke that assumption.

The mid-stay restock I now offer

After the Brighton experience, I changed my approach for any booking over ten nights. I now contact the guest around the halfway point — day 14 for a 28-night stay — and ask if anything needs topping up. Not in a hovering way. A single short message saying I'd arranged a restock bag for them and asking if they want me to drop it off or send it via my cleaner.

The restock bag is a resealable carrier bag with: four toilet rolls, a new bottle of washing-up liquid, a roll of kitchen paper, a small bottle of washing machine liquid, six dishwasher tablets, and a new sponge. That's the standard. If they say they need more of something specific, I add it.

Most guests have said yes. Some have said they're fine. Only one in eighteen months has asked me to leave them entirely alone, which I respected. The ones who accept it have mentioned it positively in reviews twice. Nobody has complained about being offered it.

The full post-stay audit

Whatever happens during the stay, the checkout process for a 28-day booking is substantially longer than a normal turnover. I now allow an extra 90 minutes on top of my standard turnover time when I book my cleaner.

Here's the full audit I run room by room.

Kitchen

Dishwasher tablets — I keep a box of 30 under the sink. Anything under 12 gets replaced. Washing-up liquid counted: if under a third of the bottle, swap. Kitchen roll — new roll, regardless. Bin bags: any partial roll gets topped up to a full new roll. Sponges replaced automatically. Oven cleaner: check the bottle, replace if under half. Foil and cling film checked against par — both get a new roll if under half the roll remaining.

I also check the spice rack and condiments. A 28-day guest will have used cooking oil, salt, maybe ketchup. These aren't like toilet roll — I don't provide a full restock of everything. But I do top up the oil if it's low, and I keep two small salt sachets as backup.

Bathrooms

Toilet rolls: back to eight per bathroom. Shower gel and shampoo: I refill from the bulk bottles I keep in the supply box. Body lotion, if I put it out, back to a full tube. Spare toothbrush: check there's one still sealed in the cabinet — long-stay guests sometimes use it if theirs breaks. Hand soap: refill or replace. Bath mat: goes into the wash automatically after a 28-day stay.

The bathroom cabinet itself gets a proper check. Plasters: top up if below five. Cotton pads. A 28-day guest will have used this stuff properly.

Bedroom

Everything goes into the wash — duvet, pillows, protectors, all of it. Not just the sheets and covers. A four-week stay means the duvet has had genuine use. I can't guarantee it's going to smell fine with just a cover change. On a normal turnover I only wash the outer linen; after a month I wash everything.

Hangers: count them. Long-stay guests sometimes lose hangers to suitcases. I always start back at twelve hangers per bedroom.

Living room

Cushion covers into the wash. Throw blanket too — laundered and re-folded, not just straightened. Check the remote control batteries: a month of daily TV use eats AA cells. Check the candle if I leave one — replace if more than half burned.

Utility cupboard

Check cleaning sprays — kitchen, bathroom, glass. All need to be at least half full before the next guest. Mop heads: look at it honestly. After a month of a single guest, the floor cleaning was probably irregular. A new mop head costs around £2 and sets the right standard for the next guest.

The supplies bill for a post-long-stay restock

I track supply costs per booking. For a three-night stay, I typically spend around £8-12 in consumables. For a 28-day stay, the post-checkout restock typically runs £35-45. That's toilet rolls, washing products, bathroom toiletries, kitchen paper, plus the full linen wash (which adds time rather than cost, mostly).

I now build this into the pricing calculation for long stays. I offer a weekly discount on Airbnb for stays of seven or more nights, and a monthly discount for 28+. But before I set those discount levels, I calculated the actual cost of a month-long occupancy including the deeper supply spend, higher utility use, and extra cleaner time. The 28-day discount I offer is lower than the default Airbnb suggests — around 12% rather than 20% — because the cost savings from fewer turnovers are partly offset by higher per-stay supply costs.

One thing I got wrong at first

I assumed long-stay guests would be tidier and use less. They're staying for a month, so surely they're more invested in the place, right?

Wrong. Or rather, it doesn't really matter. A guest staying for 28 nights isn't being careless with your supplies. They're just living there. A person living in a property for a month uses the same amount of toilet roll as a person living in any other property for a month. The tidiness has nothing to do with it.

The lesson is to stop thinking about long-stay guests as different-tier turnover customers. They're a different product entirely. Lower management overhead, lower cleaner cost per occupied night, but higher supply cost and more involved post-stay restock. Price accordingly. Set up your restock system in advance. And check in at the halfway point.