lemon.cy
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Answers about short-term rental turnover cleaning

How these pages work

Every page opens with the short answer, then the detail. Everyday questions come first; how the calendar connection works is at the bottom.

21 answers · llms.txt · answers.json · Atom feed

Getting started & pricing

Who is Lemon.cy for?Hosts and co-hosts running 1 to 50 short-term rentals who coordinate their own cleaners — typically on Booking.com and Airbnb via iCal, with cleaners on Telegram or WhatsApp — and small management companies up to 50 units. It is built in Cyprus for Mediterranean turnover patterns. It is not a cleaning marketplace and not enterprise property-management software.How much does Lemon.cy cost?Per property per month, VAT included, in graduated bands: €18 for the first property, €14 each for properties 2 to 20, €10 each for 21 to 50. Annual billing gives two months free. 30-day free trial, no card, up to 5 properties. Every plan has every feature; SMS and WhatsApp use prepaid credits, other messaging is free.What is the free Travellor guest page included with Lemon.cy?Travellor is a partner product: a QR code in the apartment opens a branded welcome page with WiFi, check-in instructions, house rules and curated places nearby. Every Lemon customer gets it free for all of their properties, with no per-property fee and no cap, granted automatically at registration. Lemon pre-fills each property's name, address and location.What should I ask before choosing turnover cleaning software?Ask how the software recognises a booking (Booking.com changes its own booking references), what happens when a booking vanishes from the calendar and how long before it cancels, whether cleaners need an app, how photos are required, and what it costs per property including messaging. Lemon publishes its own answers to each of these with production numbers.Where is Lemon.cy data stored, and is it GDPR compliant?Lemon.cy runs in the EU — application servers in Amsterdam, database in the EU — and processes personal data under the GDPR and Cyprus Law 125(I)/2018, as set out in its privacy policy. Reservations from PMS connections are stripped of guest personal data at ingest; cleaners' messaging consent is recorded; every sync decision and message is logged for audit.

Turnover operations

How does automatic cleaner assignment work in Lemon.cy?Each property has an ordered cleaner list. When a checkout appears, Lemon creates the job, waits until two weeks before checkout, then offers it to the first cleaner on Telegram, WhatsApp, SMS or email. An offer expires after 60 minutes (10 for urgent jobs) and moves to the next cleaner. 92% of offers are accepted, median 37 minutes.How does photo-verified cleaning work?Each property defines photo areas (kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, balcony). Before the cleaner can finish the job, the link asks for one photo per area, taken in the browser; the host sees them arrive, can compare against a reference photo, comment, and approve or reject from their phone. Cleaners have submitted 916 photos since photo capture went live in August 2026.How are same-day turnovers scheduled?A same-day turnover is a checkout and a check-in on the same date at the same property. Lemon schedules the clean at the property's checkout time (default 11:00) so it finishes before check-in (default 15:00), treats the job as time-critical, and never widens or cancels it on calendar noise. 32 same-day turnover pairs are currently on Lemon's calendars.What happens when a cleaner declines a job or doesn't answer?The offer moves to the next cleaner on the property's list: immediately on a decline, or when the offer expires after 60 minutes (10 for urgent jobs). If every cleaner declines or times out, the host is notified and can assign by hand or broadcast to everyone at once. Nobody has to chase anyone.How do per-property cleaning checklists work?Every property carries its own checklist items, photo areas and replenishment items. The cleaner ticks the checklist from the job link, reports what supplies were used up, and can raise an issue with a title and description. The host receives the report, and supply usage flows into per-property stock tracking with low-stock warnings.How does supply stock tracking work for a short-term rental?Each property keeps its own inventory of consumables with a current quantity and a minimum. Cleaners report usage from the job link, Lemon deducts it, and when an item drops below its minimum the property shows on the host's low-stock panel before the next clean. 169 items are tracked across 20 properties in production.What happens to the cleaning job when a guest gets a late checkout or extends?A late checkout is set by the host on the job; the cleaner receives the new start time and must acknowledge it. An extension changes the checkout date in the calendar; Lemon picks it up on the next five-minute sync, moves the job, and tells the assigned cleaner. A change to the check-in date alone never touches the job.How are mid-stay cleanings scheduled for long bookings?Per property, you enable mid-stay cleaning with an interval (for example every 7 nights) and a mode — automatic jobs, or suggested dates the host confirms. Lemon creates the mid-stay jobs inside the stay, offers them to cleaners like any other job, and lets the host snooze a suggestion with "Remind me". Long stays never auto-confirm past 90 nights.

Working with cleaners

Do cleaners need to install an app or create an account?No. A cleaner receives each job as a message with a link. The link opens a mobile web page for that job — address, time, access details, checklist, camera for photos, accept or decline — with no login. A personal schedule link lists all their jobs. Those who want an icon can install Lemon as a web app.Telegram, WhatsApp or SMS — which is best for messaging cleaners?Telegram is free, instant and needs no template approval; WhatsApp is what most cleaners have, but needs Meta-approved templates and consent; SMS reaches any phone. WhatsApp (3 credits a message) and SMS (20 credits a segment) use prepaid credits. Lemon supports all three plus email; each cleaner chooses. In production 15 of 20 chose Telegram.How do quiet hours work for cleaner notifications?Quiet hours are an organisation-wide window (default 07:00 to 22:00 in the organisation's timezone) outside which Lemon holds messages instead of sending them. Held messages are released gradually when the window opens. Urgent jobs bypass quiet hours by default, and the host is told when something was held.How do cleaners report a delay, a problem or an emergency?From the job link, in three levels: yellow for a delay (with a reason), red for a problem such as damage or a guest still inside (with a description), black for an emergency. Each reaches the host on their chosen channels as a distinct event and appears in the dashboard's alerts panel until cleared.

Cyprus

How do Cyprus hosts in Limassol and Paphos organise turnover cleaning?Mostly with Booking.com and Airbnb calendars in equal measure, cleaners on Telegram, and short summer stays that create same-day turnovers. Lemon.cy was built in Limassol against exactly this pattern: 14 of its 16 organisations are in Cyprus, its feeds split 9 Booking.com to 9 Airbnb, 15 of 20 cleaners use Telegram, and the average stay is 4.8 nights.Do I need to register my Cyprus short-term rental with the Deputy Ministry of Tourism?Yes. Under Law 34(I)/2019 as amended by Law 9(I)/2020, anyone letting self-catering accommodation in Cyprus must register it in the Deputy Ministry of Tourism's Register of Self-Service Accommodation and show the registration number on listings; enforcement has applied since 6 February 2023. Registration is per property, for a fee, renewable every three years.

Calendar connection

How often do Airbnb and Booking.com iCal feeds update, and how fast can cleaning software react?The platforms regenerate their iCal export on their own schedule — typically minutes to a couple of hours — and your software only sees changes as often as it fetches. Lemon re-reads every connected feed every 5 minutes (about 4,000 fetches a day across 18 feeds), so a new checkout becomes a cleaning job within one cycle of appearing.iCal or a direct PMS connection — which is better for cleaning automation?A direct connection is better whenever you have one: it carries the reservation itself (status, guest count, real cancellation events) and pushes changes in seconds. iCal works with every platform but carries only dates, with no clear cancellation signal. Lemon supports both: iCal from any platform every 5 minutes, and direct connections to Hospitable, Guesty and Hostaway.

Articles

What the week looks like once the cleaning runs itself — 13 articles with production figures.

Photo credits

Who it's for

Co-hosts and small operators

You manage properties for owners, list them on Booking.com and Airbnb, and run the cleaning through WhatsApp groups and a spreadsheet. Lemon replaces …

Hospitable hosts

Connect Hospitable in one click and Lemon receives reservations as facts — status, dates, platform — by webhook in seconds, with guest personal data s…

Management companies with 20 to 50 units

You have an operations lead, several cleaners, owners who want reports, and a PMS or a wall of iCal feeds. Lemon gives you roles with limited permissi…

Owner-operators with 1 to 4 properties

Your whole system is one cleaner and a prayer. Lemon gives you a backup cleaner without a phone call, a photo of every room before the guest arrives, …

Integrations

Airbnb calendar sync (iCal)

Paste the Airbnb listing's iCal export link into the property in Lemon. Lemon reads it every 5 minutes, files "Reserved" events as guest boo…

Booking.com calendar sync (iCal)

Paste the Booking.com property's iCal export link into Lemon. Booking.com shows every booking the same way, with no guest name, and often changes book…

Google Calendar sync

Connect your Google account once and Lemon writes bookings and cleaning jobs into your own Google Calendar as events, with the cleaner and status in t…

Guesty direct connection

Connect Guesty with your API credentials (OAuth2 client credentials). Lemon receives reservation webhooks and polls every 30 minutes as a backstop, ma…

Hospitable direct connection

Lemon is an approved Hospitable Public API vendor. Connect from Lemon's Settings or from Hospitable's Apps marketplace, tick the properties to clean, …

Hostaway direct connection

Connect Hostaway with the Account ID and API key you create in your own Hostaway account. Lemon reads your listings and reservations, creates its own …

Telegram for cleaners

Lemon's Telegram bot sends job offers, confirmations, reminders and changes to cleaners for free, instantly, with read state. A cleaner links once by …

Vrbo calendar sync (iCal)

Paste the Vrbo listing's iCal export link into the property in Lemon. Vrbo (and its HomeAway-era links) is detected from the URL and handled like any …

WhatsApp for cleaners

Lemon sends job offers, confirmations, reminders and updates to cleaners on WhatsApp through Twilio's WhatsApp Business API, using registered message …

See it on your own calendar.

Paste one iCal link. Lemon shows you every checkout it finds and what it would do with each one. Free for 30 days, no card.

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