# Lemon.cy

> Lemon.cy is cleaning automation for short-term rentals. It reads Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo calendars (iCal) or connects directly to Hospitable, Guesty and Hostaway, turns every checkout into a cleaning job, offers the job to the right cleaner over Telegram, WhatsApp or SMS, and gives the host photo proof that the flat is ready before the next guest arrives.

Operated by Red Tribe Media Ltd (Cyprus company HE 332335), 5a Faoust Street, Ayios Athanasios, Limassol, Cyprus. In production since 2026-02-12. Contact info@lemon.cy.

Key facts (verified 2026-09-10):
- Pricing per property per month: €18 for one property, €14 for 2 to 20 properties, €10 for 21 to 50 properties. Annual billing: 2 months free. 30-day free trial, no card. Live source: GET https://lemon.cy/api/public/pricing-tiers
- Calendars: iCal from Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo and any .ics link, re-read every 5 minutes; direct connections to Hospitable, Guesty, Hostaway.
- Cleaners are messaged on Telegram, WhatsApp, SMS or email and open jobs from a link; no app install, no account.
- Job offers expire after 60 minutes (urgent: 10), then cascade to the next cleaner. Offers start 2 weeks before checkout.
- A confirmed cleaning job is never auto-cancelled on feed evidence alone within 24 hours of checkout.
- Production, last 30 days: 129,351 feed fetches, 540,461 calendar events observed, 1,445 sync decisions, 78 silent re-keys caught, 10 automatic cancellations.
- Every Lemon customer gets Travellor (https://travellor.app) free: guest welcome page and local recommendations behind a QR code, free for every Lemon customer.

## Answers
- [Why does Booking.com change the UID of an existing reservation in its iCal feed?](https://lemon.cy/learn/booking-com-ical-changes-uid-rekey/): Because Booking.com's iCal export describes unavailable date ranges, not reservations. When the range around a stay changes shape (an adjacent booking, a stay starting, trimmed nights) the export may emit a new event with a new UID for the same nights. Lemon saw 78 re-keys across 18 feeds in 30 days: about 4.3 per feed per month.
- [Why did a Booking.com reservation disappear from my cleaning schedule?](https://lemon.cy/learn/booking-com-reservation-disappeared-from-cleaning-schedule/): Usually because Booking.com re-exported the same stay under a new calendar ID or reshaped the block around it, and your cleaning tool treated the old ID vanishing as a cancellation. The guest did not cancel. Lemon re-links the stay by its checkout date instead of cancelling; in the last 30 days that caught 78 such re-keys.
- [How do cleaners report a delay, a problem or an emergency?](https://lemon.cy/learn/cleaner-sos-delay-problem-emergency-levels/): 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.
- [How do per-property cleaning checklists work?](https://lemon.cy/learn/cleaning-checklists-per-property/): 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.
- [Do I need to register my Cyprus short-term rental with the Deputy Ministry of Tourism?](https://lemon.cy/learn/cyprus-short-term-rental-registration-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.
- [Do cleaners need to install an app or create an account?](https://lemon.cy/learn/do-cleaners-need-an-app-or-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.
- [Why does a Booking.com iCal booking's check-in date move forward every day during the stay?](https://lemon.cy/learn/forward-trim-booking-com-in-progress-stay/): Booking.com re-exports an in-progress reservation with the nights that have already passed removed, so the event's start date walks forward one night at a time while the checkout stays fixed. Lemon calls this a forward-trim and pins the original check-in: an arrival that has already happened cannot move. It logged 1,240 such pins in one recent week.
- [Can cleaning software tell a host-blocked date from a guest booking on Booking.com?](https://lemon.cy/learn/host-block-vs-guest-booking-booking-com-ical/): Not from the iCal feed alone: Booking.com exports a date you closed yourself and a paid reservation identically, as "CLOSED - Not available". Airbnb's export does label its blocks. Lemon treats Booking.com blocks as reservations by default, applies duration rules to catch owner closures, and asks the host when a block is ambiguous instead of guessing.
- [How does automatic cleaner assignment work in Lemon.cy?](https://lemon.cy/learn/how-automatic-cleaner-assignment-works/): 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 much does Lemon.cy cost?](https://lemon.cy/learn/how-much-does-lemon-cy-cost/): Lemon.cy is priced per property per month: €18 for one property, €14 each for 2 to 20 properties, €10 each for 21 to 50. Annual billing gives two months free. There is a 30-day free trial with no card. Every plan includes unlimited cleaners, photo checklists and all integrations; SMS messages use prepaid credits, Telegram and email are free.
- [How often do Airbnb and Booking.com iCal feeds update, and how fast can cleaning software react?](https://lemon.cy/learn/how-often-do-airbnb-and-booking-com-ical-feeds-update/): 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.
- [Why does my synced checkout date keep flipping between two dates?](https://lemon.cy/learn/ical-date-oscillation-checkout-flip-flop/): Some Airbnb and Booking.com feeds serve different checkout dates on alternate fetches — for example the 20th, then the 27th, then the 20th again. Lemon calls this oscillation, records the last committed direction, and refuses to reset the cleaning job or message the cleaner while a date keeps reverting within 48 hours.
- [iCal or a direct PMS connection — which is better for cleaning automation?](https://lemon.cy/learn/ical-vs-direct-pms-connection-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 is universal but lossy — dates and an unstable ID, no cancellation signal. Lemon supports both: iCal from any platform every 5 minutes, and direct connections to Hospitable, Guesty and Hostaway.
- [Does a booking disappearing from an iCal feed mean the guest cancelled?](https://lemon.cy/learn/is-a-disappeared-ical-event-a-cancellation/): No. iCal has no cancellation event, so absence is the only signal, and absence has five causes: a real cancellation, a re-key to a new UID, a merge into a neighbouring block, a platform glitch, or an expired feed link. Lemon rules out the other four before treating absence as a cancellation, then waits a confirmation window.
- [Where is Lemon.cy data stored, and is it GDPR compliant?](https://lemon.cy/learn/is-lemon-cy-gdpr-compliant-where-is-data-stored/): 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.
- [What happens to the cleaning job when a guest gets a late checkout or extends?](https://lemon.cy/learn/late-checkout-and-guest-extension-handling/): 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.
- [Why do two back-to-back Booking.com reservations show as one long block in iCal?](https://lemon.cy/learn/merged-block-back-to-back-bookings-one-event/): Booking.com exports unavailable nights as ranges, so two stays where one checkout is the next check-in are often merged into one "CLOSED - Not available" event under a new UID. The middle checkout, and its clean, disappears from the feed. Lemon keeps the tracked stays, refuses to widen them, and asks the host about nights nothing explains.
- [How are mid-stay cleanings scheduled for long bookings?](https://lemon.cy/learn/mid-stay-cleaning-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.
- [Why should a turnover job never be auto-cancelled within 24 hours of checkout?](https://lemon.cy/learn/never-auto-cancel-inside-24-hours-of-checkout/): Because a wrong cancellation the night before a turnover cannot be recovered in time, while a wrong keep costs one wasted visit. Inside 24 hours of checkout, Lemon never cancels a confirmed cleaning job on calendar evidence alone; it flags the booking for the host and keeps the cleaner. This protected 11 jobs in the last 30 days.
- [How does photo-verified cleaning work?](https://lemon.cy/learn/photo-verified-cleaning-how-it-works/): 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.
- [What should I ask before choosing turnover cleaning software?](https://lemon.cy/learn/questions-to-ask-any-turnover-cleaning-software/): Ask what identifies a booking (if the answer is "the iCal UID", Booking.com will break it), what happens when a booking vanishes from the feed 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.
- [How do quiet hours work for cleaner notifications?](https://lemon.cy/learn/quiet-hours-for-cleaner-messages/): 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 are same-day turnovers scheduled?](https://lemon.cy/learn/same-day-turnover-scheduling/): 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.
- [How do Cyprus hosts in Limassol and Paphos organise turnover cleaning?](https://lemon.cy/learn/short-term-rental-cleaning-limassol-paphos-cyprus/): 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.
- [How does supply stock tracking work for a short-term rental?](https://lemon.cy/learn/supply-stock-tracking-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.
- [Telegram, WhatsApp or SMS — which is best for messaging cleaners?](https://lemon.cy/learn/telegram-vs-whatsapp-vs-sms-for-cleaners/): Telegram is free, instant and needs no template approval; WhatsApp is what most cleaners already have but business messages need Meta-approved templates and consent; SMS reaches any phone but costs credits per message. Lemon supports all three plus email and lets each cleaner choose. In production 15 of 20 cleaners chose Telegram, 3 WhatsApp.
- [What is the free Travellor guest page included with Lemon.cy?](https://lemon.cy/learn/travellor-guest-page-included/): 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 does "CLOSED - Not available" mean in a Booking.com iCal feed?](https://lemon.cy/learn/what-does-closed-not-available-mean-booking-com-ical/): Nothing specific. Booking.com exports every unavailable night the same way — a confirmed guest reservation, a block you set yourself, and an availability closure all appear as one event titled "CLOSED - Not available" with dates and a UID. Any tool reading the feed has to infer which one it is.
- [What happens when a cleaner declines a job or doesn't answer?](https://lemon.cy/learn/what-happens-when-a-cleaner-declines-or-does-not-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.
- [When should cleaning software cancel a job because a booking vanished from the calendar?](https://lemon.cy/learn/when-should-cleaning-software-auto-cancel-a-job-from-ical/): Only after a booking has been absent from a healthy feed for a full confirmation window: 24 hours when checkout is more than three days away, 2 hours within three days, and never within 24 hours of checkout. Lemon also holds when a feed is empty or loses half its bookings at once. In 30 days: 10 cancellations, 11 holds.
- [Who is Lemon.cy for?](https://lemon.cy/learn/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.

## Glossary
- [Broadcast assignment](https://lemon.cy/glossary/broadcast-assignment/): Offering a cleaning job to several cleaners at once; the first to accept gets it and the others are told the job is taken. Used for urgent jobs and larger pools where waiting an hour per cleaner is too slow.
- [Bulk-disappearance guard](https://lemon.cy/glossary/bulk-disappearance-guard/): A rule that holds all cancellation processing for a feed when more than half of its active future bookings vanish at once and at least three of them are missing, on the assumption that this is a platform glitch or an expired link rather than mass cancellations.
- [Cascade assignment](https://lemon.cy/glossary/cascade-assignment/): Offering a cleaning job to one cleaner at a time in the property's priority order. Each offer expires after 60 minutes (10 for urgent jobs) or on a decline, then passes to the next cleaner; when the list is exhausted the host is alerted.
- [Checkout-driven scheduling](https://lemon.cy/glossary/checkout-driven-scheduling/): The principle that only a booking's checkout determines the cleaning job. A change to the check-in alone never resets a job, never drops a confirmed cleaner and never fires a "dates changed" message, because the clean happens on the day the guest leaves.
- [Forward-trim](https://lemon.cy/glossary/forward-trim/): Booking.com re-exporting an in-progress stay with its elapsed nights removed, so the event's start date walks forward one night at a time while the checkout stays fixed. Lemon pins the original check-in: an arrival that has already happened is immutable.
- [Guard gauntlet](https://lemon.cy/glossary/guard-gauntlet/): The ordered set of checks every iCal event passes through before it can create, change or cancel a booking: presence refresh, status determination, duration skips, the reshape family, consolidation, then the update or create branch. Each guard exists because of a specific production incident.
- [Host hold](https://lemon.cy/glossary/host-hold/): The "Keep it" action a host takes on a booking flagged as possibly cancelled. It tells Lemon the reservation is real regardless of the feed. A hold is not permanent: after 7 days of continued absence the booking is re-raised for review, never cancelled automatically.
- [Imminent window](https://lemon.cy/glossary/imminent-window/): The last 24 hours before a checkout. Inside it, feed evidence alone may never cancel a confirmed cleaning job; a vanished booking is held for host review with its cleaner intact. This inverts the usual design, which gives imminent bookings the shortest fuse.
- [Merged block](https://lemon.cy/glossary/merged-block/): One iCal event covering two or more real stays that sit back to back, exported by Booking.com as a single contiguous "CLOSED - Not available" range under one UID. The middle checkout disappears from the feed; if the block exceeds 30 nights it can also be mistaken for an owner closure.
- [Oscillation](https://lemon.cy/glossary/oscillation/): A feed serving a booking's checkout date as A, then B, then A again on successive fetches, without any change on the platform. Lemon records the last committed direction and refuses to reset the job or message the cleaner while a date keeps reverting within 48 hours.
- [Possibly cancelled](https://lemon.cy/glossary/possibly-cancelled/): The soft flag Lemon puts on a still-confirmed booking that has vanished from a healthy feed. The booking keeps its cleaning job and cleaner while observed absence accrues toward a confirmation window; if the booking reappears, the flag clears silently.
- [Re-key](https://lemon.cy/glossary/re-key/): When an OTA's iCal feed stops exporting a stay under one UID and exports the same nights under a new UID. Common on Booking.com. To software keyed on the UID it looks like a cancellation followed by a new booking; Lemon re-links the stay by its checkout instead.
- [Reshape](https://lemon.cy/glossary/reshape/): A change to the date span of a generic "Not available" block in an OTA feed that does not correspond to a real change in any single reservation — typically Booking.com merging back-to-back stays into one block, or splitting one back out.
- [Supersede](https://lemon.cy/glossary/supersede/): When a genuinely new reservation replaces one or more now-cancelled stays inside a single Booking.com block, as opposed to a merge of stays that are all still live. Lemon decides between the two by parsimony and, when unsure, asks the host.
- [Synthetic row](https://lemon.cy/glossary/synthetic-row/): A booking Lemon creates itself rather than reading from a feed — today, the placeholder for uncovered nights. Because no feed will ever carry its identifier, a synthetic row is a snapshot, not a subscription, and needs its own answer to "what keeps this in step with reality?".
- [Turnover](https://lemon.cy/glossary/turnover/): The clean between two stays. In Lemon a turnover is a checkout cleaning job created for every guest checkout, scheduled at the property's checkout time (default 11:00) and expected to finish before the next check-in (default 15:00). A same-day turnover is when both fall on the same date.
- [Uncovered nights](https://lemon.cy/glossary/uncovered-nights/): Nights inside a skipped reshaped block that no tracked booking covers. Lemon surfaces them to the host as a "pending review" item under a stable synthetic identifier keyed on the block's checkout, asking whether they are a real stay, rather than creating or cancelling anything.

## Data
- [OTA Calendar Feed Integrity Report — September 2026](https://lemon.cy/data/ical-feed-integrity/): monthly anonymised measurement of what Airbnb and Booking.com iCal feeds do to reservations. JSON: https://lemon.cy/data/ical-feed-integrity/2026-09.json · CSV: https://lemon.cy/data/ical-feed-integrity/2026-09.csv

## Who it is for
- [Co-hosts and small operators](https://lemon.cy/for/co-hosts/): You manage properties for owners, list them on Booking.com and Airbnb, and run the cleaning through WhatsApp groups and a spreadsheet. Lemon replaces the "who is cleaning tomorrow" conversation with a cascade that runs itself, and gives the owner photo proof.
- [Hospitable hosts](https://lemon.cy/for/hospitable-hosts/): Connect Hospitable in one click and Lemon receives reservations as facts — status, dates, platform — by webhook in seconds, with guest personal data stripped at ingest. From there every checkout becomes a cascade to your cleaners on Telegram or WhatsApp with photo proof. Lemon is an approved Hospitable Public API vendor.
- [Management companies with 20 to 50 units](https://lemon.cy/for/management-companies/): 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 permissions, property groups, broadcast assignment for urgent jobs, payout export, supply stock per property and an audit trail of every decision — at €10 per property from 21 units.
- [Owner-operators with 1 to 4 properties](https://lemon.cy/for/owner-operators/): 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, and a calendar that does not panic when Booking.com renames a reservation. €18 a month for one property.

## Integrations
- [Airbnb calendar sync (iCal)](https://lemon.cy/connect/airbnb/): Paste the Airbnb listing's iCal export link into the property in Lemon. Lemon reads it every 5 minutes, files "Reserved" events as guest bookings with a checkout cleaning job and "Airbnb (Not available)" events as blocks with no job. 9 of Lemon's 18 production feeds are Airbnb.
- [Booking.com calendar sync (iCal)](https://lemon.cy/connect/booking-com/): Paste the Booking.com property's iCal export link into Lemon. Every event arrives as "CLOSED - Not available" with no guest name and an unstable UID, so Lemon treats blocks as reservations by default, applies duration rules to catch owner closures, re-links re-keyed stays by checkout, and pins forward-trimmed check-ins. 9 of Lemon's 18 feeds are Booking.com.
- [Google Calendar sync](https://lemon.cy/connect/google-calendar/): 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 the description. It is a view for you and your team, not a booking source — Lemon reads bookings from your OTA feeds or PMS, never from Google.
- [Guesty direct connection](https://lemon.cy/connect/guesty/): Connect Guesty with your API credentials (OAuth2 client credentials). Lemon receives reservation webhooks and polls every 30 minutes as a backstop, maps each Guesty listing to a Lemon property, and creates a checkout cleaning job for every confirmed reservation. Cancellations arrive as events, so nothing is inferred from a calendar.
- [Hospitable direct connection](https://lemon.cy/connect/hospitable/): Lemon is an approved Hospitable Public API vendor. Connect with one click; reservations arrive by webhook in seconds with a 30-minute poll as backstop, guest personal data is stripped at ingest, and each connected property's iCal feeds are switched off automatically. Two production properties run on it as of September 2026.
- [Hostaway direct connection](https://lemon.cy/connect/hostaway/): Connect Hostaway with your account ID and API key (OAuth2 client credentials). Lemon receives reservation webhooks, polls every 30 minutes as a backstop, maps each listing to a Lemon property, and turns every confirmed reservation into a checkout cleaning job. Cancellations are events, not inferences, and connected properties have their iCal feeds switched off.
- [Telegram for cleaners](https://lemon.cy/connect/telegram/): Lemon's Telegram bot sends job offers, confirmations, reminders and changes to cleaners for free, instantly, with read state. A cleaner links once by opening the bot and entering a connect code from the host; from then on every message carries the job link. 15 of Lemon's 20 production cleaners use Telegram.
- [Vrbo calendar sync (iCal)](https://lemon.cy/connect/vrbo/): 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 other iCal feed: read every 5 minutes, checkouts become cleaning jobs, disappearances are flagged and held before any cancellation. Vrbo is rare in Lemon's Cyprus estate but fully supported.
- [WhatsApp for cleaners](https://lemon.cy/connect/whatsapp/): Lemon sends job offers, confirmations, reminders and updates to cleaners on WhatsApp through Twilio's WhatsApp Business API, using registered message templates and a recorded consent for each cleaner. Cleaners tap the link in the message; nothing to install. 3 of Lemon's 20 production cleaners use WhatsApp.

## Optional
- [Full corpus in one file](https://lemon.cy/llms-full.txt)
- [All answers as JSON](https://lemon.cy/answers.json)
- [Atom feed of updates](https://lemon.cy/feed.xml)
- [Terms](https://lemon.cy/terms), [Privacy](https://lemon.cy/privacy)