Handy Expands Its Vacation Rental Cleaning Service

Collaborative consumption is reworking all sorts of established societal norms and regulatory processes. It’s also generating new business opportunities for startups that sit outside the immediate category. To wit: on-demand cleaning startup Handy is today launching a hospitality service tailored for vacation rental hosts — expanding on an existing cleaning offering for Airbnb hosts, launched as a pilot in New York back in January 2014.

Handy said the new service, which launches today in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles and London, lets vacation rental hosts book check-out cleanings and check-ins preparations — including providing “hotel-quality linens,” doing laundry, and offering key management to avoid the need for hosts to coordinate in person with cleaners to let them into rental properties.

Additional Handy services, such as handyman services, plumbers and electricians, can also be booked via its platform. And hosts can request working with a specific Handy Pro individual with whom they have booked services before.

Handy said it has delivered “tens of thousands of cleanings for thousands of Airbnb hosts” since launching the pilot last year. It’s now looking to step that up by expanding to three more cities. Services can now be booked and managed via a dedicated host portal on Handy’s website. A two-hour vacation rental cleaning costs $60. First-time customers are offered a promotional rate of $29 when booking with the promo code HOST29.

The move continues Handy’s strategy of tapping into other startups’ businesses to expand its own — for instance it’s also working with consumer butler-style startup Alfred, providing cleaning services that are managed by that other consumer-facing startup.