Owners call us thinking a cleaning company is going to run their rental. It isn't. We flip the beds, haul out the sand, catch the broken lamp before your next guest does, and text you photos. That's the job. The confusion usually starts when someone out of town hears "we handle turnovers" and assumes we also handle the license, the guest at 11pm who locked themselves out, and the tax certificate. Three different roles get jammed into one word, and it costs people money.
So here's the honest breakdown of who does what, and where our scope ends.
The turnover cleaner
That's us. We clean and reset the unit between stays. Strip and remake beds, launder or swap linens, restock consumables, wipe down the kitchen, deal with the bathroom, and flag damage. On a Mission Beach boardwalk cottage that means fighting tracked-in sand and salt-corroded fixtures every single turn. In late spring, when the marine layer parks over the coast for weeks, we're the ones who notice a stack of beach towels went back in the closet damp and is about to grow mildew. We don't set your pricing, we don't talk to your guests mid-stay, and we don't file anything with the City. We show up, reset, report, leave.
The co-host
A co-host is the person managing your listing and your guests day to day. They handle messaging, adjust the calendar, coordinate the cleaner (often us), field the "how does the parking work" questions, and sort out the small fires. Some are neighbors doing it for two units, some are small outfits. A co-host is not automatically a licensed property manager, and they don't have to be one to answer messages. The line matters because of one City of San Diego rule people skip right past.
Under the STRO ordinance, every licensed host has to designate a local contact reachable during a stay who can physically respond to problems. If you own a place in La Jolla Shores and live in Phoenix, that contact can't be you. A co-host often fills that role. We don't. A cleaner in the building at 9am does nothing for a guest problem at midnight, and I'd rather tell you that up front than have you assume we're on call.
The property manager
A licensed property manager operates under a California real estate broker's license and can legally handle the money, the leasing, and the trust-account side. That's a real credential with real obligations, and it's a different thing from a co-host who's good with a calendar. If you want someone accountable for rents, deposits, and the full business, that's the property-manager lane. Plenty of small STR owners never need one. But don't call a co-host a "property manager" in a contract and assume you've got that legal coverage. You don't.
Why this matters more now
Two things changed the picture. First, SB 346 took effect January 1, 2026, and it lets the City require Airbnb and Vrbo to surface each listing's STRO license number and TOT certificate right in the listing. Your paperwork is now visible. If your "manager" never actually pulled your license, that gap shows. Second, the tax side got sharper: San Diego's Transient Occupancy Tax is zone-based now, running 11.75% to 13.75% depending on how close you sit to the Convention Center downtown, plus the 0.55% Tourism Marketing District assessment. And yes, the cleaning fee is taxable rent here. Whoever files your TOT needs to know that. We don't file it, and we'll say so.
The part nobody warns out-of-town owners about
Our service area isn't one set of rules. It's a patchwork, and the rules decide how often your unit even turns over:
- Coronado bans stays under 26 consecutive nights. There's no true nightly turnover there — it's a monthly model, full stop.
- Del Mar capped the whole city at 129 permits and closed its existing-STR application window in May 2026. Racing season and the County Fair spike demand, but the door on new permits is basically shut.
- Solana Beach runs a 7-day minimum, so you're turning weekly, not daily.
- Imperial Beach actually allows non-owner-occupied STRs, which makes it friendlier to investors, though ADUs can't be used as rentals.
- The unincorporated county, out toward Rancho Santa Fe, doesn't require a county STR business license at all.
A cleaner who works this coast knows a Coronado unit and a Pacific Beach condo run on completely different clocks. That's operational knowledge, not legal advice. Your license, your TOT certificate, your designated local contact — those are yours to line up, and a good co-host or property manager helps you do it. Ours is the reset, the linens, the sand, the honest photo of the scratch on the floor.
If you're clear on which of the three you actually need and you just want the turnovers handled right, that's what we're built for. Start on the homepage or tell us about your unit through the contact page and we'll be straight with you about what's ours to cover and what isn't.