A yard and exterior turnover checklist for Bear Lake short-term rentals

The principle

Anything that can be put on a fixed schedule should be, so it stops being a turnover task. Weekly mowing on a known day, bed weed control on a six-week cycle, a blowout booked in September, a plow that comes at an agreed trigger depth. What is left for the turnover is a walk-around that takes five minutes and catches the things nobody schedules.

Every turnover, every season

• Walk the approach. Driveway, parking pad, path to the door. Anything a guest with a rental car and a rolling bag could trip on or drive into.
• Look at the lawn from the street. Not for quality, for problems: a wet patch that should not be there is an irrigation leak, a brown strip is a head out of adjustment.
• Check the beds and the entry. Weeds at the front door read as neglect in the first photo.
• Gate, latches, exterior lights. The things a guest arriving at 10pm actually interacts with.
• Note anything down. A limb, a broken head, a step that has heaved. Send it to whoever handles the yard rather than hoping the next turnover catches it.

Spring turnovers (April to May)

• Has the irrigation system been started up? Zones running, heads adjusted, winter damage repaired.
• Has the first fertilizer step gone down? It is timed by soil temperature and cannot be made up later.
• Irrigation started, and the first fertilizer step down? Those are scheduled services, not a turnover task.
• Gravel the plow pushed into the lawn? Note it. Spring cleanup hauls that off before the first mow.

Summer turnovers (June to August)

• Is the lawn on its weekly mowing day, and is the day one you can plan turnovers around?
• Are the beds on their cycle? Roughly every six weeks through the growing season.
• Is the irrigation system on a maintenance visit through the peak? An empty property with a stuck valve runs it for a month.
• After any wind: a limb on the walk or drive? Note it. Storm cleanup clears what is already down. Standing trees go to an arborist.

Fall turnovers (September to October)

• Fall aeration and the winterizer fertilizer step booked, usually as one trip?
• The blowout. Booked in September, done in October, before the first hard freeze. Why it cannot wait.
• Leaves left in a wet mat will sit under snow. Fall cleanup gets them off before the first real snow.

Winter turnovers (November to March)

• Driveway plowed to the agreed trigger depth, and is the trigger right for this driveway? A long gravel drive on a slope wants a lower trigger than a short flat pad.
• Walk, steps and entry shoveled. For a rental this is a liability question, not a tidiness one.
• Ice melt where it makes sense, chosen with pets and stonework in mind.
• After a storm: limbs down under the snow load?

If you manage more than one

Put them on one agreement. Properties in the same town go on the same route on the same day, everything goes on one invoice itemized per property, and combining recurring services on a property earns the bundle discount. The property-manager page has the details, and the form takes a property list instead of one address.