Stop finding out the cleaning route is impossible after the cleaners leave.
CleanRoute turns tomorrow's residential and short-term-rental cleaning schedule into a route-risk packet: cleaner assignments, drive buffers, turnover deadlines, cancellation fallbacks, and SMS-ready updates.
Route preflight
3 risky jobs before 3 PM
Cleaner A · North loop
6 jobs · 42 min drive buffer left
STR turnover · Lake unit
Checkout 11:00, check-in 15:00, cleaner arrival impossible
Cleaner B · downtown
4 jobs · preferred clients preserved
Cancellation fallback
Move Oak Street to 14:20 and notify host
Who this is for
Owner-run residential cleaning teams that have outgrown the whiteboard but not bought enterprise field service software.
You dispatch 6-25 cleaners or crews across recurring homes and short-term rentals. The schedule may start in Google Calendar, Jobber, a booking form, or a spreadsheet, but the real plan still lives in the owner's head.
The day-in-the-life pain is specific: a same-day turnover has a hard check-in, one cleaner is unavailable after lunch, traffic makes the north loop too long, and one cancellation can force five customer messages.
20+ jobs/day
The threshold where a simple calendar turns into route math, availability checking, and last-minute reshuffling.
Same-day STR turns
Short-term rental cleanings create hard windows: checkout, cleaner travel, job duration, and guest check-in cannot drift.
Spreadsheet or whiteboard
The buyer is not asking for enterprise FSM; they need a daily dispatch packet that survives cancellations and traffic.
Product workflow
A route-risk packet before a missed cleaning becomes a refund.
The first version does not replace your booking system. It takes the schedule you already trust and checks whether the day can actually happen.
Input
Import tomorrow's jobs from a spreadsheet, booking calendar, Airbnb/Hostaway export, or a pasted list with addresses, cleaner availability, job duration, access notes, and check-in deadlines.
Checks
CleanRoute groups nearby jobs, flags impossible windows, warns when a cleaner is overbooked, preserves preferred-client assignments, and shows the cancellation domino effect before the day starts.
Output
A cleaner-by-cleaner route board, printable dispatch packet, SMS-ready customer updates, and a same-day recovery plan when a guest changes dates or a cleaner calls out.
Features tied to the complaint
Route-first day board
See each cleaner's sequence with drive-time buffers, job duration, arrival windows, keys/access notes, and STR check-in deadlines in one screen.
Impossible-day warnings
Catch overlaps, long cross-town jumps, missing cleaner availability, and same-day turnover windows that cannot be met before dispatch goes out.
Cancellation reshuffle
When a customer cancels or a cleaner calls out, show which jobs can move, which customers need notice, and which STRs need owner escalation.
Whiteboard-friendly import
Start with CSV or copy/paste. Early users should not need to migrate from Jobber, Google Calendar, spreadsheets, or a booking form to test value.
Concierge route review
The waitlist offer is one manual route-risk review for a busy cleaning day before the product promises automation.
Public evidence
A narrow waitlist test, not invented demand.
Reddit · smallbusiness
A residential cleaning owner said scheduling was easy at 5-10 houses a week, but 20+ jobs per day became a headache because traffic, cancellations, cleaner availability, and short-term-rental turnovers all collide.
Open source →Reddit · housekeeping
The same operator cross-posted to a practitioner community asking whether teams still use spreadsheets, software, or whiteboards to plan the best routes.
Open source →GitHub · cleaning ops console
An internal cleaning-agency app pull request describes the same operational shape: book hourly jobs on a calendar, assign a cleaner, email the customer, and monitor outstanding payments.
Open source →Why not existing tools?
CleanRoute is the preflight layer, not another system migration.
Why not Jobber or Housecall Pro?
Those tools are broad field-service suites. The complaint is a tighter dispatch-preflight problem: route feasibility, cleaner availability, cancellations, and STR deadlines at 20+ jobs/day.
Why not Google Maps routes?
Maps optimizes stops, not cleaner skills, key notes, booking windows, duration estimates, turnover deadlines, or who must be notified after a cancellation.
Why not keep the spreadsheet?
The spreadsheet is fine as input. It breaks when the owner has to mentally simulate traffic, availability, cancellations, and same-day check-ins while phones are ringing.
Will owners pay?
The validation is explicit: join the waitlist only if a same-day route-risk review would save a missed cleaning, an angry customer, or an owner hour this week.
Validation offer
Share one redacted busy-day schedule. Get back a route-risk review.
Early waitlist users will be asked for a sample schedule with names and addresses masked. The validation succeeds only if owners say the review would prevent a missed turnover, reduce dispatch time, or help them recover from cancellations faster than their current spreadsheet or whiteboard.