Airbnb Trash Reminder Script

You know the smell. You walk into the kitchen on Sunday morning to flip the place for the next guest and there it is — a knotted black bag on the counter, two pizza boxes leaning against the can, recycling overflowing onto the floor. The cleaner is texting that pickup was Friday and now nothing fits in the outside bin. This is the failure an airbnb trash reminder script is designed to prevent, and most hosts treat it as an afterthought when it is one of the highest-leverage messages in the entire checkout instructions sequence.

Trash day is the chore guests routinely skip because nothing in your house manual told them when, where, or how. The fix is not nagging. The fix is a short, friendly, perfectly timed message that lands the night before pickup and again the morning of checkout, plus an optional voice prompt from an Echo Dot 5 or Echo Show 8 so the people actually in the kitchen hear it.

Who this script is for

This is for any host whose property has curbside pickup — almost every single-family or townhouse rental in the country. If your unit shares a dumpster with a building, the timing matters less but the location instructions still matter a lot. The hosts who get the most out of this are remote operators who cannot run over and drag the bin out themselves, and anyone whose cleaner shows up late morning instead of dawn.

If your turnover gap is tight, a missed pickup is a real operational problem, not just an eyesore. One missed week and you are coordinating a private hauler or stuffing bags into your car. The cost of a 30-second message scheduled once is essentially zero, and it pairs cleanly with the rest of your checkout checklist for guests.

When to send the message

Timing is everything. Send too early and guests forget. Send the morning of and they are already in checkout mode, scrambling for the airport. The sweet spot is two messages, with an optional third for the Echo:

The night before pickup, around 7 to 8 pm local time. People are home, dishes are done, the kitchen bag is full.
The morning of pickup, by 6:30 am local time, only if your route runs early. This is a soft nudge, not a long message.
Optional: an Alexa announcement at 8 am the morning of pickup, triggered by a routine on your Echo Dot 5 or Echo Show 8 in the kitchen. The full pattern lives in our guide to setting up an Alexa reminder for checkout time.

Do not send anything during normal sleeping hours. Do not send a third message via text. Two written messages is the maximum before guests start ignoring you, and that hurts your other checkout instructions too.

Copy-and-paste version

Drop these into your Airbnb scheduled messages. Replace the bracketed bits with your own details. The night-before message:

Hi [guest first name], quick heads up — tomorrow morning is trash and recycling day on our street. If you can roll the two bins from the side of the house out to the curb tonight before bed, that is a huge help. Trash is the black lid, recycling is the blue. Pickup runs anywhere from 6 to 11 am, so any time tonight works. Bag goes in the can, no loose stuff, and please bring the bag from under the kitchen sink out too. Thanks so much, enjoy your last evening!

The morning-of nudge:

Good morning! Friendly reminder — if the bins are not at the curb yet, please roll them out before you head out today. Truck usually comes by around 9. Safe travels!

Short, warm, and luxury variations

Short version

Hi [name] — tomorrow is trash day. Please roll the black and blue bins from the side of the house to the curb tonight. Pickup is around 9 am. Thanks!

Warm version

Hey [name]! Hope you are having a great stay. Tomorrow is the one slightly annoying ask of your visit — trash and recycling pickup. The two bins live on the right side of the house. If you can wheel them down to the curb before you turn in tonight, our truck driver will love you and so will I. Have a good last night!

Luxury version

Good evening [name]. A small note for tomorrow: collection day on our street is Friday morning. The two bins are tucked behind the gate to the right of the driveway — black for landfill, blue for mixed recycling. If you could place both at the curbside before retiring this evening, our service collects between 6 and 11 am. Thank you for your help, and please enjoy a wonderful final evening with us.

If you want a tone-matched version of these for your overall short-term rental checkout message, mirror the same voice you used in your welcome message so the guest does not feel jolted by a sudden change in register.

How to customize it for your property

Generic trash messages fail because they do not match what guests are actually looking at. Walk through your property and answer these questions before you finalize the wording:

Where exactly are the bins kept? “Side of the house” is vague. “Behind the wood gate to the right of the front door” is specific.
What color are the lids? Cities use different schemes. Spell it out.
What goes where? If your city is strict about glass or compost, say so in one short sentence.
Where is the curb? Sounds dumb — is not. Some properties have a long driveway, a shared alley, or a back lane.
What is the latest acceptable time? If your route is at 6 am sharp, say “please put bins out tonight, not in the morning.”

If you manage multiple units, do not paste the same script everywhere. Build one template per property and store them in your scheduled messages by listing. Most checkout problems are not guest laziness — they are vague instructions.

Adding a voice reminder with Alexa

If you have an Echo Dot 5 or Echo Show 8 in the kitchen or living area, you can layer a voice reminder on top of the text message. This catches guests who are heads-down packing and never check their phone. The setup is simple:

Open the Alexa app on your phone, tap More, then Routines.
Create a new routine, set the trigger to Schedule, and pick the day before checkout at 7 pm or the morning of pickup at 8 am. Pick whichever fits your route.
Add an action of “Alexa Says” or “Custom” and type something like: “Quick reminder — tomorrow morning is trash day. The bins are on the side of the house. Please roll them out to the curb tonight. Thanks!”
Set the device to your kitchen Echo and save.

This is a recurring routine that runs whether or not you have a guest. That is fine — nobody is hearing it on empty nights. If you want a parallel announcement specifically for departure time, the same routine pattern is in our Alexa checkout reminder for Airbnb walkthrough. If you want it conditional on occupancy you would need a hub like Home Assistant or a smart sensor, which is overkill for trash day.

Common pitfalls

Sending the message during the day. Most people glance at it, then forget by bedtime. Evening lands better.
Asking guests to sort recycling beyond what is normal. They will not do it. Keep the ask to one bag, one bin.
Forgetting to ask them to bring the kitchen bag out. The under-sink bag is the one your cleaner will smell first.
Mentioning trash inside a long checkout message that also covers locks, towels, and the dishwasher. It gets lost. Send it as its own message.
Forgetting to update the schedule when your city shifts pickup for a holiday week. Always sanity-check the calendar at the start of the month.

FAQ

What if I do not want to make guests do trash at all?

That is a fair call for premium properties. Pay your cleaner an extra fee to drag the bins out the night before pickup or have a neighbor handle it. You still want to leave a short note in the house manual telling guests where the bag in the kitchen goes, but you can skip the curb-night reminder entirely. Just be honest with yourself: most hosts who say “I will handle it” end up forgetting at least once a season.

Will an Alexa checkout reminder annoy guests?

Not if you keep it to one short announcement and put it in the kitchen, not the bedroom. Avoid scheduling anything before 8 am. If you want a softer touch, use the Alexa app to record your own voice instead of the default voice — guests respond better to a real host than a robotic prompt. Test it on yourself first; if it would annoy you on a vacation morning, rewrite it.

How does this fit with my main checkout message?

Trash should not be in the same message as checkout time, lock instructions, and the review request. Send your standard checkout instructions on the morning of departure. Send the trash reminder the night before pickup, separately. They serve different purposes and should not compete for attention. If your trash day always falls on the day before checkout, the night-before trash message and the morning-of checkout message do not overlap.

What if pickup got missed anyway?

Have a fallback. Keep an extra bag stash so your cleaner can double-bag anything that does not fit until the next pickup. Keep the contact for a private hauler in your cleaner playbook. Do not blame the guest in your review — you wrote the script, not them. Tighten the wording and timing for next time.

Next steps

Schedule the night-before message in your Airbnb scheduled messaging right now while it is fresh. Build the matching Alexa routine on your Echo Dot 5 if you have one on site. Then walk back through your full library of checkout and review messages and make sure the trash reminder slots cleanly between your last evening message and your morning checkout note. Trash is small. Done right, it is the difference between a five-star review and a passive-aggressive comment about smell.