Strata cleaning checklist
A strata building is judged in two places nobody writes a scope around: the parkade a resident drives through every morning, and the garbage room they visit at 9pm. This checklist covers the whole of common property, front of house and back, with every line written as something an inspector can pass or fail on the spot.
Office cleaning doesn't have this problem. An office has one tenant judging the work and one manager who owns the contract. A strata answers to several hundred residents instead, the person who signs changes with each council election, and the crew doing the work almost never hears any of it directly. Standards drift for one plain reason: nobody wrote down what good looked like on day one of the contract, so nobody can hold the building to it now.
The list below is grouped the way a building is actually worked: front of house first, then the vehicle and service areas that carry most of the complaints, then amenities and exterior. Score them separately. A building that passes on the lobby and fails on the garbage room has a routing problem, not a quality problem, and the fix is different.
Entrance, Lobby and Concierge
- Entry glass and door frames free of hand marks on both faces, including the push plate
- Entry mats lifted, underside and floor beneath cleaned, mats laid flat with no curled edge
- Lobby floor clean to the wall line and under seating, no mop splash on baseboards
- Directory board, buzzer panel and keypad wiped and legible
- Concierge or reception counter cleared, dusted, no product residue
- Lobby furniture, planters and ledges dusted, including undersides and legs
- Light fixtures and ceiling vents free of visible dust and cobwebs
- Posted notices current, bylaw and fire signage clean and unobstructed
Corridors, Stairwells and Elevators
- Corridor carpet vacuumed edge to edge, including against unit doors and along baseboards
- Unit door frames, numbers and hardware free of dust and marks
- Corridor walls spot-cleaned at handrail and cart height
- Elevator cab floor, tracks and door channels free of grit and debris
- Elevator interior panels, buttons and mirrors polished with no streaking at eye level
- Elevator lobby call buttons and surrounding wall clean
- Stairwell treads, nosings and landings swept, no debris in corners
- Stairwell handrails wiped full length, no dust on the underside
- Exit doors, panic hardware and thresholds clean and clear
Parkade and Vehicle Areas
- Parkade floor swept in drive lanes and stalls, no accumulated grit at the perimeter
- Oil and fluid spots addressed or logged with location for degreasing
- Parkade stairwell and elevator lobby cleaned to the same standard as the residential floors
- Drains clear of debris, trench grates seated and free of build-up
- Bike room floor swept, no cobwebs in racks or corners
- Storage locker corridors swept, no dumped items left unreported
- Loading bay and visitor stalls free of litter and cardboard
- Parkade signage, mirrors and lighting lenses wiped and readable
- Cobwebs cleared from pipes, sprinkler lines and overhead structure
Garbage, Recycling and Service Rooms
- Garbage room floor washed, no leachate pooling under bins
- Bin exteriors and lids wiped, bins returned to their marked positions
- Chute intake doors and surrounding wall cleaned on every floor served
- Recycling stream signage clean, correct and visible above each bin
- Overflow and improperly sorted material reported, not simply relocated
- No odour at the door line, floor drain flushed with clean water
- Cardboard flattened or staged as the contract requires
- Service room and janitor closet organised, chemicals labelled and lidded
- Mop sink clean, mop heads hung to dry, no standing dirty water
Amenity and Shared Rooms
- Gym floor cleaned, equipment touchpoints and screens wiped, wipe dispenser stocked
- Gym mirrors streak-free when checked at an angle, no chalk or hand marks
- Party or meeting room reset to its standard layout after use
- Guest suite and washroom cleaned to turnover standard, linens as contracted
- Mail and parcel room floor clear, no discarded packaging left overnight
- Amenity washrooms fully stocked, fixtures and floors to restroom standard
- Pool or spa deck surrounds swept and free of standing water where in scope
- Shared laundry lint traps cleared, machine tops and folding surfaces wiped
Exterior Common Property
- Entry approach, walkway and stair swept, no litter in landscape beds at the entry
- Exterior glass and entry canopy free of cobwebs and bird soiling
- Ash and butt receptacles emptied, surrounding pavement clear
- Patio, courtyard and amenity deck furniture wiped and set upright
- Exterior lighting lenses and address numbers clean and readable
- Garbage enclosure and gate area free of loose material
- Drains and catch basins at the entry clear of leaves and debris
General checks (site-wide)
- Service recorded with date, time and the name of the person on site
- Building damage, leaks, burned-out lighting and vandalism reported to the property manager the same visit
- Previous inspection deficiencies verified as fixed before new items are logged
- Access keys, fobs and codes accounted for at the end of the visit
- Equipment stored correctly and closets left secure
- No cleaning chemical left unattended in any common area
How often to inspect
| Daily | Lobby, entry glass, elevator cabs, garbage room floor, litter pick on the entry approach |
| Weekly | Full corridor vacuum, stairwells, amenity rooms, parkade stairwell and elevator lobbies, bin wash-down |
| Monthly | Parkade sweep, storage and bike room, high dusting, exterior furniture and enclosure detail |
| Quarterly | Corridor carpet extraction, light fixture and vent cleaning, drain flushing, full exterior common property detail |
What inspectors actually check in a strata
The parkade perimeter, not the drive lane
Pass: the grit line at the base of the walls and behind the wheel stops is gone, and the stall corners are as clean as the lane itself. Fail: a clean centre lane with a two-inch band of grit sitting against every wall. Most ride-on sweepers cut the lanes and never touch the perimeter, because the walk-behind pass along the wall takes an extra ten minutes the schedule usually doesn't have.
The garbage room at the door line
Pass: no odour standing in the doorway, no liquid under the bins, and the floor drain flushed clean. Fail: a room that looks fine but smells, which almost always means leachate dried under a bin, or the drain trap ran dry from evaporation. Move at least one bin before you score the room. A dry trap refills in under a minute with a jug of water, so there's no excuse for skipping it.
Corridor carpet against the unit doors
Pass: the vacuum line runs tight to the door and the baseboard on both sides of the corridor. Fail: a clean centre runner with a visible lint edge along the walls, worst right at the door thresholds. Vacuum heads track down the middle unless someone deliberately runs the edge tool, and edge attention is exactly what a five-minute-per- floor schedule cuts first.
Writing a strata scope that survives a council change
Most strata cleaning disputes are scope disputes wearing a quality costume. The contract says the parkade is swept, but not how often. It says amenity rooms are cleaned, but not whether that includes resetting the party room after a booking. Two years later a new council reads the same document and reaches a completely different conclusion about what is owed.
Fix it by writing a frequency next to every line, and by keeping the document the contractor is measured against identical to the document the inspector scores. If you are auditing an existing contractor rather than writing a new scope, the janitorial vendor audit scorecard covers the contract, staffing and compliance side that a cleaning checklist does not reach. If the decision has already been made, the switching cleaning companies checklist handles notice, access recovery and the first 90 days.
For a building where the interior resident path matters more than the back of house, say a concierge tower with a heavy amenity floor, use the condo common area cleaning checklist instead. It goes deeper on lobby finishes, elevator cabs, parcel rooms and amenity turnover, and lighter on parkade and exterior.
Common questions
What counts as common property for cleaning purposes?
Everything outside the unit doors that the strata corporation is responsible for. Lobby, corridors, stairwells, elevator cabs, parkade, bike and storage rooms, garbage and recycling rooms, amenity rooms, the exterior approach and entry all count. For the borderline cases, use one test: something a resident would complain to council about rather than fix themselves belongs on this checklist.
How often should strata common areas be cleaned?
For most mid-rise buildings, the lobby, entry glass, elevator cabs and garbage room are daily. Corridors, stairwells and amenity rooms are weekly. The parkade sweep, storage and bike rooms, and high dusting are monthly. Carpet extraction, light fixtures and full exterior detail are quarterly. Adjust upward for buildings with high turnover, ground-floor retail, or a busy amenity floor.
Who should inspect the cleaning: the council or the property manager?
The property manager, on a written cadence, with results going to council. Councils that inspect themselves end up with one volunteer walking the building at random times and scoring by mood. Put a dated record in front of council instead, with a photograph attached to every failure. Renewal decisions should run on that record, not on whoever complained loudest at the last meeting.
The parkade is filthy but the contractor says it is not in scope. What now?
Read the scope of work, not the proposal. Parkade sweeping is often priced as a periodic line, monthly, maybe quarterly, while residents judge it daily. If the scope doesn't name it, the contractor is technically right and the scope is the problem. Get a stated frequency written in, and price it properly instead of hoping it gets absorbed.
Do I need to give an email address to download the PDF?
No. The download is a direct link with no form. Print it, add your building name, and use it on your site.