Pristine common areas.
Happy residents.

A strata cleaning scope of works is a written list of every common-area task and how often it happens. It is the document that prevents arguments later, because it defines exactly what the owners corporation is buying. A weak scope reads “clean common areas”; a usable one names the lobby, each stairwell, both lifts, level B1 and B2 of the car park, the bin room and the garden path, and puts a frequency next to each.

Core recurring tasks generally include vacuuming or mopping lobby and corridor floors, spot-cleaning walls and entry glass, wiping lift buttons, handrails, intercom panels and door handles, cleaning lift door tracks, sweeping entry steps, and clearing rubbish and mail clutter from letterbox areas.

Periodic tasks sit on a longer cycle: car park sweeping and scrubbing, internal and external window cleaning, pressure washing of entries and bin areas, carpet extraction in corridors, high-level cobweb removal and light diffuser cleaning. Separating these from the recurring service keeps the levy predictable while still funding the work that protects the building.

Most of the value in a strata contract comes from the scheduled visit — the same tasks on the same days, so residents notice consistency rather than a single deep clean. Predictable scheduling also lets the building manager plan around it, sequencing bin day, gardening and contractor works so the building is not cleaned an hour before a delivery marks up the lobby.

Reactive work is the other half. Broken glass in the car park, a spill in a lift, a burst bin bag in a chute or graffiti on an entry wall all need an out-of-cycle response. It is worth agreeing up front how reactive callouts are requested, who is authorised to request them, and how they are charged. That is where strata cleaning budgets usually blow out.

Buildings with high turnover — short-stay lots, student accommodation or a large proportion of rentals — should expect more reactive work than an owner-occupied block, and should budget for it rather than treating each callout as a surprise.

A proper quote starts with a site walk, not a phone call. We look at the entry, every stairwell and lift, each car park level, the bin room and any shared amenity, then measure the common floor area and count the touchpoints that need frequent attention. That produces an hours-per-visit figure, and the price is built on those hours.

The cost drivers are labour hours, visit frequency, access constraints and periodic extras. A basement car park that needs a ride-on sweeper, or a bin room that needs pressure washing rather than mopping, changes the equipment and therefore the price. Restricted access windows — no noise before 7am, no lift bookings on weekends — also change how the hours are built.

We do not publish a fixed rate for strata work, because two buildings with the same number of lots can differ threefold in cleaning hours. Ask any contractor to show the hours behind the number, then compare like for like. A free, no-obligation quote from Sydney Clean Group sets that out in writing for the committee.

Three parties usually sit between the cleaner and the residents. The strata manager administers the owners corporation, handles the paperwork and processes the invoices. The strata committee makes the decision and carries the residents' expectations. An on-site building manager, where one exists, directs the day-to-day work.

Clear lines matter. If every resident can direct the cleaner, the scope drifts and the invoice follows. The workable arrangement is a single point of instruction — normally the building manager or the committee's nominated contact — with anything outside the agreed scope quoted before it happens.

Handover between strata managers is the other pressure point. When a building changes managing agents, the written scope and service schedule are what survive the transition. Keep a copy with the committee, not only with the agent.

More strata complaints trace back to waste than to any other common area. Bin rooms concentrate odour, liquid, pests and noise in one poorly ventilated space, and a room that is only dry-swept will smell within days no matter how often the bins are emptied.

Effective bin room work means hosing or scrubbing the floor rather than sweeping it, deodorising, wiping down chute hoppers and the walls around them, and keeping the walkway clear so residents are not stepping over bags. Where the building has a chute, the chute itself needs periodic cleaning on its own cycle — that is specialist work and belongs in the scope as a named line item.

Bin presentation and return on collection day is a separate task again. It has to match the actual council collection calendar for the street, and it is worth agreeing in advance who is responsible when a public holiday shifts the collection.

Ask for the scope in writing with a frequency against every task, and check whether the items you care about — lift tracks, bin room floor, car park levels, entry glass — are actually named. A quote that lists only “common areas” cannot be compared against anything.

Confirm public liability insurance and workers compensation, ask how staff are inducted to your building's access and work health and safety requirements, and check whether the same cleaner attends each visit. Continuity is what produces consistency in a strata building; a rotating roster rarely learns the quirks of a particular basement or bin room.

Finally, check what happens when something goes wrong. How is a missed visit reported and made good, and who answers the phone on a Saturday? Sydney Clean Group works with owners corporations and building managers across Greater Sydney on exactly these terms — call 02 9139 8401 to walk through your building's scope.