Common Area Cleaning Checklist for Strata and Commercial Properties

Common area cleaning is one of those responsibilities that sounds simple until you actually try to define it. Lobbies, hallways, elevators, stairwells, parkades, amenity rooms, the list of shared spaces in a strata or commercial building adds up fast, and it’s easy for something to fall through the cracks if there’s no clear checklist guiding what gets cleaned, how often, and by whom. Whether you’re on a strata council or managing a commercial property, having a written checklist makes it much easier to hold a cleaning contractor accountable, and it gives you something concrete to compare against when service starts slipping.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What counts as common area cleaning
• A practical daily, weekly, and monthly checklist
• Areas that get overlooked most often
• Who’s responsible for what under BC’s Strata Property Act
• How to use this checklist with your cleaning contractor

What Counts as Common Area Cleaning

Common area cleaning covers any shared space in a building that isn’t inside an individual unit or tenant space. That includes lobbies and entryways, hallways and stairwells, elevators and elevator lobbies, mailrooms, amenity spaces like gyms or party rooms, parkades, and exterior walkways. In a commercial building, it also extends to shared washrooms, break rooms, and reception areas depending on the lease structure.

The scope matters because it defines what your janitorial contract should actually be covering, and where the line falls between shared responsibility and individual unit or tenant responsibility.

A Practical Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Checklist

A reasonable common area cleaning checklist breaks down roughly like this:

• Daily: entryway and lobby floors, garbage and recycling areas, elevator interiors, high-touch surfaces like door handles and elevator buttons
• Weekly: stairwells, hallway floors and baseboards, mailroom surfaces, amenity room cleaning
• Monthly: light fixture dusting, window and glass cleaning in common areas, deeper floor care like buffing or scrubbing
• Seasonal: power washing of exterior walkways and entrances, parkade power scrubbing, gutter and exterior light checks

Buildings with higher foot traffic, or ground-floor retail in a mixed-use property, usually need the daily and weekly items handled more frequently than this baseline suggests.

Areas That Get Overlooked Most Often

A few spots consistently get missed on informal cleaning routines: elevator door tracks, where grit and debris accumulate and can eventually affect the door mechanism, the tops of light fixtures and door frames, garbage and recycling rooms, which need more than a quick sweep given how quickly odor builds up, and parkade stairwells, which see heavy use but are often out of sight and out of mind. A written checklist forces these areas onto the schedule instead of leaving them to whoever happens to notice, which is often nobody until a resident or tenant complains.

Who’s Responsible for What Under BC’s Strata Property Act

For strata properties specifically, the Province of BC’s guidance on repair duties notes that strata corporations must maintain and repair common property and assets, including building envelopes, parkades, landscaping, and shared utilities, while individual owners are typically responsible for what’s inside their own strata lot. Limited common property, like balconies or parking stalls assigned to a specific unit, can fall into a gray area depending on your bylaws, so it’s worth confirming exactly where those lines sit before assuming your janitorial contract covers everything.

Commercial properties work a bit differently, since responsibility is usually spelled out in individual lease agreements rather than provincial legislation, but the same principle applies: shared spaces need a clearly assigned owner, and a written checklist helps make sure nothing falls into an ambiguous middle ground.

How to Use This Checklist With Your Cleaning Contractor

The most useful thing you can do with a checklist like this is turn it into part of your service agreement, not just an internal reference. Ask your contractor to confirm which items they’re covering and at what frequency, and request documentation, like photo reporting, so you can verify the work is actually happening rather than just assuming it is.

At EcoPlanet Property Services, common area cleaning is built into our janitorial, parkade, and power washing programs for strata and commercial properties across Greater Vancouver, with a documented schedule and photo reporting through our app so councils and property owners always know what’s been done. You can see more on our strata building services and commercial cleaning services pages, or contact us to build a checklist tailored to your property.