Strata councils and property managers deal with a specific cleaning problem: shared spaces, shared budgets, and residents or tenants who notice immediately when something's off. A vague cleaning contract is a liability in this setting — it invites disputes about scope and leaves no one accountable when standards slip. Here's what a strata cleaning contract should actually cover.
What Strata Cleaning Covers
Strata cleaning is focused on shared and common-area spaces rather than individual units. That typically includes lobbies and entrances, hallways and corridors, elevators, stairwells, shared laundry rooms, mailroom areas, and common washrooms where applicable. It also often extends to garbage and recycling rooms, parkade common areas, and amenity spaces like party rooms or fitness rooms if the building has them. A good contract lists every one of these spaces individually rather than lumping them into a vague "common areas" line item — that specificity is what prevents disputes later.
Frequency That Matches Actual Use
Not every space in a building needs the same frequency. Lobbies and elevators see constant traffic and typically need daily attention. Stairwells and parkade common areas can often run on a less frequent cycle. Garbage rooms need frequent attention regardless of overall traffic, simply because of what accumulates there. A strata contract should break frequency down by space, not apply one blanket schedule to the whole building — and it should account for seasonal changes, since winter salt and grit hit lobbies and entrances hardest.
Common Areas Residents Actually Judge You On
Strata boards get complaints about specific things: sticky elevator buttons, dirty stairwell handrails, a lobby floor that looks fine until you look closely, a garbage room that smells by Thursday. These are the details residents notice and the details that generate calls to the property manager. A properly scoped contract addresses these specifically rather than trusting a general cleaning visit to catch them.
Accountability: The Part Most Contracts Skip
This is where a lot of strata cleaning arrangements fall apart. Without a documented scope, when a resident complains, there's no way to check whether the contracted work was actually done, or whether the complaint falls outside scope entirely. A proper strata cleaning contract includes a written scope of work with specific tasks and frequencies per space, a way to verify visits happened — check-in/check-out logs or photo documentation — and a clear point of contact for when something is missed, so the property manager isn't the one fielding every resident complaint personally.
What to Look for in a Provider
- A written scope, not a verbal agreement — every space, task, and frequency documented before service starts.
- Proof of insurance and WCB compliance — standard paperwork any strata board or property manager should require, and any legitimate provider should have ready.
- Supervisor oversight — someone checking the crew's work, not just the crew reporting on themselves.
- A responsive point of contact — someone who answers when an issue comes up, not a call centre that takes messages.
- Documented follow-up — a record of issues raised and how they were resolved, useful when the strata council reviews the contract at renewal.
A provider that can't offer these basics on request is a provider you'll be managing constantly instead of one you can rely on.
How ShiftClean Handles Strata Contracts
We build every strata contract around a documented, space-by-space scope of work — lobbies, corridors, elevators, stairwells, and amenity areas each get their own tasks and frequency, adjusted for Winnipeg's seasons. Crews check in with a site-specific checklist, a supervisor inspects the results, and issues get logged and resolved rather than left for the next board meeting. You get one accountable local contact, not a rotating service line.
If your current strata cleaning contract doesn't spell out this level of detail, that's worth raising before the next renewal. We're happy to walk a building and show a strata council exactly what a properly scoped contract looks like.