Communal Area Cleaning for Blocks of Flats in Waterlooville: What It Covers and What It Costs

This guide is for freeholders, residents' management companies, right to manage directors and managing agents with blocks of flats in Waterlooville, Cowplain, Purbrook and Horndean. It covers what to put in a cleaning spec, what it costs per flat, and two rules that catch people out: service charge consultation and fire safety in the common parts. The prices come from the pricing model behind every quote we send.

What does communal area cleaning cover in a block of flats?

It covers the parts of the building every resident shares and nobody owns: the entrance hall, stairs, landings, corridors, lift, bin store and any communal glass. Inside the flats is the residents' business. So are balconies and private gardens. The roof, gutters and outside windows above the ground floor need specialist access and sit outside a cleaning contract.

A weekly spec for a typical block looks like this:

• Entrance: door glass both sides, the mat lifted and vacuumed underneath, post boxes and the door entry panel wiped.
• Stairs, landings and corridors: vacuumed or swept and mopped, with handrails and banisters wiped top to bottom.
• Touchpoints: door handles, push plates, light switches and lift buttons.
• Lift: floor, walls, mirror and the door tracks, where grit collects and stops the doors closing cleanly.
• Bin store: loose rubbish picked up, the floor swept, and bins lined up for collection day.
• Rotating jobs: skirting boards, high cobwebs, light fittings, window sills and radiators, one area each week.

How often should the communal areas of a block be cleaned?

Once a week for most blocks. A small block with six flats can look fine for a fortnight, but bin stores and entrance mats don't wait that long, and residents notice the entrance before anything else. Big blocks with heavy footfall, a lift and a busy bin store may need two visits a week.

Match the visit to the bin collection, not the other way round. A visit the morning after collection day means the bin store is cleaned when it's empty. A visit the day before means the cleaner spends half the time working around full bins.

What does communal area cleaning in Waterlooville cost?

On our guide prices, one visit a week for a small or mid-sized block costs £69, including travel and products. That's because the common parts of most blocks take under 2 hours to clean and every visit is booked for at least 2 hours. Split across the flats, the cost drops quickly as the block gets bigger.

The six and twelve-flat blocks cost the same per visit because both are under the 2-hour minimum. Don't treat that as wasted time. The 6-flat block needs about 30 min of routine cleaning, which leaves over an hour a week for the rotating jobs in the list above. Done one area a week, skirting boards, sills and light fittings get cleaned every month instead of once a year.

The 40-flat block is the other way round. It needs over 2 hours, so it costs more per visit, but each flat pays the least. If you manage two small blocks on the same street, ask for one visit that covers both: one booking, one travel cost, and less per flat.

Does a cleaning contract need section 20 consultation?

It can. In England, a contract that runs for more than 12 months is a qualifying long-term agreement under section 20ZA of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. If any leaseholder's share of its cost would be more than £100 a year, the landlord has to consult leaseholders before signing. Skip it, and unless a tribunal agrees to waive the rules, the landlord can recover only £100 a year from each leaseholder.

The £100 figure is in regulation 4 of the Service Charges (Consultation Requirements) (England) Regulations 2003. In the table above, the cheapest share is £120 a flat a year, so every example passes it. In practice that means:

• A contract for 12 months or less isn't a qualifying long-term agreement. One that runs for a year and then rolls on can be, so read the term before you sign.
• A two or three-year contract almost always needs consultation first, unless the block is very large.
• A one-off job, such as a deep clean of the common parts, is a different test: qualifying works, with a £250 threshold per leaseholder.

This is a summary, not legal advice. If your lease or your managing agent says something different, check before you sign, and ask the cleaning company for a contract length that fits how you consult.

What has fire safety got to do with the cleaner?

The cleaner is the one person in the common parts every week, so they see the problems first. The government guide to making your small block of flats safe from fire says the common parts should be kept clear of combustible materials and storage, with a zero-tolerance approach to residents storing belongings or dumping rubbish there.

The same guide says electricity meter cupboards and riser cupboards should be kept free of combustible materials and waste, that bins should be kept clear of the block or in a secure store, and that escape routes should be checked monthly and kept clear at all times. Three things to agree with your cleaner:

1. What they do when they find a bike, a pram or bags of rubbish on a landing: leave it and report it, with the location, to whoever manages the block.
2. That no cleaning kit or products are left in the meter cupboard or under the stairs between visits.
3. That fire doors on the stairs are closed behind them, not wedged open while they mop.

The responsible person for fire safety stays the same, usually the freeholder or managing agent. A cleaner's report doesn't replace your own monthly check or the fire risk assessment, but it means you hear about a blocked stair in days, not at the next inspection.

How we clean communal areas in Waterlooville

We're based in Waterlooville, so blocks in Cowplain, Purbrook and Horndean are close to home. Our communal cleaning covers hallways, stairwells, landings, bin stores, entrance doors and touchpoints, and communal glass where it can be reached. We work for landlords, managing agents and freeholders, not individual residents, on a fixed schedule agreed on the walkthrough.

Every job starts with a free walkthrough of the block. Within 48 hours you get a written spec and a fixed price. Every cleaner is DBS-checked, and we aim to keep the same person on your block. Each visit is logged with a date and time in the client portal, so when a resident says the stairs haven't been done, you can check instead of guessing.