Strata Common Area Cleaning Melbourne.
Cleaning programs for the shared spaces in apartment, mixed-use and commercial strata: lobbies, lifts, stairwells, carparks and bin rooms. One account manager, after-hours crews, police-checked and fully insured, since 2015.
The common areas are the first thing residents judge.
In a strata building, the foyer, the lift and the stairwell are shared by everyone and owned by no one in particular. They are also the first thing a resident, a tenant or a prospective buyer sees. When they slip, the whole building feels neglected, and the complaints land on the owners corporation and the building manager.
Clean My Biz provides common-area cleaning for apartment, mixed-use and commercial strata across Melbourne. We work to a documented scope, on a schedule that suits the building, with one account manager who owns the relationship. We clean the shared areas only, not inside private lots. Where a building also wants caretaking and building management under the same contract, that combined scope is set out on our strata and body corporate services page.
The result is a building that presents well on every floor: clean glass at the entrance, a lift that does not smell, stairwells without cobwebs, and a bin room that is managed rather than endured.
Strata is not a niche in Melbourne. Strata Community Association (Vic), the industry's peak body, puts more than 1.8 million Victorians in strata communities, across apartment towers, mixed-use precincts and commercial developments. Every one of those buildings has shared spaces someone is accountable for keeping.
What's included.
A standard common-area program covers the four areas below. Your final scope is built around the building's size, amenities and traffic after a walkthrough.
Entrances, lobbies & foyers
- Glass entry doors, intercom panels and mailboxes
- Floors mopped or vacuumed, entry mats cleaned
- High-touch points: handrails, buttons, door hardware
- Reception and concierge desks where present
- Spot-clean of walls, skirtings and signage
Lifts & stairwells
- Lift floors, walls, mirrors and control panels
- Fire-stair and stairwell sweep and mop
- Handrail wipe-down through the full run
- Cobweb removal to landings and corners
- Light-fitting and vent dust on a cycle
Carparks & bin rooms
- Carpark sweep, ramp and bay-edge cleaning
- Bin-room wash-down and deodorise
- Bin-night presentation and area reset
- Pressure washing of entries and ramps on a cycle
- Drain and grate clearing where accessible
Amenities & deep cleans
- Shared gym, lounge, rooftop and BBQ areas
- Common-area bathrooms and parcel rooms
- Carpet steam cleaning and hard-floor care
- Internal and external common-area glass
- Pre-meeting presentation before AGMs and inspections
What owners corporations actually buy.
A cleaning contract in a strata building is more than a task list. Committees and managers are buying three things: a program that holds its standard between visits, a building that presents well at the moments that matter, and a provider who can scope the irregular work when the building needs it.
A program that holds
The complaints that surface in strata buildings are rarely exotic: bins out of step with council collection night, periodic floor work that quietly stops happening, a lobby that slips between visits. Our programs are built to a documented scope with named frequencies, so the standard is checkable week to week, with one crew assigned to a building rather than a rotating cast.
Presentation when it matters
Before an AGM, a building inspection or a sales campaign in the tower, the common areas carry the impression. We offer pre-meeting presentation cleans and can lift the standard ahead of dates a manager flags, because a committee's view of its cleaner is often formed in the foyer on a single evening.
The irregular work
Buildings coming out of their defect period, buildings coming off facade or remediation works, and upgrades to shared areas all leave construction dust and make-good cleaning that a routine program does not cover. We scope that work separately. Where it needs exterior or high-access work, we scope and deliver it through trusted access contractors we engage and manage, with one contract and one invoice.
How strata buildings buy cleaning.
The buyer in a strata building is the owners corporation itself. It is a legal entity in its own right, and service contracts such as cleaning are made with it, not with individual lot owners. Day to day, a professional owners corporation manager usually arranges quotes and coordinates the contract under delegated authority, and the committee approves the decision. In practice a cleaning provider answers to all three: the manager who runs the process, the committee that votes, and the residents whose complaints or satisfaction reach both.
Industry practice guides suggest much of this buying happens through quotes and preferred-supplier relationships rather than formal tenders, and describe terms of about twelve months that come up for review around the annual general meeting. That cycle makes the weeks before an AGM the worst possible time for a visible slip in the common areas.
For the manager, a useful quote is one that makes their duties easy to discharge: an itemised scope, named frequencies, a measurable standard, current insurance certificates, and plain exit terms. Since December 2021, Victorian managers have had a statutory duty to take reasonable steps to procure services at competitive prices and on competitive terms, so a quote a committee can compare line by line is worth more than a single number on a page.
The Owners Corporations Act, in plain language.
Common-area cleaning in Victoria sits inside a legal frame that committee members see the edges of but rarely have spelled out. The Owners Corporations Act 2006 (Vic) gives the owners corporation the duty to repair and maintain the common property: section 46 is why the foyer, the lifts and the bin room are the corporation's responsibility and not any one owner's.
Amendments in force since 1 December 2021 tightened how managers buy services on the corporation's behalf. A manager must act honestly and with due care, must take reasonable steps to procure goods and services at competitive prices and on competitive terms, and must disclose in writing to the chairperson, before a contract is entered, any commission, payment or other benefit they receive from anyone other than the corporation under a supply contract, and, before a contract is entered or as soon as possible afterwards where it was entered in an emergency, any beneficial relationship with a proposed supplier. Manager appointments themselves are capped at three years, and buildings above one hundred occupiable lots must have a professional manager unless the owners vote otherwise by special resolution.
For a committee reading a cleaning quote, the practical meaning is simple. An itemised, comparable quote gives the manager a clean like-for-like comparison to put in front of the committee. A written scope makes the standard enforceable rather than arguable. And a fair question for any provider a manager recommends is whether any benefit flows back to the manager, because if it does, the Act expects it to be disclosed in writing before signing.
This page is general information about procurement practice under the Owners Corporations Act 2006 (Vic) and is not legal advice; for advice about your own building, contracts and obligations, speak to a qualified adviser.
Priced per building, not per guess.
Strata pricing depends on the number of levels, the lift count, the amenities and how often the common areas need attention. We scope it on a walkthrough and quote a fixed monthly fee with the scope itemised, so the committee can see exactly what is covered. For context, the published market aggregator WhatsTheDamage puts Melbourne contract office cleaning broadly between $35 and $70 an hour including GST in 2026; a strata program is not quoted by the hour, and a fixed itemised fee is what lets a committee compare providers on the same basis.
Building size & levels
Number of floors, lifts and stairwells, total common-area footprint, and how much carpark and bin-room work is in scope.
Amenities & frequency
Shared gym, lounge or rooftop areas, common bathrooms, and whether the building needs daily, several-times-weekly or weekly attention.
A fixed, itemised fee
One monthly figure, scope itemised line by line, consumables transparent, no surprise levies. Quoted after a free site visit.
Strata cleaning, seven questions answered.
If your question isn't here, the full FAQ covers 28, or call 0433 173 504.
What does strata common-area cleaning include?
Do you work with owners corporations and building managers?
Are your cleaners police-checked and insured?
Can you clean around residents and after hours?
Do you handle periodic deep cleans as well as the regular program?
Who actually signs a strata cleaning contract?
Do you clean buildings during or after building works?
Three guides for committees and managers.
Written for the people who compare cleaning providers and answer for the result.
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