Janitorial Cleaning ~ How often?

Has anyone thought about what the janitors actually do when they're there? Is it simple vacuuming and dusting or heavy cleaning every time? You say you don't get much use on weekends and many residents live there part time- how much does the clubhouse traffic increase during that time?

What do you mean by buddy system at the pool - do the users wipe down the area with disinfectant spray when they arrive and leave, put away equipment, etc.? Do ALL the users clean up after themselves or do the janitors find they have to do it every other day or week? Put another way, you might be able to get away with light housekeeping once a month and heavy cleaning every other month, increasing the frequency as you get more people in the community (e.g. during the summer).

If you're happy with the current quality of service, talk to the contractor and see what can be adjusted - if they don't want to negotiate, you can consider sending RFPs to other companies.

We have a clubhouse about the same size as yours, but ours is pretty heavily used. We have two offices, a ballroom (heavy use) with a kitchen (light use), a large card room (heavy use), a billiards room (light use) a fitness center (heavy use) and locker rooms for men and women that connect to the outside pool (very heavy use). Each locker room has a three stall shower and three toilet stalls. There are also separate bathrooms near the ballroom with two stalls in each.

We have another smaller clubhouse, similar in layout but lighter use.

We used to have a cleaner on site every day from 7am to 3pm. It was overkill. Now we have a cleaning service that sends two people three days a week. Once in a while we pay for extra services, like window cleaning or special clean up after an event.

The standard cleaning service includes vacuuming all carpets, mopping all hard surface floors, empty trash, fill up toilet paper and paper towel dispensers, wipe down the kitchen surfaces, clean all the bathrooms, including the shower stalls, and dust all the furniture and light fixtures.

The clubhouse is just as clean now as when we had someone full time and the cost is about the same. With the cleaning service, they provide all the cleaning supplies.

With our other person, we provided all the cleaning supplies, but they suddenly wanted $350 per week to wash the dirty cleaning cloths and mops, so I did them at home each week because we were stuck in a contract for that person and I wasn't about to pay them an additional penny. The contract was going to be ended anyway because our full-time person had a real attitude, but when the owner of her company accused me of stealing the microfiber cleaning cloths (that we owned and paid for) after washing them we terminated ASAP.

The only difference in the scope of work is the full-time person also wiped down the outdoor furniture by the pool every morning. Our handyman now does it a couple of times a week.

Not knowing any more particulars, does your landscaping company replenish dog waste bags and remove the used bags.

From what you mentioned, you likely need daily service for someone to clean, mop, vacuum the club house and to walk the grounds
picking up trash.

Our handyman makes $26 per hour. He's an independent contractor, but we did pay for his insurance so he could work for us. As a handyman, he's not required by the state to be licensed. He works 24 hours a week.

Our pool cleaning is done by a pool company. The only thing the handyman does at the pool area is empty the trash, wipe down the chairs, and hose off the pool deck.

This combo of part-time handyman/cleaning services seems to work great for us. We have tried other configuarations - full time janitor with a cleaning service once a month (cleaning wasn't great, paid a lot for a janitor who loved to wipe down the chairs but didn't do much else), full-time cleaning person (not enough to keep her busy full time).

"Real" janitorial companies in our area are much more expensive than companies that do residential/commercial (office) cleaning. We found the cleaning companies are happy to do the bathrooms.

Thank you for your response your ssituation is somewhat similar to ours. Just a few more questions if you don't mind when you get a chance
What is the size of your community. How many square feet is the ballroom. What is the combined annual cost for the cleaning company and the 24 hour handyman. How many days a week does he handyman work.
Thanking you in advance