Cleanliness is Key

It makes me happy when my house is clean.  This is not a common occurrence.  Perhaps I can blame part of that on the fact that I have four young children,  Nonetheless, on the rare occasions that all of us have picked up our items and the kitchen is clean and the floors are swept, the house feels really good.

It is similar with a commercial building.  At my family's building in Muskoka, we have a cleaning machine that mimics a zamboni at an ice rink.  It wets and scrubs the industrial floor to clean it and after a cleaning the warehouse floors come close to shining.  We try to clean the warehouse floor at least once a week.

We also pay for a cleaning lady to clean the common areas of the building, including the hallways and bathrooms, at least once a week to ensure that the office space remains free of dirt and tidy.  Our tenants appreciate working in a clean, organized building and most of the time we are proud of how the building looks.

In my view it is a good idea to always keep control of the cleaning for your building.  Some landlords farm that responsibility out to tenants, and that is fine as it relates to tenant's own areas but any areas that are common should be controlled by the landlord in my opinion.  It is the landlord's building and it is in the landlord's interest that the building always show as well as possible.  Cleaning is a relatively minor expense in the grand scheme of things but a clean building sends a clear message that a landlord cares about his or her property.

A clean work environment enhances everyone's enjoyment of the space.