Commercial Cleaning Checklist for Toronto Offices

• Service hours. After-hours cleaning keeps crews out of the way of staff and meetings, and is the usual arrangement for Toronto offices.
• Access and security. Who holds keys or fobs, how alarms are handled and how the crew signs in and out.
• Clear-desk policy. Cleaners should not move papers or devices, so decide what staff need to clear each evening.
• Supplies. Who provides paper products, hand soap and liners, and who reorders them.
• A contact. One named person at each side, with a simple way to report issues the same day.

Daily work keeps the office presentable and the high-touch areas hygienic. These are the tasks that staff and visitors notice first.

• Empty all waste and recycling bins and replace liners; take waste to the designated collection point.
• Vacuum carpet and mop or damp-clean hard floors in reception, corridors, meeting rooms and open-plan areas.
• Disinfect high-touch surfaces: door handles, light switches, lift buttons, reception counters, shared phones and meeting-room tables.
• Wipe down desks that have been cleared, without moving personal items.
• Clean and restock washrooms: toilets, urinals, basins, mirrors, floors, soap, paper towels and toilet paper.
• Clean the kitchen or kitchenette: counters, sink, microwave exterior, table tops and the coffee station.
• Spot-clean glass partitions, entrance doors and reception glass.
• Check the floor by the entrance during wet and snowy weather and keep mats and walk-off areas clear, since Toronto winters carry salt into every building.

Weekly work addresses the dust and build-up that daily cleaning does not reach. Schedule it on a fixed day so it does not slip.

• Dust horizontal surfaces: desks, shelving, filing cabinets, window sills, monitor stands and reception displays.
• Vacuum under desks and along edges and corners where the daily pass skips.
• Detail meeting rooms: chairs, table edges, whiteboards and the underside of tables where gum and spills collect.
• Clean the inside of the microwave and the outside of the refrigerator and dishwasher in the kitchen.
• Wipe down waste bins and recycling containers that have marks or odour.
• Clean interior glass, mirrors and glass partitions thoroughly, not just spot cleaning.
• Sanitise telephones, keyboards and shared equipment with products safe for electronics, and only where agreed with the office manager.

Monthly tasks protect the building’s surfaces and the office’s air quality. They are the work that separates a programme that looks good from one that stays good.

• Deep-clean carpet in high-traffic zones; extraction removes the embedded soil that vacuuming leaves behind.
• Machine-scrub and, where appropriate, buff hard floors in entrances, corridors and kitchens.
• Dust high ledges, light fittings, air vents, tops of cabinets and picture frames.
• Wipe baseboards, door frames, doors and walls where there are marks.
• Clean chair bases and, where applicable, spot-clean fabric upholstery.
• Descale taps and showerheads where hard water builds up, and detail grout in washrooms.
• Inspect and clean the inside of the refrigerator, or confirm the staff clean-out schedule.

Some work only needs doing a few times a year, which is exactly why it gets forgotten. Put it in the contract or the calendar so it happens.

• Exterior window cleaning, arranged with the building manager where access is through the landlord.
• Full carpet or upholstery cleaning for the whole space, timed to a quiet period.
• Floor stripping and refinishing for hard floors that have lost their protective finish.
• Cleaning of blinds, curtains and fabric partitions.
• Detailing of server or storage rooms, following any rules the IT team sets for access.
• A seasonal reset before the return from summer and after the holiday period, when workloads and visitors change.

Different parts of an office fail in different ways. Knowing where problems usually appear makes an inspection much faster.

• Reception: this is the first impression. Check glass, the desk surface, seating, flooring at the entrance and any plants or displays.
• Open-plan floor: look at the edges of carpet along walls, under desks and around printers, where dust settles.
• Meeting rooms: check table surfaces, chair arms, AV equipment exteriors and the bins, which are often missed after late meetings.
• Kitchen: the sink, tap, coffee machine and fridge handle carry most of the bacteria and most of the complaints.
• Washrooms: look at the base of toilets, behind doors, inside bins and at the dispensers. Shortages of supplies generate more complaints than dirt does.
• Corridors and stairwells: handrails, corners and scuff marks on walls are the tell-tale signs of a rushed clean.

A five-minute walk-through every week tells you more than any report. Use the same route every time and look low, high and at the edges, because that is where corners get cut.

1. Start at reception and look at the floor, glass and desk surface before anyone else arrives.
2. Check two washrooms at random, looking at the areas behind and beneath fixtures and at the supplies.
3. Run a finger along a ledge, a monitor stand and the top of a door frame to test the dusting.
4. Open a bin in the kitchen and a meeting-room bin to confirm they were emptied and relined.
5. Look along the skirting of a corridor and under a desk for missed vacuuming.
6. Note anything that fails, tell your contact the same day and check it again the next morning.

A contractor that welcomes this kind of scrutiny, and has its own supervisor carrying out inspections and recording them, is usually a contractor that has a system. One that resists it usually does not.

A checklist written for a generic office misses the conditions that shape cleaning in this city. Four are worth building into your scope from the start.

• Winter salt and slush. From late autumn to spring, salt tracked in from the street dulls hard floors and leaves white residue on carpet. Ask for entrance matting to be maintained, for entrance floors to be cleaned more often in winter, and for periodic carpet extraction to remove the salt that vacuuming leaves behind.
• Shared buildings. If your office sits in a managed tower, find out which areas the landlord’s crew handles, such as lobbies, lifts and common corridors, and which are yours. Gaps between the two services are a common source of complaints.
• Building rules. Many downtown towers restrict freight lift times, loading dock access and the hours contractors may work. Your cleaner should understand these before the first visit, not after the first fine.
• Seasonal occupancy. Offices that are quiet in summer and full in September benefit from a reset clean before staff return, including carpets, upholstery and kitchens.

Empty dispensers are the most common complaint in any office, and they are usually a coordination problem, not a cleaning one. Decide at the start who monitors and reorders consumables, and write it down.

• Hand soap, paper towels, toilet paper and bin liners in every washroom, checked on every visit.
• Kitchen items such as dish soap, sponges and paper towels, if they are included in the arrangement.
• A reporting route for low stock, so the office manager hears before staff do.
• Cleaning chemicals and equipment, which a professional contractor normally brings and maintains itself.

Turn the lists above into a written scope of work with the frequency against each item, and ask any contractor you are considering to respond to it line by line. Anything they exclude should be stated, not assumed. For a fuller look at what to ask, see our guide to choosing a janitorial contractor.

Offices differ in layout, occupancy and standards, and a generic list is only the starting point. A private consultation that begins with a walk through your space will always produce a more accurate scope than a template.