The parts of the building every resident walks through daily.
Entrance halls, stairwells, lifts, corridors and bin stores for apartment blocks, student accommodation and managed residential buildings. Scheduled rounds with a signed record of every visit, so a managing agent has an answer before a resident has a complaint — and turnaround cleans at changeover when the whole building empties at once.
Residents do not see the cleaner. They see the stairwell on a Sunday.
Communal cleaning is judged by a hundred people who never watch it happen, and reported to one person who has to answer for it. Three things in how we work exist for that person.
A signed record of every visit
Cleaners check in and out at the building with GPS-verified timestamps and work to a written round. When a resident says the block has not been cleaned in a fortnight, you have the dates rather than the argument.
A round that does not skip
A missed communal visit is visible to everyone in the building within a day. Absence is covered by relief cleaners we employ for that purpose, and full-time mobile supervisors walk the blocks in person.
Whole buildings turned around on a date
Student accommodation and short-let blocks empty and refill on fixed dates. We staff those weeks with extra teams and supervisors on site, room by room, against a deadline that cannot move — which is exactly what the clients below describe.
The specification, written for a block.
Every block has a round — which areas, which tasks, how often — agreed at the site visit and written down. This is the shape most blocks settle on.
The route every resident takes
- Entrance lobby, doors and glass presented
- Stairwells — treads, risers, handrails and landings
- Lifts — floors, walls, mirrors and buttons
- Corridors and landings vacuumed or mopped
- Touch points — door handles, push plates, entry panels, light switches
- Post areas and notice boards tidied and wiped
- Bin stores swept, bins pulled and returned where the contract includes it
- Litter pick of entrances, car park and external paths
The reset
- Internal glass, doors and partition glazing
- Skirting, ledges, sills and fire-door edges
- Lift tracks and thresholds detailed
- Light fittings and vents within reach dusted
- Bin store washed down
Scheduled or called off
- Changeover and end-of-tenancy turnarounds, room by room
- Carpet extraction on corridors and stairs
- Hard floor machine cleaning, stripping and sealing
- High level — light fittings, atria and ledges above reach
- External windows, signage and entrance canopy
- Post-refurbishment and builders cleans
Bin management, external windows and grounds litter picking can sit inside the same contract. Communal cleaning as a service → · every commercial service →
A round that residents can set their watch by.
Communal cleaning is a schedule more than a time of day. These are the patterns we run.
Weekly round
One visit a week covering the full route — the most common pattern for a small or medium block.
Fixed day, fixed roundTwice-weekly or daily
For larger blocks, student buildings and anywhere with high footfall or a bin store that will not wait a week.
Scaled to the buildingChangeover weeks
Extra teams and a supervisor on site for the days a student building or short-let block empties and refills — rooms, kitchens and communal areas to a handover standard.
Staffed to the dateReactive
A spill, a leak, a party — called off against the contract rather than argued about, and logged like every other visit.
By arrangementAccess, fob and key arrangements are set up during mobilisation and held under our procedures.
A twelve-flat conversion and a 300-bed student block are different contracts.
Both are communal cleaning. Neither is staffed, scheduled or priced the same way.
Purpose-built apartment blocks
Lobbies, lifts, several stairwells and a bin store, usually on a weekly round with a signed record for the managing agent.
Student accommodation
High footfall, shared kitchens and a changeover every summer. Weekly or daily rounds in term, and a staffed turnaround when the building empties.
Converted houses and small blocks
A shared hall, a staircase and a bin area. A short round on a fixed day, priced accordingly — small blocks are not a small priority.
Retirement and supported living
Communal lounges, dining rooms and corridors cleaned around residents' routines, by a team who stay the same.
Mixed-use buildings
Commercial floors below, flats above. One contract covering the office floors and the communal areas, on one invoice.
Short-let and serviced apartments
Turnaround cleans between guests plus the communal round, scheduled around check-in and check-out.
Apartment blocks are one of twelve sectors. See all twelve or go back to commercial cleaning as a whole.
Consumables, waste and windows should not be three more suppliers.
Buildings rarely need only cleaning. Two parts of the business exist so that the rest does not become four more contracts, four more invoices and four more people to chase.
Consumables, waste and the outside of the building
Managed on the same schedule as the clean and billed on the same invoice, so usage is tracked against what the building actually gets through rather than a standing order that arrives whether you need it or not.
- Washroom supplies
- Sanitary units
- Waste & recycling
- Confidential waste
- External windows
- Signage cleaning
Staff, when the building needs more than cleaners
The same recruitment, vetting and HR that puts our cleaning teams in place, used to staff the other roles a site runs on — employed by us, covered by us when someone is off.
- Reception & front of house
- Caretaking
- Kitchen & catering
- Security
None of it is compulsory. Plenty of contracts are cleaning and nothing else — but if you are currently managing four suppliers for one building, raise it at the site visit.
Four steps, and a price that comes from the building rather than a rate card.
Anyone who quotes without seeing the site is guessing at your hours. This is what happens instead.
Site visit
We walk the building with you — the areas, the hours you need covered, the standard you are working to, and the things the last contractor kept getting wrong.
Written proposal
A specification and a price, with the tasks and frequencies set out plainly. Insurance certificates and compliance documents come with it, not on request later.
Mobilisation
Team assigned and inducted on site, access and alarms arranged, RAMS written for the building, consumables and equipment set up. A start date, not a vague fortnight.
Supervision
Mobile supervisors audit against the specification, your named contact stays the same, and the schedule flexes as the building changes.
Sheffield first, and staffed locally everywhere else.
We are registered and based in Sheffield and most of our contracts are here. Further afield, a contract is staffed with a team recruited near the building and supervised on a regional route — distance is a logistics question, not an obstacle.
Yorkshire
- Sheffield
- Barnsley
- Rotherham
- Doncaster
- Leeds
- Huddersfield
- Wakefield
- Bradford
- York
Derbyshire
- Chesterfield
- Derby
- Dronfield
- Buxton
Greater Manchester
- Manchester
- Stockport
- Oldham
- Salford
- Bolton
- Bury
- Wigan
Nottinghamshire
- Nottingham
- Mansfield
- Worksop
Lincolnshire
- Lincoln
- Scunthorpe
Somewhere between those towns? Ask — the honest answer depends on whether we can recruit a reliable team within sensible travel of your site. See every location we work in →
What managing agents and accommodation managers say.
These are from clients who run residential and student buildings — the sector this page is about.
“I contacted Hugo and the team to conduct the room cleans at a 103 bed student accommodation. As we work to very strict deadlines with tenancy end dates and new tenancies beginning Hugo immediately ensured me that they would be able to complete the work in the time-frame mentioned - they did not disappoint. They acted in a professional manner from beginning to end, supervisors coming in after the cleans had taken place to ensure it was up to a standard they could be proud of. NowThen offered us a very competitive price which we were happy to accept, but once you see the finished product it is worth every single penny.”
Student Accommodation Manager
“We were recommended and introduced to Hugo and Now Then Cleaners by one of our existing tenants. Most cleaning companies cannot accommodate our demanding & time critical cleaning requirements, however Hugo was extremely professional, and covered everything we required, gave us a clear & concise quote & delivered exactly what was promised within the timescale to a very high standard.”
Student Accommodation Agent
“Provided a great friendly service, with clear communication throughout. I highly recommend this company. Hugo and Faye were amazing throughout a week long process from start to finish!”
Student Accommodation Manager
“NowThen conducted several end of tenancy cleans for my student properties in Sheffield. Punctual (in fact routinely being there 20 mins before needed, to ensure the job started on time), polite, friendly, professional, and the standard of their work was exceptional. My standards are very high and I often find that the cleaning companies don’t hit the mark, this was not the case with NowThen, their final cleans in my properties were so good that I struggled to find one single miss.”
Crash Pads
The questions managing agents ask.
Q.01How do I know the block has actually been cleaned?
Cleaners check in and out at the building with GPS-verified timestamps and work to a written round, so every visit has a date, a time and a task list behind it. When a resident says otherwise, you have the record.
Q.02How often should a block be cleaned?
It depends on the number of flats, the footfall and the bin store. Small blocks usually settle on a weekly round; larger blocks and student buildings on twice-weekly or daily. We recommend a frequency at the site visit and it can change as the building does.
Q.03Can you turn a whole building around at changeover?
Yes — it is a large part of what we do for student accommodation. Extra teams and a supervisor on site for the changeover days, rooms and kitchens cleaned to a handover standard against a fixed date, and the communal round alongside. The reviews above are from clients who have had exactly that.
Q.04Do you manage bins and bin stores?
Bin stores are swept and washed down as part of the round, and pulling bins out and returning them on collection day can be written into the contract. Bulky waste and fly-tipping can be arranged as a call-off.
Q.05How do you handle fobs, keys and access?
Set up during mobilisation and held under our keyholding procedures. Cleaners have what they need to get in, the record shows when they did, and the arrangements are reviewed if the building changes.
Q.06What if a resident complains?
They tell you, you tell us, and a supervisor goes to look — with the visit record in hand. Where something was missed it is put right; where it was not, you have the evidence to say so. Either way it is answered rather than absorbed.
Q.07How is communal cleaning priced?
From a site visit, against a written round with the hours stated. A twelve-flat conversion and a three-stairwell block with a lift are not the same number. Cleaners check in and out with GPS-verified timestamps, so the hours invoiced are the hours worked.
Q.08Which areas do you cover?
Sheffield first, then Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Greater Manchester, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire — 25 towns and cities. See the full list →
Something not covered? Email hello@nowthencleaners.co.uk or call 0114 212 7030 — the office is reachable seven days a week.
Show us the block. The round is written at the site visit.
Half an hour on site, a written specification, a price with the hours stated — and a start date rather than a vague fortnight.