Stairwell cleaning in Munich

Steps and handrail

Wooden staircases in period buildings are the second special case. Waxed or oiled steps may only be worked on with a barely damp cloth, because standing water runs into the joint between tread and riser and swells the timber there – the creaking everyone complains about later starts exactly that way. Sealed timber tolerates a little more, but no abrasives. Where the seal on the nosing has already worn through, we report it to the property manager instead of continuing to mop over it.

The handrail is the most frequently touched surface in the building and is still often treated in passing. A handrail across five storeys costs roughly as much time as two landings. Wooden handrails collect skin oils that plain water does not lift; on metal balustrades, dust settles on the upper faces of the horizontal rails and where the balusters meet them, out of sight from below. Handrail and balusters therefore appear as their own item in the service plan.

Entrance and lift

In the entrance area, the barrier matting decides what happens everywhere else. Matting that is too short releases dirt only on the second or third flight, where nobody expects it. The bell panel, letterbox fronts and door handles are included; stainless steel is wiped damp and then dried off, otherwise you are left with precisely the streaks nobody noticed before. We do not touch post. Leaflets left lying around are disposed of only if the property manager has expressly authorised it.

With the lift, the lower door sill track is the point that actually matters. Grit, sand and small objects collect there, and that is exactly where doors snag – one of the most common causes of fault reports in a housing complex. We vacuum out the track and clean the car floor, mirror and control panel. We do not work on the mechanism itself: shaft doors stay closed, panelling stays shut, and any spray goes onto the cloth, never onto the control panel.

Ancillary areas and winter

Basement stairways and ancillary areas are surprisingly often left out of the schedule, although they collect the most. The laundry room, bicycle store and the route to the bin room carry coarse dirt back upstairs. We do not clear away anything stored there – you cannot tell from the outside who owns an object. If something visibly blocks an escape route, we report it to the property manager with the date and location. That decision is made there, not by the cleaners.

Between November and March the work changes, not the contract. Grit has to be picked up dry first; spreading it wet sands down the step nosings. Road salt leaves white rims on natural stone and terrazzo that must be lifted with clean water – mop over them with a maintenance product and you seal them in, leaving the mark visible until spring. Many buildings switch to a shorter interval for these months. Snow clearing and gritting itself is not part of our offer.

Resolution and record

Who sets the schedule is usually laid down in the house rules or the declaration of division. In many Munich buildings, cleaning still rests with the residents; awarding it to a service provider then requires a resolution of the owners’ meeting and a matching apportionment. From that point the contract partner is the property manager, not the individual owner. For each building we need a named contact, the list of entrances and a statement of which areas are expressly excluded.

The record is kept not because of complaints but because of the vote: since we invoice hours actually worked rather than a flat rate, every line of the annual statement has to be traceable to a single appointment – otherwise the cost item cannot be defended in the meeting.

Access and keys

Access and keys are settled in writing before the first appointment. Often a separate fob is needed for each entrance, the basement runs on a different lock, and the front door belongs to a master key system in which one lost key quickly becomes expensive. Who holds which key is documented. If we look after several entrances at one address under one contract, the €18 travel charge applies once per working day – not per person and not per entrance. No VAT is charged, in accordance with § 19 of the German VAT Act.