Getting the keys to a new unit is the start of a mess, not the end of one. The landlord's contractor may have cleaned the base building, but then your fit-out trades arrive, fixtures and furniture come in on pallets, the IT gets installed, and every one of them leaves dust, packaging and footprints behind. The clean that counts is the last one before you open. Here's how to plan it, with a checklist for stores and one for offices.
Know what you're taking over
Find out what the landlord's handover includes. Some units are delivered cleaned; others come as they are. Walk the space with the landlord or manager at handover and photograph its condition: floors, glass, washrooms, ceiling tiles. If your own fit-out is substantial, the cleaning that matters happens after it, so don't pay to clean the space properly before the trades are done.
Book cleaning around three moments
- When the fit-out trades finish: the main clean.Construction dust off every surface, the glass, washrooms, the staff room or kitchen, and the floors. It's the biggest job on the list. It's the same work as a post-construction final clean.
- When fixtures, furniture and stock have arrived: a second pass. Cardboard, plastic film, foam and the dust that comes out of crates, plus fingerprints on everything that was carried in.
- The day before opening: the touch-up. The entrance, the glass, the washrooms and the floor your first customers or clients will walk on.
Leave room between them. If the shelving installer is still drilling the afternoon before you open, the touch-up has nothing to hold on to. Contractors working on larger projects split construction cleaning into stages of their own; rough, final and touch-up cleans explains how those fit around a build.
Checklist: retail units
- Storefront glass and the door, inside and out at street level, with protective film and stickers off.
- Shelving, fixtures and display cases dusted inside and out before stock goes in.
- Fitting rooms: mirrors, benches, hooks and floors.
- The checkout counter, with its high-touch surfaces disinfected.
- Customer and staff washrooms cleaned and ready to stock.
- The stockroom swept, so new stock isn't unpacked onto construction dust.
- An entrance mat down before the first customer, not after the first snow.
- The sales floor, last, once everything else is done.
Checklist: offices
- Desks and storage dusted after assembly, inside the drawers too.
- Kitchen or breakroom: cabinets, counters, sink and appliances, before anyone uses them.
- Washrooms cleaned and ready to stock.
- Glass partitions and meeting-room walls, which carry every fingerprint from installation.
- Reception, where clients will stand on day one.
- New carpet vacuumed thoroughly. It holds more construction dust than it shows.
Easy to miss
- Tops of door frames, high shelves and light fixtures.
- Inside cabinets and drawers, before they're filled.
- Vent covers and window sills. Fine construction dust keeps settling for days after the work stops.
- The staff entrance and garbage area, which you'll use every day from now on.
After you open
Opening week is busy, and the cleaning plan for after it tends to wait until something looks dirty. Set up routine cleaning before you open, so the first visit happens in week one rather than week four. For a store, retail cleaning before open or after close is built around trading hours. For an office, a janitorial schedule does the same around your staff. Opening between November and April? Plan for winter at the door with entrance mats and a salt-season routine. Commercial cleaning in Calgary lists everything we do for new and existing tenants.