Apartment & Multi-Unit Cleaning in Minneapolis & St. Paul
Lobbies, corridors, elevators, laundry and fitness rooms cleaned on a fixed weekly rhythm — plus make-ready cleans that put a vacated unit back on the market the next morning.
KLY cleans apartment and condo buildings across Minneapolis, St. Paul and the surrounding metro at $55 per hour per cleaner. Property managers use us two ways: a recurring common-area route through lobbies, hallways and amenity rooms, and unit turnovers between tenants, both billed hourly with no per-door markup.
What property managers call us about
- Entry glass and lobby floors that look acceptable on Monday and embarrass you at a Thursday showing.
- A turnover that slips a day and costs a week of rent because cleaning could not be booked on the move-out date.
- Trash rooms and chute areas nobody wants to own, right up until an inspection notices them.
- Vendors who cannot satisfy a management company’s insurance requirements and stall a building onboarding for weeks.
- Invoices priced per door, so a studio and a three-bedroom cost the same regardless of the work involved.
Common areas are a landlord obligation under Minnesota law
Minnesota Statutes section 504B.161 writes three covenants into every residential lease in the state: the landlord keeps the premises fit for the use intended, keeps them in reasonable repair, and maintains them in compliance with applicable health and safety codes. Common areas are part of the premises, which is exactly why corridor floors, entry mats and stairwells turn up on inspection reports.
Cities layer their own rules on top. Minneapolis licenses rental property in tiers, and a building’s inspection history decides which tier it sits in; St. Paul inspects multifamily buildings on a recurring certificate-of-occupancy cycle through its Department of Safety and Inspections. Neither inspector grades a hallway on how new it is — only on whether it is clean and in repair.
A weekly common-area route is the cheapest protection against both. We walk the same path every visit — entry, lobby, mail area, elevator cab and door tracks, corridors, stairwells, laundry and fitness rooms, trash room — and flag anything that needs maintenance rather than cleaning.
Turnovers: what a make-ready clean actually includes
A turnover is a deep clean on a deadline. Everything a resident touched for two years comes off: appliance interiors, cabinet interiors and faces, closet shelving, window sills and tracks, switch plates, door frames, base trim, bathroom fixtures and the inside of every drawer.
We book turnovers by the cleaner-hour rather than by the door. A well-kept one-bedroom is usually two cleaners for two hours; a unit left rough after a long tenancy can take twice that. You approve the estimate first, and you get a call if what we find on site changes it.
Timing matters more than price on a make-ready, so we hold capacity in the first and last three days of the month, when Twin Cities leases actually turn. Give us the move-out date and we schedule against it instead of against our own calendar. Every unit carries the same 24-hour re-clean guarantee we give homeowners: if your inspector flags something, the crew returns the next day at no charge.
Pricing a building: hourly beats per-door
Per-door pricing pays a vendor to rush the units that need the most attention. Hourly pricing does the opposite — we are paid for the time a unit genuinely takes, so a hard-used studio is never subsidised by an easy three-bedroom down the hall.
For common areas, a mid-size property of roughly 40 to 60 units with one elevator, a laundry room and a small fitness room typically runs two cleaners for two to three hours per weekly visit, or $220 to $330. Buildings with several entrances, a community room or a pool deck scale up from there.
Insurance and access are settled before the first visit: general liability, workers’ compensation, a bond, a certificate naming your management company, and a written key or fob log. Our cleaners are background-checked W-2 employees, which is usually the real question behind a vendor packet before anyone hands over a master fob.
The common-area route, room by room
Entry, Lobby & Mail Area
- Entry glass, door frames and push plates cleaned inside and out
- Entry mats vacuumed, lifted, and the floor beneath them washed
- Lobby seating, side tables and package shelving wiped
- Mailbox fronts, parcel lockers and directory panels dusted
- Hard floors dust-mopped and damp-mopped to the edges
Corridors, Stairwells & Elevators
- Corridor floors vacuumed wall to wall, unit thresholds included
- Elevator cab walls, handrails and button panels disinfected
- Elevator door tracks cleared of grit and wiped dry
- Stair treads, risers and handrails cleaned on every level
- Corridor light fixtures, signage and exit lights dusted
Amenity & Service Rooms
- Laundry machines wiped down, lint traps cleared, floor mopped
- Fitness equipment frames, handles and mats disinfected
- Community room tables, chairs and counters cleaned and reset
- Trash and recycling room floors washed, bins and chute doors wiped
- Mirrors, glass panels and interior windows spot-cleaned
Vacant Unit Turnover
- Appliance interiors — oven, refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave
- Cabinets and drawers cleaned inside and out, liners removed
- Bathroom fixtures, surrounds and exhaust vents descaled
- Window sills, tracks and interior glass cleaned
- Base trim, door frames, switch plates and closet shelving wiped
Recurring common-area route versus a unit turnover
The two ways Twin Cities property managers book KLY, side by side
| Aspect | Common-area route | Unit turnover |
|---|---|---|
| Typical schedule | The same day and time every week | Booked against the move-out date |
| Crew size | One or two cleaners on a fixed path | Two cleaners, occasionally three for a large unit |
| Usual duration | Two to three hours for a 40–60 unit building | Two to five hours depending on the tenancy |
| What you get | A clean route plus a note on maintenance items | A unit ready to show, re-cleaned free within 24 hours if flagged |
| Billing | $55 per cleaner-hour, invoiced monthly | $55 per cleaner-hour, invoiced per unit |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Why commercial clients choose KLY
- Built for a portfolio. One point of contact covers every building you manage, on a single monthly invoice with hours broken out per property.
- Fob and key discipline. Access devices are signed out to a named W-2 employee and logged back in at the end of every route.
- Vendor paperwork returned fast. Certificates of insurance, the W-9 and your onboarding forms come back the same week you send them.
- Month-end capacity held back. We reserve turnover slots for the first and last days of each month, when leases in this metro actually change hands.
- Free re-clean within 24 hours. If your walk-through flags anything in a unit we finished, a crew returns the next day at no cost to you.
Buildings we serve across the metro
Most of our multi-unit work sits in Minneapolis and St. Paul, where the stock runs from 1920s walk-ups in Uptown and Cathedral Hill to new elevator buildings along the Green Line. Bloomington and Burnsville add large garden-style complexes; Eagan, Edina, Woodbury and Plymouth bring newer mid-rise properties; Maple Grove and Eden Prairie round out the north-west and west. We quote buildings anywhere inside our 51-city service area.
Apartment & Multi-Unit Cleaning — common questions
Do you clean apartment common areas on a weekly contract?
Yes. A fixed weekly route is our most common multi-unit arrangement: same crew, same day, same path through lobby, corridors, elevator, stairwells, laundry and trash rooms. Bi-weekly and several-times-a-week schedules cost the same per hour.
How do you price a unit turnover?
By the hour at $55 per cleaner rather than a flat fee per door. A well-kept one-bedroom is normally two cleaners for two hours; a unit left rough after a long tenancy can run twice that. You approve the estimate first.
Can you meet our management company’s insurance requirements?
Yes. KLY is bonded and carries general liability and workers’ compensation, and issues certificates naming your management company as additional insured. Send the vendor packet and we return it, with the W-9, inside the same week.
How do your cleaners get into the building?
However your property prefers: a fob or key signed out to a named employee, a lockbox code, or a meeting with your caretaker. Access devices are logged out and back in each visit, and every crew member is a background-checked employee.
Do you handle move-out cleans for individual residents too?
Yes. Residents book move-out cleaning at the same $55 hourly rate, and many do because a documented clean protects the damage deposit. Managers can also fold it into the turnover invoice for the building.
Which multi-unit tasks fall outside your scope?
We do not do exterior power washing, snow or ice removal, or floor stripping and waxing, and we do not work above ladder height. Interior common areas, amenity rooms and unit turnovers are all in scope.