Weekly tasks are the ones that don’t generate complaints within a day, but do within a fortnight. They’re also the first things dropped when a cleaner is quietly working fewer hours than quoted, which makes this list a useful audit tool.
The weekly list
Floors
- Full carpet vacuum including edges, corners and under desks
- Hard floors mopped in full, including under furniture where accessible
- Carpet spot treatment on any visible marks
- Entry matting lifted, floor beneath cleaned
Detail dusting
- Skirting boards throughout
- Door frames and tops of doors
- Window sills and ledges
- Tops of filing cabinets and low shelving
- Picture frames and wall art
- Monitor bases and desk edges
Glass
- Internal glass and partitions
- Meeting room glass
- Door glass
- Mirrors given a full clean rather than a spot check
Kitchen
- Bins washed out, not just re-lined
- Cupboard fronts and handles wiped
- Dishwasher seal and filter checked
- Fridge exterior including top
- Behind the kettle and toaster
Bathrooms
- Tiles and grout scrubbed
- Partitions cleaned both sides including feet
- Descale tapware if hard water
- Sanitary bin service (or per contract)
- Extractor grille checked
Furniture
- Chair bases, castors and gas lifts wiped
- Upholstered chair arms wiped
- Sofa cushions lifted and vacuumed underneath
Common areas
- Stairwell floors and handrails
- Corridor skirtings
- Waste and recycling store cleaned
- Exterior entry swept, cobwebs cleared
Why weekly, not daily
These tasks have a slow accumulation curve. Skirting board dust is invisible for four or five days, then suddenly visible. Carpet edges collect gradually. Internal glass gets fingerprints steadily.
Doing them daily wastes labour. Doing them monthly means they’re visibly bad for three weeks out of four.
Why weekly, not monthly
The mistake in the other direction. Push skirtings and edges to monthly and the office reads as tired even though the bathrooms and kitchen are spotless. It’s the classic "the place is clean but it doesn’t feel clean" complaint, and it’s almost always this list being skipped.
Using this as an audit
Walk the building on the day before the weekly clean is due and check:
- Run a finger along a skirting board in an area away from the door
- Look at carpet edges where the wall meets the floor
- Check under a desk in the middle of the floor plate
- Look at internal glass at seated eye level
- Lift a sofa cushion
- Look at the top of a door frame
If those are consistently poor, the weekly tasks aren’t happening, regardless of what the contract says. That’s a specific, evidenced conversation to have with your provider, rather than a vague complaint about standards.
Where the record helps
The reason weekly tasks quietly disappear is that nobody checks them weekly. They’re not on anyone’s radar until the accumulation becomes visible, by which point months have passed.
A per-task record makes the gap obvious immediately: if "skirtings dusted" has been marked not-completed for six weeks running, that’s visible the first time you look rather than the first time you notice the dust.