Oftentimes, the look and feel of a community significantly impact a person’s decision to buy a house in the neighborhood. Neighborhoods with community associations often have a better look and feel.
Buyers often appreciate that the association helps with certain aspects of a neighborhood. Many neighborhoods come with perks like parks and other common areas for the whole neighborhood to enjoy.
However, these beautiful parks and other common areas can become negative if they are not well maintained.
Keep reading for some helpful tips for maintaining your association’s common areas.
What is a Common Area?
A common area for an association is any area that the community association owns and maintains. It usually does not include individual properties, but it sometimes includes an entrance, pocket parks, and adjacent areas like sidewalks, fences, and lighting.
In addition, some associations may have other common areas like clubhouses, swimming pools, or playgrounds that require care. No matter the size or scope of your common areas, keeping them clean and safe for all residents is vital.
Who is Responsible for Cleaning Common Areas?
The responsibility for cleaning common areas is typically the association. The details of this should be laid out in the association’s governing documents. Ultimately, the board of directors is responsible to make sure the maintenance happens in an appropriate way, hiring high-quality vendors, and developing detailed specifications.
How to Maintain Common Areas
These are some of the more common things your association can do to ensure that your neighborhood looks its best.
Pressure Washing
Pressure washing does wonders when it comes to community cleanup. You can clean the sidewalks, the exterior of buildings, the pool deck, and more with a single investment. Many companies offer pressure washing services at a reasonable cost.
Storm Clean Up
Cleaning up after a storm is essential to the community's safety and to prevent further damage. This includes clearing storm debris from roads and properties, removing hanging branches, and clearing debris from drains, so water doesn't back up in the street. Don’t wait until a storm hits, make arrangements for this before the bad weather.
Landscaping
Common areas should be monitored for weeds and plant overgrowth and kept to the same standards as individual properties.
Clean the Pool
If your community has a pool, it will need to be cleaned regularly to prevent the drains from clogging and organic debris from breaking down. In addition, check pool chemicals regularly to ensure the pool's safety for your community. Keeping surrounding trees trimmed will help prevent costly cleaning bills.
Clean Interior Buildings
Community buildings like clubhouses are likely to get dirty even if people pick up after themselves because they are used so much.
These buildings should be cleaned regularly, including sweeping, mopping, window washing, and other surface cleanings.
A regular cleaning/janitorial service is important but consider requiring guests that reserve the clubhouse or pavilion to pay a one-time cleaning fee to a vendor of your choice so they know the requirements.
Why Invest in the Care of Common Areas?
There is no way around the fact that maintaining your common areas is an investment, whether that is time or money. Investing in the common areas of your association makes everyone take pride in where they live, so they will, in turn, do their part to keep your neighborhood cleaner.
Cleaner common areas will also attract more people to buy houses in your neighborhood and eventually raise home values. Lastly, well-maintained common areas are safer and help mitigate the potential for injury lawsuits.
If your association is looking to level up the look of your common area then contact us for a proposal.
Staff Writer
Sandra Vela Mora
Jennifer Harvey
