Looking after your estates

We’re committed to providing our residents with safe, comfortable and well-maintained homes. But that’s not where it stops for us. Because we know that when you step out of your front door, you also want to see that the building you live in, and the surrounding estate, are well looked after. That’s where our environmental services team comes in.

Our environmental services team provides cleaning and grounds maintenance services across many of our estates. Where we don’t have teams based locally, we employ specialist contractors to deliver services on our behalf. If your block is maintained by an external contractor, the frequency of service may differ from the information listed below.

To see who provides the service in your block, please check your block noticeboard or email us at ask@onehousing.co.uk.

What does the environmental services team do?

From cutting the lawn to cleaning floors, from picking up litter to getting rid of graffiti, our specialist team is out and about in all weathers making sure our estates are kept clean and tidy.

Here you can find out exactly what the team does and how often they do it.

Weekly
  • Thorough clean of staircases, landings and lobby areas (includes dusting, cleaning floors, wiping inside of windows, windowsills, walls, handrails, bannisters, skirting boards, light fittings, entrance doors)
  • Clean ground floor windows, inside and out
  • Clean communal doors and lobby fire door surrounds
  • Sweep kerbs and parking bays
  • Check light bulbs and report if replacements are needed
  • Check and report any new repair issues
  • Litter-pick all communal areas, inside and out
  • Sweep refuse areas
  • Remove or report bulk rubbish
Twice weekly
  • Put bins back in store areas after being emptied by local council
  • Disinfect lids and inside bins
Fortnightly
  • Clean bin store doors, inside and out
  • Clean light fittings
Monthly
  • Spot clean carpeted areas and check if deep cleaning needed on stairways
  • Clean staircase edging
  • Sweep/power blow underground car parks
6-weekly

Scrub and mop external corridors and balcony walkways

Quarterly
  • Clear any leaf or litter build-up around drain areas
  • Clean communal windows inside, where accessible
Spot checks
  • Sweep front door areas and steps
  • Litter-pick around communal entrances and outside areas, including car parks
  • Clean communal front door glass
  • Sweep and mop any hard flooring in communal lobbies and lift areas
  • Remove weeds from front garden beds surrounding the entrance
  • Clean lift floors and doors (internally and externally)
  • General tidy of bin stores, including rotating bins where necessary
  • Report any bulk/fly tipped items

How does your garden grow?

Looking after our green spaces and communal gardens is another important part of the team’s work. Here are details of their gardening tasks and how often they carry them out.

Every visit
  • Report or deal with any dead/diseased plants or health and safety issues in all garden areas
Fortnightly (year-round)
  • Complete litter-pick of all lawns, beds and walkways
Fortnightly (March – October)
  • Mow lawns and remove grass clippings
  • Remove weeds
Monthly
  • Trim shrubs (according to season and type)
  • Sweep/use leaf blower on pathways and car parks
Quarterly
  • Apply weed killer to hard surfaces and paths (carried out by gardeners with relevant qualification – PA1/PA6)
As required
  • Weed and feed lawns and, where necessary, treat mossy areas.

This isn’t all they do, though. Our teams aren’t ones for walking by. When they see something that needs dealing with, they’re on it. It might be litter that needs picking up, chewing gum that needs removing, dirty marks on doors, walls or windows that need cleaning, faulty lights that need replacing – all those things that you will take care of inside your home to keep it looking nice, they make sure they're sorted out outside.

Everyone has a part to play

Of course, it’s everyone’s responsibility to do their bit to maintain pleasant and safe surroundings, and to help achieve that we ask all our residents to make sure you:

  • put all rubbish in the correct containers, bin chutes and/or bin stores
  • don’t leave belongings or rubbish in communal areas, including landings and corridors
  • don’t drop litter and clean up any mess or spillages
  • make sure all fire and security doors are closed
  • don’t let dogs foul any outside areas, including gardens and pathways, and pick up any dog mess
  • don’t fly-tip (you can arrange removal of any bulk waste with your local council – this is usually a free service)
  • let us know if you spot something that needs to be dealt with!

Join our estate inspection walkabouts

We also carry out monthly walkabouts around our estates to keep an eye out for any cleaning, repairs, grounds maintenance and health and safety issues that need to be addressed. We encourage you to join us - it’s really helpful when residents point things out that might have been missed. The inspections take around an hour and you don’t need to commit to coming every month – just when you have some time spare and it’s convenient for you.

To find out when walkabouts are scheduled on your estate, please just give us a call on 0300 123 9966 or email us at ask@onehousing.co.uk.

Need noticeboard information translated?

If you need the information on your block noticeboard in a different language, please email ask@onehousing.co.uk and we’ll send you copies of the posters for you to translate using your translation app of choice.

If something’s not right, please let us know

Despite our best intentions, there may be times when we aren’t aware of an issue that needs to be dealt with. Or maybe the level of cleaning isn’t up to standard. Please do let us know if you see something that needs to be addressed, or to let us know if we need to improve the way we deliver our environmental services.

You can get in touch by calling on 0300 123 9966 or emailing us at ask@onehousing.co.uk.