Unfortunately, utility services are not always provided with high quality, and who else but lawyers would know about this, because the practice is quite large and quite a few people come in with problems related to utility services, and I want to tell you, the situations in some cases are simply sad, but even the most complex problems it can always be solved. In this article I will tell you what to do, namely, where to go if your entrance is not cleaned and the garbage is still lying on the floor, and besides, there is more of it and the entrance is dirtier. You will learn how to deal with this problem and where to turn.
Cleanliness requirements
Requirements for the cleanliness of common property are regulated at the Government level. The rules for maintaining housing and a list of steps to keep it clean are listed in Resolution No. 290 (last amended June 29, 2020).
The document contains a list of works (see paragraph 23) that need to be performed to maintain cleanliness:
- Wipe window grilles, handrails, window sills, correspondence boxes, doorways, meter cabinets.
- Clean corridors, elevators, stairs and interfloor areas.
- Carry out disinsection and deratization.
- Wash windows with water.
The frequency of cleaning is approved by Decree of the State Construction Committee No. 170 (clause 3. 2. 7.). Every five days, management companies must perform the following steps:
- Removing dust from floors, radiators, window sills.
- Washing the floor covering.
At least a couple of times in 12 months. Walls must be cleaned of dust. Wipe all surfaces at least once.
Regional authorities may apply internal standards for cleaning frequency . The approved frequency and list of maintenance work for common property can be seen in the agreement with the management company.
Cleaning standards at the entrance
The first thing you need to start with is checking the powers and responsibilities of the management company in accordance with the terms of the agreement signed with it. This document specifies what exactly is being removed and on what schedule.
Moreover, these conditions must comply with the requirements of the above resolution and GOST 51617-2000. The latter determines the volume of housing and communal services.
In accordance with these regulations, the following should be cleaned and cleaned daily:
- garbage collection chambers;
- the area located near the waste collection chamber;
- elevator cabins at the entrance;
- staircases and landings on the first and second floors.
These places require not only physical removal of debris, but also wet cleaning, which is also carried out daily. Other areas of common property are cleaned less frequently, namely:
- Weekly – area near the entrance;
- Twice a week – staircases and flights, starting from the third floor and above;
- Once every two weeks - complete wet washing of staircases and flights;
- Once every six months - wet cleaning of heating systems, window sills, walls, lampshades and doors;
- Once a year - glass on the windows of the stairwells.
This decree regulates the condition of the entrance and common property (windows, vents, ventilation shafts, etc.). A complaint to the Criminal Code about cleaning the entrance must be based on violations of the provisions of these regulations. Often, residents have their own point of view on the frequency and quality of cleaning, which is in no way confirmed either by these legal acts or by the agreement with the management company.
Who is responsible?
PP No. 290 states that the responsibility rests with legal entities that monitor the property by agreement with the owners.
In reality, the following organizations can clean staircases:
- developer;
- Management company, HOA or housing and communal services (the type of organization depends on the established form of management of the facility);
- cleaning companies hired by utilities.
The exact name of the legal entity obligated to keep the entrances clean can be found in the following documents:
- Agreement with the management company.
- A decision made by the owners at a meeting.
- Charter of the cooperative, comrade.
- Developer's decision.
You can find managers behind the house on the website dominfo.ru. A register of all housing service organizations is published on the portal.
What you can find out on dominfo.ru:
- what is the official name of the legal entity;
- what address is the office located at?
- how to contact representatives of the management company;
- what employees of the organization write in reports on the work done;
- what decisions were made at the meetings.
The information will be useful when preparing complaints. You can identify the organization responsible for cleanliness using a utility bill receipt.
How should the entrance be cleaned and with what frequency?
There is another equally interesting document: Order of the State Construction Committee dated August 22, 2000. No. 191 and we will refer to Appendix 3 of this order, which states how often the entrance should be cleaned, and most importantly, how it should be done and with what frequency.
So, let's begin:
- Wet sweeping of staircases and flights of the lower three floors should be carried out daily;
- The same wet sweeping but above the third floor should be carried out at least 3 times a week;
- Washing the staircase landings of the entire entrance, no matter the first three floors and subsequent ones, should be carried out 2 times a month.
There is also a whole list of responsibilities of the management organization that no one fulfills in most houses and this is sad, but in some situations people look and say, at least they sweep and wash the floors and thank you for that.
Where can I complain about the management company if it doesn’t fulfill its duties?
I advise you to read the Order of the State Construction Committee dated August 22, 2000. No. 191, you will learn a lot of interesting things and just be surprised how ideal everything should really be and what is ultimately completed from this list of works, I promise that you will be extremely surprised and maybe even shocked at some points.
What to do if the management organization does not fulfill its duties and does not clean the entrance?
There is no need to remain silent here and you need to write a complaint to your management company, or if you don’t want to go to the nearest reception of your management organization, then you need to call and complain verbally.
If you call the management organization by phone, then your complaint must be registered in the log of complaints and appeals and your appeal must be assigned a number. When the dispatcher picks up the phone, ask him to introduce himself, then explain the situation and ask to register your complaint, then ask for the number of your complaint under which it is registered in the log, write down this data and indicate the date, this information will be useful to you in case your complaint will not respond and you will have at least some real information confirming the fact of your appeal and thereby you will confirm the fact of inaction of the management organization, and this is already a violation of the Code of Administrative Offenses and the management organization will be fined after an inspection.
But it is best to submit a written complaint, for this we write the complaint in 2 copies, it is best if the complaint is collective with the signatures of the residents. In the complaint, in a businesslike form, we state the essence of the problem and refer to the paragraphs of the documents that I mentioned above, then we demand that we begin to comply with the requirements of the law and begin cleaning on a regular basis, we put a date and signature. We go to the nearest office of your management organization, for example, it is located 500 meters from the house and file a complaint. We give both copies of the complaint to the person authorized to receive incoming appeals; your copy must be marked with acceptance, since the managing organization is a legal entity, then ask for a stamp and date of acceptance. They have a maximum of 3 days to respond to your complaint. Take your marked copy and keep it.
Usually management organizations comply with the requirements and clean up, but if the situation repeats and the cleaning was sporadic and only because of a complaint, then you can file another complaint, but there is a supervisory body “State Housing Inspectorate”, which deals with problems with violations of housing legislation and checks management companies, we will complain to the housing inspectorate if the situation with lack of cleaning continues.
The process of writing a complaint is exactly the same as a complaint to the management organization, the essence of the problem, we put links to laws, collect signatures of other residents. The complaint is drawn up in 2 copies, in the header we indicate to whom and from whom, we also indicate information on how to contact you and your address where the violation occurs.
You can submit a complaint through the website or prepare it on paper, come to the housing inspectorate and submit both copies, one of them must be marked with acceptance and the date of acceptance and the copy with the marks must be given to you.
By law, the housing inspection has 30 days to give you an answer and conduct an investigation into the complaint. If violations are identified, the management organization will have to be held accountable under Article 7.22 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation and issued an order to eliminate the violation.
My advice to you is to write complaints until the management organization begins to fulfill its duties as it should. If everything is sad, then you always have the opportunity to change the management organization to another.
Video on the topic:
If you have any questions, you can always ask our housing lawyer and get advice, we also always have an online lawyer on our website, you can also ask him any questions.
About the author:
Babkin Mikhail . You can consult with Mikhail on the issue of protecting consumer rights, since for more than 5 years he has specialized exclusively in protecting the rights of citizens in the field of consumer rights in housing and communal services, return of goods, and poor-quality services. She also practices family law and housing issues. In 2012 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Law Academy.
Where to call, contact?
You need to contact the legal entities responsible for the situation, following the hierarchy.
Management of the management company
The appeal must be sent to the administration of the management company responsible for housing maintenance. The message must mention violations committed by the legal entity.
The message should mention that if there is no response, residents plan to send complaints to higher institutions.
Rospotrebnadzor
Employees of the authority must, on duty, supervise the management company. Rospotrebnadzor officials have the authority to solve such problems.
You can send a letter to the organization on the Rospotrebnadzor portal , through the “State Services” service. There is also a number by which officials receive requests (8-800-10-000-04).
You can call him at work. days from 10:00 to 17:00 (Moscow time). The telephone is unavailable between 12:00 and 12:45. Calls from the Russian Federation are accepted free of charge.
Housing Inspection (GZHI)
The organization is entrusted with the tasks of supervising the management company. You can send a complaint to the institution in three simple ways:
- On the Internet through the GIS Housing and Public Utilities portal, the website of the regional State Housing Institution (see in the search engine or 2GIS application).
- By mail to the address of the regional office of the State Housing Institute. You can clarify the recipient’s details on the inspection website, in the 2GIS help service.
- By phone. Contacts for communication are published in the 2GIS and Yandex.Maps applications.
You can also complain in person. The procedure, opening hours and address of meetings between representatives of the Civil Housing Inspectorate and citizens are published on the websites of regional authorities.
Application procedure
If they don’t clean the entrance, where can I complain? First of all, the application should be sent to the management company servicing your home. There is a better chance that the problem will be resolved if you unite with your neighbors and write a collective complaint. But, if no one except you is bothered by the fact that the entrance is not cleaned, try sending a complaint on your behalf.
The management company may not admit its guilt, but in any case, the application must be considered in the manner prescribed by law - 30 working days .
Within two hours (or at a convenient time for the applicant), the management company must send a commission to check the quality and timeliness of all work on cleaning the entrance. If an employee of the management company does not come, then the residents have the right to draw up an act on their own (the signatures of two owners and the building manager are sufficient).
Consideration of the application
A sample act will help you draw up the paper correctly. It is advisable to attach photographs of uncleaned areas with the date and time of shooting.
If for any reason the application is rejected or not considered, you should contact the state housing supervision authorities with a statement of administrative violation.
Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 493 dated June 11, 2013 approved the “Regulations on State Housing Supervision”, according to which the identification of administrative offenses in the field of housing is carried out by the authorized body - the state housing supervision. It is better to submit the complaint to him in person so that the paper is registered.
In accordance with Article 28.4 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, the prosecutor's office has the right to initiate proceedings for any administrative offense.
If the cleanliness of the entrance is no longer maintained after inspection by state supervision authorities, do not wait for their next visit, take action immediately. influence the management company (homeowners' association, housing department) and force them to eliminate violations within 45 days :
- Rospotrebnadzor, which respond to requests for low-quality services;
- Sanitary and Epidemiological Supervision - you should contact it if there is such dirt and stench in the entrances that it threatens the health of the residents.
Important! Before contacting, try to record the condition of the entrance - photographs and videos will be an excellent help when filing complaints.
How to prepare a complaint about poor cleaning?
The easiest way is to write an appeal in electronic format. The required fields will appear automatically when creating a letter. Organizations will not accept anonymous letters in electronic format (Clause 5, Article 18 of Federal Law No. 8).
When sending a letter, you must provide the following information:
- FULL NAME.,
- telephone,
- address.
There will be no response if the request has already been considered.
Letters to any institution must be clearly formulated. It is also necessary to indicate the laws that were violated and the date the message was sent.
The basis of cleaning
The frequency of cleaning staircases, as well as the entire house as a whole, is clearly regulated. And it is carried out according to the established procedure:
- Daily cleaning includes entry-level wet cleaning. If there is an elevator, as well as waste disposal areas, cleaning is also carried out.
- The cleaning lady's weekly duty includes wet cleaning of all floors.
- Every month or annually, it all depends on the agreement between the residents and the company, a general cleaning of the area is carried out. It includes washing window openings, window sills, mailboxes, electrical panels, railings, and lampshades.
Cleaning of entryways and stairwells may vary. This depends on many indicators. However, basic cleaning standards remain the same. All responsibilities are specified in the contract document. The frequency of cleaning in the form of a schedule is posted in a publicly accessible place.
Dry
To maintain sanitation and remove litter, dry cleaning is carried out daily. Most often, cleaning of this type includes sweeping stairwells and removing garbage. If elevators are provided, they are cleaned daily.
Wet
Cleaning of staircases is carried out according to the established schedule. And it is accompanied by sweeping with a damp broom to remove dirt from the surface. Wiping dust from window sills, cleaning window openings, shields and other surfaces is carried out annually, during general cleaning. Similarly, at the same time, walls, windows, radiators are washed. Cleaning of entrances complies with regulations, but in each specific case, residents themselves set and negotiate a convenient time period for cleaning.
Maintaining sanitation
Cleaning of entrances must be carried out in compliance with sanitary standards. In public spaces, infections spread much faster. The main threat comes from touching railings, elevator buttons, and handles. Therefore, all surfaces must be treated with special detergents. The elevator is cleaned daily, except on holidays and weekends. When carrying out cleaning activities, it is necessary to ventilate the entrance by opening the windows.
Elevator cleaning
The standards for cleaning staircases in residential buildings are clearly stated. These areas are cleaned according to a specific schedule. But how does this process happen when there is an elevator, because this is also a public place and the load on it is much greater, especially in high-rise buildings? The elevator is cleaned daily, the floor and buttons of the cabin are wiped. Every couple of months, a general process is carried out, which includes wiping down the walls, light fixtures and doors.
