What does a building caretaker actually do?

Most strata councils hire a caretaker after something goes wrong — a flooded parkade nobody noticed for two days, or a volunteer treasurer who has quietly been taking the bins out for three years and has had enough. It is worth knowing what the role actually covers before you write the scope, because "caretaker" means different things to different contractors.

Here is what a properly scoped caretaking agreement looks like in a Lower Mainland strata building.

Daily or per-visit: the round

The core of the job is a consistent walk of the building. Not a glance from the lobby — a route that covers the places problems start:

• Lobby, entries and mail area — glass, mats, lighting, anything left behind.
• Corridors and stairwells on every floor, including the ones nobody uses.
• Parkade levels, ramps and the drains at the bottom of them.
• Garbage and recycling rooms, chute rooms, and the bin staging area.
• Amenity rooms, gym and lounge spaces, checked and reset.
• Mechanical and electrical rooms — a look at the panels, not a service call.

The value is not the walk itself. It is that the same person walks it often enough to notice when something has changed: a door closer that has started slamming, a damp patch that was dry last week, a light that has been out for days.

Weekly: the work that keeps the building presentable

• Bins and waste: rotation for collection day, overflow managed, bulky items staged rather than abandoned in the loading bay.
• Minor repairs: bulbs and ballasts, filters, door closers and hinges, hose bibs, patching and touch-ups — the handyman-level work that otherwise waits weeks for a call-out.
• Entry and ground presentation: sweeping and spot-washing entries, clearing debris, flagging landscaping problems.
• Trade and delivery access: letting contractors in, supervising work in common property, booking the elevator for moves.
• Reporting: a written record of what was done and what is outstanding, so the council has something concrete at the next meeting.

Seasonal: the work that has a deadline

Lower Mainland buildings run on a weather calendar, and the seasonal items are the ones that cost real money when they are missed:

• Autumn: gutters and downspouts cleared, drains and catch basins checked before the heavy rain — a blocked basin is how a parkade floods.
• Winter: snow clearing, salting and de-icing of entries, walkways and ramps, on a response schedule rather than when somebody calls.
• Spring: a post-winter walk of hard surfaces, drainage and exterior damage, and bed and grounds clean-up.
• Summer: keeping entries and common areas presentable through the dry months, irrigation checks, exterior washing scheduled.

What a caretaker is not

Three distinctions save a lot of argument later:

• A caretaker is not a strata manager. Strata management is a licensed role covering the corporation's finances, AGMs, bylaws and insurance. A caretaker does none of that.
• A caretaker is not a licensed trade. Fire alarm and sprinkler servicing, elevator work and most electrical and gas work require certified technicians. A good caretaker identifies the fault and briefs the trade; they do not perform the work.
• A caretaker is not automatically a building manager. A building manager does everything above plus coordination — supervising trades, overseeing contracts and projects, and acting as the day-to-day contact for residents. Larger buildings usually need that; mid-size ones often do not.

Full-time, part-time, or relief

Most councils assume caretaking means a full-time onsite position and stop there on cost. In practice, part-time and scheduled visits — two or three mornings a week — are the most common arrangement we run for mid-size strata, at a fraction of the cost of a full-time post. Relief coverage for a resident caretaker on vacation or sick leave is the other common call.

The part most councils do not think to ask about

Almost everything in a building put up in the last twenty years runs off a controller: boiler and make-up air units, parkade gates, enterphones, fob readers, irrigation, common-area lighting, EV chargers, leak detection. A caretaker who was never trained on any of it responds to every fault by booking a service call — including the faults that were a schedule drifting after a power cut, or a controller needing a reset.

Ask any caretaker you are interviewing what they do when the enterphone directory is wrong or a fob will not program. The answer tells you what you are buying.

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