Property Management Office Spring Cleaning

Use sanitizing wipes on every shared surface — desks, keyboards, mice, phone handsets, armrests. Pay extra attention to the leasing-office reception phone and any kiosks tenants touch during walk-ins.

Use a dry or lightly dampened microfiber cloth — never paper towels or window cleaner directly on the screen. Coated displays scratch easily.

Pull a list of closed tenant files where move-out is past your state's retention window (commonly 3-7 years). Attach the audit list before purging — the purge log is itself a record you may need to produce later.

FCRA-covered screening reports (TransUnion SmartMove, RentPrep, Experian RentBureau) must be securely destroyed once retention expires. Cross-cut shred or use a NAID-certified shred vendor — do not toss in regular recycling.

Spot-check tenant files for every pre-1978 property. The federal disclosure form must be in the file, signed before lease execution. Missing disclosures trigger per-violation HUD/EPA penalties — fix them now, not after a complaint.

Walk every hook in the key cabinet against the current rent roll. Missing master or unit keys are a liability exposure — a prior tenant with a retained key is the kind of fact pattern plaintiffs' attorneys love.

Dispatch the locksmith or in-house maintenance to rekey or replace the cylinder on each affected unit. Update the cabinet, the property management software, and any lockbox codes.

Pull general liability and workers comp certificates for every active plumber, electrician, HVAC tech, painter, and cleaner. Flag any expiring within 60 days. Confirm each names the property as additional insured — a vendor's COI without that endorsement leaves the manager exposed.

Email each vendor with the expiration date and the additional-insured endorsement language. Hold incoming work orders for any vendor whose certificate lapses before the renewal lands.

Run a vinegar cycle through the coffee maker; wipe out grounds from hidden trays and the drip area. Microwave: damp cloth after a 2-minute lemon-water steam loosens cooked-on splatter.

Run Windows Update or macOS Software Update on every staff workstation. Tenant data and FCRA-covered screening reports live on these machines — unpatched endpoints are a breach waiting to happen.

Pull a fresh export of rent roll, owner statements, and tenant ledgers from AppFolio, Buildium, Yardi, or whatever PMS you run. Save to encrypted offsite storage. Attach the export confirmation here as the audit trail.

Route tenant maintenance requests, owner statements queries, and vendor invoice traffic into separate folders. A clean inbox at the firm level is the difference between a same-day work-order response and a four-day-old tenant complaint.

Old draft leases in shared folders get accidentally sent to applicants — usually with the wrong rent or out-of-date disclosures. Purge anything not tied to an active applicant; final executed leases live in the PMS, not the shared drive.