One team for the workplace and the home
Residential and Commercial Cleaning, Including House Cleaning in Melbourne
Golden Star is a commercial cleaner first, but many of our clients also want their home looked after by the same people. This page explains our house cleaning in Melbourne for those clients: business owners who already trust us with their premises, people who run a business from home, and owners of shop-top or mixed-use properties where the line between home and work is blurred. The home gets the same checklist, the same vetted crew and the same record after every visit as the business does. If you only need your workplace cleaned, the business cleaning services we offer are the better place to start.
One program
How do homes and businesses fit into one cleaning program?
A combined program puts your home and your workplace on one agreement: each site has its own checklist and visit days, but the same vetted crew, the same records and one point of contact. It suits people who want house cleaning done to the standard their business already gets.
Owners with a business we clean
You already know the crew and the checklist. Adding your home means one less contractor to manage.
Home-based businesses
A consulting room, studio or office at home, where clients see the house as part of the business.
Shop-top and mixed-use owners
A shop or cafe below, a residence above, and shared stairs, bins and entries in between.
Property owners between tenants
Commercial and residential properties that need cleaning between leases on one schedule.
Plenty of people meet our crews through their work first. A practice manager sees how the clinic is left each night, or a cafe owner notices the difference in the kitchen after we take over, and asks whether we would look at their home too. For those clients, a combined program is simple: we walk the house with them, draft a home checklist that mirrors their business one, and attach it to the agreement they already have.
Home-based businesses are a real middle ground. A psychologist seeing clients in a converted front room, an accountant with an office off the garage or a designer working from a converted garage all need the working space treated like a workplace, with the rest of the house cleaned as a home. We write one checklist that covers both and marks which rooms clients see.
Trust is the reason most people keep home and work with one company. The cleaners already carry your business keys and alarm codes under a register, have been police-checked and are covered by our insurance. Extending that to the home is a smaller step than letting a stranger from an app into the house.
It also simplifies the paperwork. One agreement, one set of insurance documents and one contact who knows both sites means fewer emails when something changes, such as a new alarm code at the office or a renovation at home that needs the cleaning days moved for a few weeks.
We are honest about where we fit. Golden Star is set up for scheduled, documented cleaning. If you want a one-off clean of a family home with no ongoing arrangement and no business attached, a dedicated home cleaning service may suit you better, and we will say so if you ask.
Home checklist
What does a house cleaning visit include?
A house cleaning visit covers kitchens, bathrooms, living areas, bedrooms and the laundry: surfaces wiped, floors vacuumed and mopped, bathrooms cleaned and dusting done. Deeper tasks such as the oven, inside the fridge and window tracks rotate through on a set cycle rather than every visit.
Kitchen
- Benches, splashback and sinkEach visit
- Cooktop and appliance frontsEach visit
- Inside microwaveEach visit
- Inside fridgeMonthly
- Oven interiorQuarterly
Bathrooms
- Toilet, basin and vanityEach visit
- Shower screen and tilesEach visit
- Mirrors and tapwareEach visit
- Grout scrubbedMonthly
- Exhaust fan coverQuarterly
Living and bedrooms
- Dusting of reachable surfacesEach visit
- Floors vacuumed and moppedEach visit
- Beds made, if linen is left outOn request
- Skirting and door framesMonthly
- Blinds and window tracksQuarterly
The table is a starting point, not a fixed package. Some clients want the laundry and outdoor entertaining area on the list; others ask us to leave the children's rooms alone. At the walk-through we go room by room, note what matters to you, and write it down so the crew works from your list rather than a generic one.
Homes are more personal than offices, so the rules are clear. The crew does not open private drawers or cupboards unless the checklist says so, does not move papers on a desk, and does not handle valuables. If something is in the way of a task, it is cleaned around and noted. Pets are fine, but tell us about them before the first visit so the crew knows which doors to keep shut.
Products can be chosen to suit the household. If anyone has asthma, sensitive skin or a baby at home, we can use fragrance-free products throughout and keep strong cleaners, such as oven degreaser, for the quarterly visit when windows can be opened and the house aired.
Outdoor areas can be added where they matter to the business, such as the path clients walk up to a home office or the courtyard outside a consulting room. Those are swept and wiped on each visit so the first thing a client sees is tidy.
Laundry, ironing and tidying up after a party are not part of a standard home clean. Some clients add them as extras, and we will quote them separately if you ask, but they sit outside the core checklist so the regular visit stays on time.
The first visit is usually the longest. Most homes have a few jobs that have been waiting, such as a greasy rangehood filter, soap scum on a shower screen or dust along the tops of wardrobes. We tackle those on the first visit, or across the first two, so that from then on each regular clean is maintaining a clean house rather than catching up on an old one.
Mixed-use premises
How do you clean mixed-use premises?
Mixed-use premises, such as a shop with a residence above or a home with a client-facing office, are split into zones. Each zone gets its own checklist and timing: the commercial space is cleaned outside trading hours, the residence at a time that suits the household, and shared areas are assigned to one visit so nothing is missed.
Melbourne has plenty of these buildings. Terraces on shopping strips with a flat above the shop, older corner stores converted to live-work spaces, and newer townhouses built with a small office at street level. The business side needs to look right for customers every morning; the home side needs privacy and a different rhythm.
We treat the business zone like any small commercial site: floors, glass, counters, the customer bathroom, and bins sorted into their streams. The residential zone gets a home checklist. Stairs, the shared entry and the bin area are written into one of the two lists, so the shared spaces do not fall between them.
Access is planned carefully in these buildings. Often the same door serves both the shop and the home, and the alarm covers both. We agree who holds which key, which areas the crew may enter on each visit, and what to do if the household is home when the shop is being cleaned.
Billing can follow the zones too. Many owners claim the business share as an expense and pay the home share privately, so we can split the invoice by zone with the hours shown against each.
Noise and timing need a little more thought in mixed-use buildings than in a plain office. Floor machines and vacuums in a ground-floor shop carry up through old timber floors, so if someone upstairs works nights or has young children, we schedule the noisy tasks for a time that suits them and keep the late-evening work to quiet jobs such as wiping down and restocking.
Scheduling
How are home visits scheduled around family life?
Home visits are booked on a fixed day and time window that suits the household, most often during the working day when the house is empty. The crew lets itself in using a logged key or lockbox, follows the home checklist, locks up and leaves a short note of what was done.
Regular times matter more at home than at work. A family needs to know which morning the cleaners come so the kitchen benches can be cleared and the dog put outside. We keep the same day each week or fortnight, and if a public holiday falls on it, we agree the swap in advance rather than just not turning up.
Being home during a clean is fine. Plenty of people who work from home stay in their study while the crew works through the rest of the house. We clean the home office at the start or end of the visit, whichever suits your calls, and keep noise to a minimum around it.
School holidays, family visits and trips away are part of home life. Tell us a week ahead and we pause or move visits. If you are away for a longer stretch, some clients keep a lighter visit going so the house is aired, the fridge checked and the mail brought in off the doormat.
- Visit
- Fortnightly, Thursday, 9:30am to 12:30pm
- Access
- Lockbox, code held in the key register
- Rooms
- Kitchen, 2 bathrooms, living, 3 bedrooms, laundry
- Rotating task
- Inside fridge this visit
- Noticed
- Shower screen seal lifting at the corner
Your note lists your own rooms, tasks and anything the crew spotted.
Trust at home
What does a vetted crew mean when it is your house?
It means the people in your home hold a current national police check, are covered by our public liability insurance, sign your key in and out of a register, and work to written privacy rules. You know who is coming, when they come and what they are allowed to touch.
National police checks are issued in Victoria through Victoria Police, which explains how national police checks work. A check is not a guarantee of character, so we pair it with steady crews: the same few people come to your home each time, and you are told in advance if someone new is covering.
Breakages happen occasionally in any home. If something is damaged, the crew reports it on the day with a photo rather than hiding it, and it is handled under our insurance. The note left after each visit is also where they mention things you may want to know about, such as a leaking tap, a blown light globe or a smoke alarm chirping for a new battery.
Privacy rules are written into the home checklist. No photos of the inside of the house except to record damage, no guests, no use of your phone or computer, and no discussion of what is in your home with anyone else. They sound obvious, but writing them down means everyone, including relief staff, works to the same standard.
If you ever want a cleaner removed from your home roster, for any reason, tell us and it happens from the next visit without a discussion. Comfort in your own house matters more than the explanation, and the same applies at your workplace.
End of lease
Do combined programs cover end of lease cleaning?
Yes. When a client moves house or vacates a business premises, the end of lease clean is booked as a one-off job alongside their regular program. Homes are cleaned against the condition report, commercial premises against the make-good terms in the lease, and each gets its own record.
Renters in Victoria move out against the paperwork signed when they moved in. That entry document, and the exit version the rental provider fills in afterwards, decide most cleaning disputes, which is why Consumer Affairs Victoria tells renters to hang on to their copy of the condition report. Send it to us before the move and the crew follows it line by line.
Business premises are different again. A commercial lease usually sets out the condition the premises must be returned in, sometimes naming carpet cleaning or specific surfaces. The two jobs can be timed together when a client closes a home office and moves house in the same month, which happens more often than you might think.
Our full end of lease cleaning in Melbourne page covers both types in more detail, including timing around removalists and what to check before the final inspection.
Selling rather than renting follows the same logic. Before an open inspection or the photographer's visit, a thorough clean of the home, and of the business if it is being sold too, costs little compared with what a buyer takes off for a tired first impression. Clients on a combined program can book that extra visit without a new quote.
Pricing
How is house cleaning priced in a combined program?
House cleaning is priced per visit, based on the time the home checklist takes, how often we come and which rotating deep tasks are included. You get a fixed price for each site in writing, so the home and the business can be budgeted separately even on one agreement.
| Factor | Why it matters | How to keep it down |
|---|---|---|
| Bathrooms and kitchens | Wet areas take the most time in any home | Clear benches and vanities before the visit |
| Frequency | Longer gaps mean more build-up each visit | Weekly visits are often shorter than fortnightly ones |
| Pets | Hair on floors and furniture adds vacuuming time | Brush pets regularly; keep them out of cleaned rooms |
| Clutter | Crews clean surfaces, not tidy belongings | A ten-minute tidy before the visit saves paid time |
| Rotating tasks | Ovens, fridges and tracks take extra time on their visit | Spread them across the month rather than all at once |
We would rather set a realistic visit length than squeeze a four-bedroom house into two hours and have the bathrooms rushed. If your home needs a longer first visit to catch up, we quote that separately and then settle into the regular pattern.
Consumables are simple at home. Most households prefer their own products for some surfaces, such as a favourite stone cleaner for the benchtop, and we are happy to use them. Otherwise the crew brings everything, including vacuum, mop and microfibre, and the cost is built into the visit price rather than billed as extras.
Quote
How do we quote a home and a business together?
Tell us about both sites through our contact form: the business address, the home address and roughly how often you want each cleaned. We walk both with you, often on the same day, and send one written quote with a separate checklist and price for each site.
For a sense of commercial costs first, see our commercial cleaning prices guide. Home visits are priced on the same basis: the hours the checklist takes, how often we come, and any rotating deep tasks. If you already have a Golden Star program at work, mention it and we will add the home to your existing agreement rather than start a new one.
Questions
What do people ask about house cleaning with Golden Star?
Most questions about our home cleaning come from existing business clients and fall into three groups: whether we clean houses at all, how often we can come, and whether the people who clean the business also clean the home. Here are the short answers.