Cleaning in Daoudiate, Marrakech

Daoudiate occupies the north-east of the new town of Marrakech, between Semlalia, the route de Fès and the university campus. It is a settled district, dense, laid out in narrow streets that vehicles can still use, with an unbroken run of local shops at street level.

The dominant building stock: income blocks of three to five storeys, mostly without a lift, built between the 1970s and the 2000s. Shared stairwells, communal roof terraces, on-street parking. One point about ownership deserves writing down, because it changes everything in the way a job is commissioned: ownership is fragmented.

A block often has a dozen different owners and no professional managing agent — the common parts are decided between neighbours, which means there is nobody to ring to open an entrance hall or authorise a water connection.

The floors hold no surprises and no traps: ceramic tiling in the overwhelming majority of flats, often in an older small format, sometimes porcelain in recent refurbishments; cement tiles in the oldest blocks; a tiled roof terrace; marble limited to the landings of a few well-kept buildings; occasional fitted carpet in let bedrooms, a floor covering we do not treat.

No traditional floors, no exceptional precautions to plan for: what weighs here is the time spent and the access, not the fragility of the material — and time is precisely what you buy when housekeeping is booked by the day.

Finally, the rented stock is substantial, fed in particular by the nearby university: many flats are let by the year, furnished or part-furnished, with a turnover of tenants that broadly follows the academic calendar.

In most districts, a clean is triggered by an event — building works, damage, a reception. In Daoudiate it is triggered by a date in the calendar: the end of a lease.

The sequence is always the same. The tenant leaves. The check-out inventory lists what can be charged to them and what cannot. The owner repaints or has put right whatever needs it. Then the flat has to be made available again before the next tenant arrives, with a very marked concentration at the end of the summer.

What decides the service is the condition the flat is in when it reaches us:

1. Handed back in normal used condition. That is standard housekeeping, by the day: dusting of accessible surfaces, emptied cupboards included, vacuuming and mopping, the kitchen on its accessible surfaces, bathrooms and toilets, light upkeep of the terrace if there is one. 800 MAD incl. VAT per day, one person included — the detail is on apartment housekeeping.
2. Repainted or reworked by tradespeople between the two occupants. Paint, adhesive, plaster dust: standard housekeeping no longer applies, it is a clean after renovation, priced per m² — 20 MAD incl. VAT on standard tiles — with a 3,000 MAD minimum for an apartment and 2,000 MAD for a studio. We come once every tradesperson has finished.
3. Left heavily soiled. A heavy restoration clean does not fall under standard housekeeping: send photos on WhatsApp and we will make you a suitable proposal rather than sell you a day that will not be enough.

Windows and upholstery are part of neither the first case nor the second: they are separate services, described further down.

What none of these services covers, and we say so before we are asked: painting, plumbing, electrics, repairing a fitting. Cleaning does not make good a marked wall or a dead silicone seal. If those repairs are needed, they happen before our visit, never after — otherwise the flat has to be cleaned again.

Who commissions the work, and who pays? In practice the client is the landlord, because they are the one putting the property back on the market.

An outgoing tenant can commission the work to protect the return of their deposit, but that is a choice, not an obligation: how it is split depends on what the lease provides for and on the condition recorded. We invoice whoever commissions the work, and the estimate is drawn up in that person's name so the point cannot be argued about afterwards.

One clarification, because this is a common confusion: what we are talking about here is long-term letting by the year, between two leases. EPUREVA takes on no other property management task and will not start — we work on an empty flat, between two occupants.

On a modestly sized one- or two-bedroom flat, three items make up most of the work of getting it ready again. They are booked separately, and each has its own rule.

1. The housekeeping day. An empty one-bedroom flat often fits into one day with one person, 800 MAD incl. VAT. For a two-bedroom flat to be handed back within the day, add an extra person: 800 + 250, i.e. 1,050 MAD incl. VAT. The number of days and people is confirmed according to the area, the condition and the priorities, and any extra day or person is agreed by you before it is invoiced. A single day does not guarantee a complete clean of the whole property: we say so beforehand, not in the evening.
2. The upholstery of a furnished let. Single mattress 300 MAD incl. VAT, double 400 MAD incl. VAT, L-shaped sofa from 550 MAD incl. VAT, rugs 30 MAD incl. VAT per m², with a 400 MAD textile minimum: a single mattress on its own is therefore charged 400 MAD, two single mattresses 600 MAD. Straight sofas and banquettes are not part of what we offer. See mattress cleaning and rug cleaning.
3. Street-facing windows, which pick up traffic dust and, in practice, are almost never done between two lettings. 75 MAD incl. VAT per window, whole frame and both sides included when they are accessible, with a 400 MAD minimum call-out charge: six windows come to 450 MAD incl. VAT, four windows are brought up to 400 MAD.

A scheduling tip specific to the district: upholstery goes first. A mattress takes half a day to a full day to dry, sometimes longer, and must be neither used nor covered before then. Treated the day before the prospective tenant's viewing, it is still damp; treated at the start of the week, it is ready.

All these amounts are incl. VAT, the same across Marrakech, and indicative: they are confirmed after photos or a visit.

What makes a job in Daoudiate complicated is neither administrative nor technical: it is physical.

• Parking. The streets take vehicles but are narrow, and double parking is the daytime norm. We plan a quick unload and a precise meeting point, because a van cannot sit outside the block for an hour.
• No lift. Vertical carrying over three to five storeys, going up and coming back down with waste water and rubbish. That does not change the price of the day; it changes what a day can achieve, which is why the number of days is confirmed on photos rather than over the phone.
• Narrow staircases and tight turns, which rule out bulky machines outright. Our equipment in this sector is compact and demountable: that is a choice imposed by the buildings, not a preference.
• Getting into the flat. No porter, no badge, no caretaker: the door is opened by a neighbour, a tenant or the owner. Hence a simple rule that avoids half the missed appointments: one named person, reachable, with the keys, at an agreed time.
• Removal of waste water and small rubbish goes down the stairs, never through a duct or out of a window.

Water and electricity are available in the flat, and we need them on the day of the visit: that is the easy part of this sector, provided the meter was not cut off when the tenant left.

On a flat made available again between two leases, what matters is being able to show your work. Our three undertakings exist for exactly that:

• An estimate in a name, that of whoever commissions the work, listing the items treated and the items that are not. It is the document that heads off the argument between landlord and tenant.
• A checklist walked through and signed on site at the end of the work, item by item and room by room — usable as it stands in support of an inventory.
• A free return on the point flagged if a ticked item is not up to standard.

EPUREVA has over 195 clients, works with certified products and carries professional liability insurance. Give us the floor, the area, the condition of the flat and the upholstery items, with 3 to 5 photos, to receive an estimate on WhatsApp; we reply seven days a week The other sectors we serve are on our list of areas.