Who cleans the shared areas in a goshiwon?

Someone is paid to do it, and you are right that it is the thing that decides whether a building is liveable.

The normal arrangement: the operator or a cleaner comes through daily or every other day for the bathrooms, the kitchen and the corridors. There is no resident rota — that is what your rent pays for. Your own room is yours to keep.

What separates a good building from a bad one is entirely frequency and standard, and it varies enormously between buildings at the same price. This is invisible in listings and obvious in person.

How to check before you commit:

1. Ask directly: "청소 얼마나 자주 해요?" — how often is it cleaned. A confident "매일" (daily) is a good sign; a vague answer is also an answer.
2. **View at 08:00.** A shared bathroom at 2pm has just been cleaned. At 8am it is in the state you will actually meet it every morning. This is the single most useful thing you can do and almost nobody does it.
3. Look at the kitchen sink. If there are dishes in it at 3pm, the building does not enforce its own rules.
4. Look at the corridor bin. Overflowing means nobody is on top of it.

What residents are responsible for: washing your own dishes immediately, taking your own rubbish to the bin, wiping the hob after cooking, not leaving laundry in the machine. Buildings where residents do not do this get worse regardless of the cleaner, which is why the culture of the building matters as much as the service.

If a building is badly kept after you move in, tell the operator once, plainly and early. Most respond — an unclean building loses residents and they know it. If nothing changes, you are on monthly terms and you can leave with a month's notice, which is the real protection here.