How do we maintain the racquetball or squash court in our HOA clubhouse?

By OurHOA · General information · Revised October 25, 2026

How an HOA board keeps a racquetball or squash court in shape: maple floor care, walls, glass doors, lights, eyewear rules, booking, closures and TX, FL, CO notice law.

Part of the HOA board handbook: vendors, projects and upkeep.

The short answer

A racquetball or squash court is a small gym with a hardwood floor, four hard walls, a glass door or back wall and a ball that hits all of it at high speed. Most of the upkeep is floor care, plus a few checks on the walls, glass and lights. The board's job is to put one volunteer or the janitorial vendor on a written routine, hire a flooring contractor once a year, post an eyewear rule, and close the court quickly when something breaks. Start with what you already own. Find the court builder's name in the clubhouse files or on a plate near the door, and ask for the wall system and floor finish care sheets. A standard racquetball court is 20 feet wide, 40 feet long and 20 feet high under USA Racquetball rule 2.1, so if yours is smaller, it was probably built as a multi-use room and the builder's specs matter even more than the sport's.

Floor care: daily, monthly and yearly

Most courts have a maple floor, and the Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association (MFMA) publishes the care rules most contractors follow. Every day the court is used, or at least a few times a week in a quieter community, sweep with a properly treated dust mop. Grit is what wears through the finish. Wipe up water or sweat right away, and take off scuff marks with the cleaner your finish manufacturer recommends on a soft cloth. The MFMA says never to clean a maple floor with scrubbing machines or power scrubbers that use water, and never to use household cleaners. Put that sentence in the janitorial contract, because a crew that runs an auto scrubber over the clubhouse tile will want to run it over the court too. Every month, walk the floor slowly. Look for gray, worn traffic patterns near the service line, cupped or lifted boards, gaps that open in winter and close in summer, and dark stains near the door that could mean a leak. Every year, hire an MFMA member contractor to screen and recoat the floor. The MFMA recommends annual screening and recoating for most maple gym floors, with use and condition setting the real schedule. Book it for your slowest month, and ask the contractor how long the court must stay closed while the finish cures. Full sanding back to bare wood is a much larger job that a contractor will tell you about when the screen and recoat can no longer fix the wear.

Keep the air in range

Wood moves with humidity. The MFMA's daily care guidance says to set the HVAC to hold indoor relative humidity between 35 and 50 percent year round, and its floor care article recommends keeping the room between 55 and 75 degrees. It also warns never to shut the ventilation down for a long stretch. That last point catches boards trying to save money. Turning the court's air handler off for the winter, or after a renovation, is how a floor buckles. Put a cheap temperature and humidity logger on the wall, have the volunteer check it on the monthly walk, and tell your HVAC contractor that the court has its own range when they service the clubhouse system. Check the door sweep and any exterior wall after heavy rain, since a slow leak under the floor does damage long before anyone sees it.

Walls, glass and lights

Walls. Panel systems and plaster both take a beating. On the monthly walk, look for cracked or loose panels, open seams, and dead spots where the ball sounds different, which can mean a panel has come loose from its backing. Clean ball marks with the method in the wall maker's care sheet. Patch only with the builder's product or a court contractor, because a hardware store patch changes how the ball bounces and usually fails within a season. Glass. Glass doors and glazed panels in buildings fall under the federal safety glazing standard in 16 CFR part 1201, which requires tested safety glazing and a permanent label from the manufacturer. Look for chips at the edges, a door that no longer closes flush, and hinges or pulls that stick out into the court. If a pane cracks, close the court that day. When you replace glass, order it through the court builder or a glazier who works on courts, and check the label before you sign off. Lights. Balls hit the ceiling. Fixtures should be recessed or covered with guards that keep a ball from breaking a lens. Replace a dead fixture quickly, since a dark corner is a safety problem in a sport this fast, and ask the electrician to note the fixture model in the maintenance file so the next replacement matches.

Eyewear and other house rules

The serious injury in both sports is a ball or racquet to the eye. USA Racquetball rule 2.5 says players are responsible for wearing eyewear that meets or exceeds the ASTM F803 standard, and that street glasses and unlensed eyewear do not meet it. US Squash requires all players and coaches at its events to wear eyewear meeting ASTM F3164, and still accepts the older F803 standard. Neither group tests or certifies eyewear. Your court is not a sanctioned event, but those rules are the clearest public standard there is, and adopting them protects the association. Most boards make eyewear mandatory for everyone on the court, and some keep a few loaner pairs at the front desk with a cleaning spray. Other rules worth writing down: clean, non-marking court shoes only, no street shoes, no food and only water in closed bottles, no use by children under an age the board picks unless an adult is on the court, and no wall ball or tennis practice that the walls were not built for. Post the rules inside and outside the door, and adopt them the way your documents require. Our guide on how to adopt a new HOA rule and notify owners walks through that process.

Booking, access and a sample schedule

Courts get claimed by the same four players every evening unless the board sets a booking system. One-hour slots, a limit of one or two prime-time bookings per household per week, and a rule that a court with nobody on it 10 minutes after the start time is open to the next person cover most disputes. If the clubhouse uses fobs, log court entries so the board can tell who was on the court when something broke. A workable year for a 26 to 150 home association: Weekly: dust mop, wipe marks, empty trash, check the door closes and latches, restock eyewear spray. Monthly: floor, wall, glass and light walk with dated photos; read the humidity logger; sign the log. Every year in the slow season: MFMA contractor screens and recoats the floor; court builder or contractor inspects the walls and glass; HVAC contractor checks the humidity controls. Every reserve study: list the floor resurfacing, wall system and glass as separate components so the money is there when they wear out.

Closing the court and enforcing the rules

When the volunteer finds cracked glass, a lifted board or a loose panel, lock the court and post a sign the same day. Rules vary by state and by your governing documents, and this is general information, not legal advice, but three examples show what to plan for. Colorado. C.R.S. 38-33.3-302.5 lets an association restrict access to a common element during repairs only as far and as long as safety or the repair requires. If the closure lasts more than 72 hours, the association must send each owner an electronic or written notice with a simple reason, an estimated reopening date and a phone number or email for questions, and keep the same notice posted at each access point. Texas. Property Code section 209.006 requires notice by certified mail before the association suspends an owner's right to use a common area, fines an owner or charges an owner for property damage, which matters if a player breaks the glass. Section 209.007(d) allows a temporary suspension without that notice only when the violation happened in a common area and involved a significant and immediate risk of harm to others. Florida. Statutes section 720.305(2) allows a suspension of common area use rights for a reasonable period, but only after at least 14 days' written notice of the owner's right to a hearing, held within 90 days before a committee of at least three members who are not officers, directors or employees, or their close relatives.

Wording you can copy

Door sign: "Protective eyewear meeting ASTM F803 or F3164 is required for everyone on this court. Street glasses do not count. Non-marking court shoes only. Water in closed bottles only. Book through [method]. Report damage to [board email]." Closure notice: "The racquetball court is closed as of [date] because [a cracked glass panel / a lifted floor board] needs repair. We expect to reopen it by [date]. Questions: [phone or email]." Motion: "I move that the board hire [contractor] to screen and recoat the racquetball court floor during [month] for no more than $[amount], and that the court be closed from [date] until the contractor says the finish has cured."

Mistakes boards make

Letting the janitorial crew wet mop or machine scrub the floor. Shutting off the air to save on the power bill. Skipping the yearly recoat until the finish is gone and the only fix is a full sand. Replacing a cracked door pane with whatever glass the nearest shop has. Leaving the eyewear rule as a suggestion. And keeping no log, so that when a player is hurt nobody can show the court was checked. If someone is hurt, our guide on how to write an HOA incident report after a common area injury covers what to record that day.

Sources

These guides are general education for HOA boards and residents, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Rules vary by state and by your community's governing documents - check with a professional for your situation.

More on living with an hoa

Or browse all living with an hoa guides.