A zeladora ficou de conferir se o ar-condicionado do apartamento funciona antes da mudança.

Zeladora is the feminine form of zelador(a). In Brazilian Portuguese, it usually refers to a building caretaker, superintendent, or someone responsible for overseeing maintenance and day-to-day issues in a building.

It is feminine here because the person being referred to is a woman, so Portuguese uses:

• a zeladora = the female caretaker
• o zelador = the male caretaker

Portuguese adjectives, articles, and many nouns often change form depending on gender.

In this sentence, ficou de conferir means something like:

• agreed to check
• said she would check
• was supposed to check
• promised to check

This is a very common Brazilian Portuguese structure:

• ficar de fazer algo

It often suggests that someone took responsibility for doing something later.

Examples:

• Ele ficou de me ligar. = He said he would call me.
• Nós ficamos de resolver isso amanhã. = We agreed to sort this out tomorrow.

So A zeladora ficou de conferir... does not simply mean the caretaker stayed to check. Here ficou de is an expression meaning she committed herself to checking it.

Ficou is the pretérito perfeito of ficar, meaning a completed action in the past.

So the sentence presents the caretaker’s commitment as something that already happened:

• A zeladora ficou de conferir... = The caretaker agreed / said she would check...

The actual checking may happen later, but the agreement or decision was made in the past.

Compare:

• A zeladora fica de conferir... = The caretaker is supposed to check... / usually agrees to check...
• A zeladora ficou de conferir... = The caretaker agreed to check...

Here conferir means to check, to verify, or to make sure.

In Brazilian Portuguese, conferir is very common in everyday speech for checking whether something is correct or functioning properly.

Examples:

• conferir o endereço = check the address
• conferir a conta = check the bill
• conferir se funciona = check whether it works

It can also mean to compare or to inspect, depending on context, but in this sentence the meaning is clearly to verify.

Here se introduces an indirect yes/no question, so it means if or whether:

• conferir se o ar-condicionado funciona = check if / whether the air conditioner works

This se is not reflexive here. It is a conjunction.

Compare:

• Ela se levantou. = She got herself up. → reflexive se
• Ela perguntou se ele vinha. = She asked if he was coming. → conjunction se

In your sentence, it is the second type.

Funciona is the present indicative, and that is the natural choice here.

After verbs like ver, checar, conferir, and observar, Portuguese normally uses the indicative when you are checking a factual condition:

• conferir se funciona
• ver se ele chegou
• checar se está tudo certo

The idea is: you are verifying a real-world fact.

Using funcione would sound unnatural in this sentence. The subjunctive is not normally used after se in this kind of indirect yes/no question.

Ar-condicionado is a compound noun in Portuguese, and the standard spelling uses a hyphen.

It literally comes from:

• ar = air
• condicionado = conditioned

Together:

• o ar-condicionado = the air conditioner / the air conditioning

In everyday Brazilian Portuguese, people may also shorten it to:

• o ar

For example:

• O ar está funcionando? = Is the AC working?

Do is the contraction of:

• de + o = do

So:

• o ar-condicionado do apartamento = the air conditioner of the apartment
• more naturally in English: the apartment’s air conditioner or the air conditioner in the apartment

This kind of contraction is extremely common in Portuguese:

• de + a = da
• de + o = do
• em + a = na
• em + o = no

So both do apartamento and da mudança in this sentence are contractions.

Portuguese uses definite articles much more often than English.

In this sentence:

• A zeladora = the caretaker
• o ar-condicionado = the air conditioner
• do apartamento = of the apartment
• da mudança = of the move / before the move

Articles help make the sentence sound natural and specific. In English, we often omit them more freely, but in Portuguese they are usually required.

For example, Portuguese prefers:

• o apartamento not just
• apartamento

unless there is a special reason to make it indefinite or generic.

Antes da mudança means before the move.

Here:

• antes de = before
• de + a = da
• mudança = move, moving, relocation

So:

• antes da mudança = before the move

Depending on context, mudança could mean:

• the moving day
• the relocation process
• the move into the apartment
• the move out of another place and into this one

In housing contexts, it often refers to the physical move itself.

Because Portuguese normally contracts de + a into da.

So:

• antes de a mudança → grammatically possible in very specific situations, but normally contracted
• antes da mudança → the standard, natural form

This same contraction happens all the time:

• gosto da casa = I like the house
• voltei do trabalho = I came back from work

So antes da mudança is simply the normal contracted form.

By itself, mudança can mean either:

• change
• move / relocation

But in this sentence, the context makes move / relocation the only natural meaning:

• antes da mudança
• talking about an apartment
• checking the air conditioner beforehand

So a native speaker would understand this as before moving or before the move, not before the change.

Yes, the word order is completely normal.

The sentence is structured like this:

• A zeladora = subject
• ficou de conferir = main verb phrase
• se o ar-condicionado do apartamento funciona = indirect question clause
• antes da mudança = time expression

So the full logic is:

The caretaker agreed to check [whether the apartment’s air conditioner works] [before the move].

This is a very standard Portuguese sentence pattern.

Yes. A few natural alternatives are:

• A zeladora ficou de verificar se o ar-condicionado do apartamento está funcionando antes da mudança.
• A zeladora disse que ia conferir o ar-condicionado antes da mudança.
• A zeladora vai conferir se o ar-condicionado funciona antes da mudança.

These have slightly different nuances:

• ficou de conferir = she agreed / said she would check
• disse que ia conferir = she said she was going to check
• vai conferir = she is going to check

Your original sentence is very natural and idiomatic in Brazilian Portuguese.