Friday Window Cleaning News

Ladder find lands thief with a fine: When Phillip Akers found an aluminium ladder under a road bridge he thought it was his lucky day. But Akers, 29, of Hawe Farm Way,Herne Bay was spotted dragging it along Canterbury Road, Herne Bay. The ladder and a box cleaning fluid had been stolen from a local window cleaner the previous day Canterbury Magistrates were told. He pleaded guilty to theft by finding. Ian Bond, defending, said the ladder had been stolen and dumped under the bridge. Because there were three rungs missing Akers decided it was only worth scrap value. Akers was fined £80 and ordered to pay £60 costs plus £15 victim surcharge.

Downtown busker, window washer sang on street corners: Lorne Clapper, a highly visible downtown busker and window washer, has died. He was 42. Police, paramedics and representatives from the coroner's office were called to Mr. Clapper's Rubidge Street home Tuesday at about 7 p. m. City police Sgt. Dan MacLean said Mr. Clapper's death doesn't appear to be suspicious. Tim Saylor, a friend of Mr. Clapper's, said he heard the news of his friend's death last night. "A lot of people put him down because he sang on the corners," Saylor said. "A lot of people said he should learn another song, but why? He was happy. He's sharing the music he had in his heart with all of us." Mr. Clapper was well known to the downtown community, he said. "Maybe now he's washing windows for the big guy," Saylor said.

David Senior's 36-foot fall off the balcony of a St. Pete Beach hotel is notable because he was relatively unharmed. But he hardly fell into the annals of historic plunges in which people survived. Last year, New York City window washer Alcides Moreno survived a fall of 47 stories. His brother was killed in the fall. Moreno was traveling about 124 mph when he hit the ground, according to published reports, though his fall likely was cushioned by scaffolding that he clung to on the way down. Moreno broke 10 bones and suffered brain and spinal column injuries. He underwent 16 surgeries. Senior was traveling about 33 mph when his 36-foot fall ended on a concrete ledge Tuesday night.
Survival is often a function of an old adage: It's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing. In short, landing on the skull is almost always fatal, according to a study of 200 falls by Fordham Misericordia Hospital. Landing in a manner that damages the pelvic area or the nearby organs can lead to death. Feet-first is almost always better. People 20 to 40 have a markedly higher survival rate than those younger than 10 or older than 51. Alcides Moreno was 37; Senior is 26.

.

Sawbridgeworth - Police Warning Over Bogus Callers: RESIDENTS in Sawbridgeworth are being warned to stay on their guard after a number of reports about bogus callers in the area. Hertfordshire Police are currently investigating reports of a man calling at addresses in Sawbridgeworth, as well as Bishop's Stortford and Broxbourne, claiming to be collecting money on behalf of a window cleaning company. There were five reported incidents in the town on March 9 at properties in Bullfields and Leat Close. The man is described as white, aged between 20 and 25 years old. He is around 5ft 11in tall and of a slim build. He has short, light brown hair and was wearing a three quarter length beige jacket. Bishop's Stortford Neighbourhood Team Sergeant Chris Hunt said: "In some of these cases money has been given to the caller in good faith. "We are investigating these calls fully and I would urge people to contact police if they have had any calls of this nature. "I would also advise people that if they are faced with a similar situation to challenge the caller, check with your usual window cleaning company and not to part with any money if you are in doubt.

Cosmetic upgrades can pay big dividends: In a sluggish housing market, fairly inexpensive cosmetic changes can make a big difference in whether a home sells quickly or lingers on the market. “It’s pretty important these days to do everything you can,” said Realtor George Strode of Re/Max Buckhead. A buyer likes a fresh look, spaciousness and ample closet and shelf space. Strode, a veteran Realtor, emphasizes that the smallest detail can matter when it comes to a sale at the best possible price. Have windows cleaned - Window washing, one of the services that Shalaby’s business provides, can make even the oldest home sparkle. Clean windows let in light and freshen up the entire ambiance.

More cuts in the service sector: The board also cut approximately $15,000 from the budget, decreasing money spent on window washing services and discontinuing uniform services for its custodial staff. If this proposal gains full House and Senate majorities and the governor’s signature, then school funding will essentially stay flat for the next two school years. Grosdidier said that if deep budget cuts are made at the state level, then the district would form a community advisory committee in April to help guide the district in making further cuts. In other actions, the board: Approved a $1,000 donation to the All-Night Prom.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors cut programs and services and delayed projects to help balance a projected $118 million shortfall in the 2009-10 budget. The board this week unanimously voted to cut $32.6 million in its first round of massive spending cuts, which includes layoffs and the elimination of vacant positions. Most of the cuts take effect July 1; others start immediately. The number of layoffs and eliminated positions is unclear, budget officials said. The cuts impact about half of the county's departments and cut deep into the county's $2.2 billion budget. Some of the effects include Cleaning services at non-public county buildings will be cut back, and so will the frequency of window-cleanings.

Home economics: Frugal families doing own chores. Beth Rogers is taking the family's finances into her own hands literally. The 35-year-old from Fayetteville, Ark., ditched her weekly housekeeping service and now mops her own floors. She and her husband, Stanley, work in the yard after canceling their lawn care contract. She cooks at home instead of the family eating out, and she told her husband to iron his own shirts rather than send them to the cleaners. Total savings? About $10,000 a year. "It made me feel embarrassed, because I realized the things we were hiring out was just me being lazy, or things I could do for myself," said Rogers, a stay-at-home mom who made the changes after business began to slow at her husband's car wash company.

Across the country, people are taking on chores that only a year ago were hired out to someone else. They're dyeing their own hair, shoveling their own snow, washing their own cars and taking up paint brushes to brighten their living room walls. The do-it-yourself trend has hurt some businesses and created opportunities for others. Procter & Gamble Co., which makes Swiffer dusters and Mr. Clean cleansers, expects an increase in sales of its cleaning products. But the company doesn't see it as evidence that maids are being fired. Instead, it's a sign people are spending more time at home and noticing the grime, said Marie-Laure Salvado, a spokeswoman for the Cincinnati-based company.

But he also acknowledged that luxury services like his may be some of the first things cut when household budgets get trimmed. "It's certainly not a necessity," he said. "And if it's a choice between putting food on your table or getting your lawn fertilized, that's a decision that's going to be pretty clear."

Too many jobs going to illegal immigrants: A janitor’s job opened up at an elementary school in Ohio, and within a week there were 839 applications. If that doesn’t tell our policy makers anything about a way to address the nation’s unemployment problems, I’ll help them out.Hundreds of thousands of people are desperate for work at the moment. Many will do almost anything honest. Though this job paid $15 an hour, they’ll work for less than that if they have to. But if menial positions don’t scare them away, something else sideswipes their hopes – illegal aliens who have already stolen work they’d like to have, who keep wages lower than they would otherwise be and who are themselves frequently exploited, sometimes sweating for less than the minimum wage. One answer is to send the illegals packing, thus eventually freeing up millions of jobs, and here is another: Change immigration laws to favor the skilled and educated, thus boosting the economy and helping it grow. Please, please, skip the argument that American citizens won’t do the work – they already constitute the vast majority of workers in virtually every field employing illegals – and cut out the blather that enforcement of our immigration laws would be either impossible or cruel or that only a bigot would worry more about the welfare of citizens than taking care of residents breaking the law. Hardly anyone is suggesting a massive, national sweep of the illegal aliens. The need is for an insistent crackdown on employers who have first been equipped by the federal government with reliable methods of figuring out who is legal and who isn’t.

High Q ascends to new heights in Japan: Safety systems provider High Q will test its limits in Tokyo after striking a deal through Austrade to provide rope access training to a Japanese company. Brisbane-based High Q is a leader in Industrial Rope Access Trade Association (IRATA) safety training, using its systems to secure people working at heights. High Q will assist in improving safety and operation standards of industrial rope usage abroad. In a city of skyscrapers, the Japanese trainees will benefit from High Q’s IRATA skills in difficult situations such as large-scale window cleaning. Austrade’s Tokyo-based senior trade commissioner, Elizabeth Masamune, says High Q’s success is a testament to the skills of the Australian services sector. “High Q represent an excellent example of the diversity of Australian services companies that have the capacity to win business in Japan,” Masamune says. Over the 2007-2008 period Austrade helped 628 Australian businesses achieve deals in Japan worth $1.15 billion.

"Sunshine Cleaning" Amy Adams washes up crime scenes and her troubled life in this quirky comedy-drama that could be the next oddball indie sleeper. One day Mac suggests to Rose that she could make a lot more money doing specialized cleaning jobs -- in other words, putting her skills to work at crime scenes, or in houses where people have recently died (a profession that also features in Charlie Huston's recent novel, "The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death"). Rose doesn't much like the idea, but she desperately needs the money, and so she enlists Norah to help her. An early scene, in which the two women gamely go after a gruesome bloodstain with spray cleaner and little toothbrushes, has a dash of charm: Their chutzpah in the face of recent tragedy is touching.

Acid graffiti scars downtown Danbury: Downtown property owners are offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the vandal plaguing the city with a new form of graffiti.
Some 30 properties on Main Street, West Street, Ives Street and Elm Street, to name a few, have been hit with graffiti in recent weeks, according to Andrea Gartner, CityCenter Danbury manager. The downtown experienced a similar rash of graffiti in the fall. Publicity in The News-Times drove that tagger away, authorities said. This time the vandal is leaving his mark on doors and windows using an acid-based product that permanently scars the glass. Solutions such as "Etch Bath" and "Armor Etch-All" corrode glass, making removal impossible. The products are intended for crafts people who wanting to make etched-glass items.
Vandals mix the acid-based product with water, shoe polish or paint to create an easily applicable solution. The new graffiti -- and its impact on New York City subway cars -- was noted in a 2006 article in The New York Times. Property owners are left with a milky-white stain on their windows, Gartner said, and some of them have to replace the glass entirely. "This kind of graffiti tagging is not artistic. It is criminal," Gartner said. "There aren't any products that can get it off." Many of the marks read "Rize." Police may be closing in. "We will find him and we will prosecute him," said Ken Utter, an officer with the Danbury Police Department who is an expert on the graffiti subculture. If police gather evidence against a suspect, he could be charged with first-degree criminal mischief, a felony, because the sum total of damage to the properties could exceed $1,500.
Multiple charges of second-degree criminal mischief, a misdemeanor in which the damage exceeds $250, is another possibility. Joe DaSilva, who owns commercial buildings and rental apartments throughout the city, said three glass doors on Elm Street were hit, along with two large storefront windows. He estimated it will cost $2,750 to replace them.
The fall tagging spree, coupled with the acid graffiti now plaguing the city, is the worst graffiti Danbury has seen in at least a decade. Utter theorizes that since graffiti has gone mainstream and is accepted as an art form, young people are trying to emulate the artists. However, the vandals are giving the art a bad name. Six downtown property owners contributed money for the reward, including DaSilva, attorney Auggie Ribeiro, Union Savings Bank, landlord Mark Nolan, Two-Steps owner Tom Devine, and CityCenter Danbury. Anyone with information should call Utter at (203) 796-1662.