Window Cleaning News

The first digital edition of the International Window Cleaning Association (IWCA) is online & ready to view. Just click the cover.

Fallen window washer has no OHIP coverage: A window washer who narrowly escaped death last week after plunging from the roof of a 33-storey condominium now faces another challenge: paying his hospital bills. Arturo Rodriguez fell more than 15 floors from the top of a Front Street condominium last Friday, but was saved by his safety line. The 30-year-old was left dangling high above the ground with severe rope burns to both hands and drifting in and out of consciousness before co-workers were able to lower him to a nearby ledge. He was rushed to hospital with severe burns, cuts and bruises but was later released and sent home. Rodriguez was back in hospital Tuesday over fears that his hands were getting infected and doctors say he needs plastic surgery to heal his skin.
He came to Canada two years ago from Mexico and has a work visa, but an apparent mix-up in his paperwork left him without Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) coverage. Now his wife Brenda Gonzalez is worried about his well-being. “(He needs) plastic surgery, because his hands are bad, very bad,” she said, speaking for her husband who does not speak any English. “He wants to work. He needs to have money for us.” Premium Window Cleaning, the company that hired Rodriguez, has told him they will not cover the medical bills. Rodriguez was only on his second day at the window-washing job when he fell. See breaking news story here.


New and exclusive from the Window Cleaning Warehouse! Do you have customers who moan about leaving water on the glass once cleaned with a Water Fed Pole? Have you had comments like ‘when you did them with a squeegee they were left dry, surely you can’t leave them wet!’? Not anymore! Leaves Windows Dry (LWD for short) is the new tool which actually takes all the water off the glass once you’ve cleaned it – that means no more runs,spots and more importantly no more moans! Leave Windows Dry the final piece in the Water Fed Puzzle!!! Only from WCW.


Me and My Squeegee, a family-run business, keeps Boulder's windows clean: Anthony and Debbie Westlake (pictured) began their window-washing business in 1985 with their two sons, Michael and Adam. "I started just by handing out cards," said Anthony Westlake. "But word travels and over the years, I've done (windows for) hundreds of clients." While Me and My Squeegee is a Boulder-based company, the Westlakes' business has taken them all over the region. "We've washed Longmont, Broomfield, Firestone, and all over. We're willing to work with people in terms of driving farther," said Anthony Westlake. In addition to residential clients, Me and My Squeegee also washes windows for businesses like Five Spice, China Gourmet and Smashburger. "We like working with corporate businesses, but there's a lot more competition," said Anthony Westlake.
Window washer Bill O'Leary, owner of Window Visions LLC pointed out the benefits of hiring a personally owned window washing business. "When you hire a large company, sometimes you don't really get the company, you're getting a subcontractor," said O'Leary. "They're moving away from their own workers for tax reasons and because they don't have to take out insurance on them." Despite the personal touch with an independently owned window washing company, the economy has made it harder for these types of businesses to survive. "Window cleaning is a luxury and the economy has made that pretty tough," O'Leary said. "It's slowed down for everybody. I do a lot of new construction window cleaning, which gets me through the winter. It's really competitive, especially in Boulder."
Over the years, Me and My Squeegee has learned what customers expect. "We handle every aspect of the business. That means when clients want to give us a suggestion, we'll listen," Debbie Westlake said, as opposed to large companies, whose workers may not take the time to give a personal touch. In addition to the client-based emphasis, Me and My Squeegee also is passionate about the environment. "We use natural products on the windows ... so when the water comes down, it won't affect the flowerbeds," said Debbie Westlake. Anthony Westlake said the best part of his job is being able to go somewhere and meet someone new every day. "We would love you to join our window-washing family," he said.

A fish and chip shop has been taken over by Adventure Island boss Philip Miller, who liked it so much he bought the business. Rose and Trevor Neville owned the Pavilion chippy, next to the theme park, and when they wanted to retire, Mr Miller made an offer. The shop has been refurbished and reopened as the Fish and Chip Emporium. Mr Miller said: “I’ve been friends with the former owners for 30 years – in fact, they used to babysit my nephew, Marc Miller.
“When I heard they wanted to retire, I really wanted to help them out. “I acquired the business and also asked their son, Perry, to become my assistant catering manager. Then his mum and dad told me they wanted to keep busy, so now Trevor does all our window cleaning at Adventure Island, Sea-Life Adventure Aquarium and the Three Shells.

Building a better brain: “The Winner’s Brain” combines cognitive neuroscience and fMRI scanning (“which gives us the best look we have so far at the brain in action”) with cognitive behavioral psychology that, said Brown, has long provided specific tools with marked results for making lasting behavioral and emotional changes. (fMRI stands for functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.) With this dual understanding, Brown and Fenske navigate and identify the functions of a healthy, winning brain: memory, adaptability, emotions, self-awareness, motivation, and more.
“A New York City window washer and London cab drivers are examples of people we interfaced with to learn how they optimize the human brain,” said Brown. “In each case illustrated, we’ve identified credible fMRI research to help illuminate the stories and give firm foundation to the suggestions we make for readers.”

Empire State Building Gets Makeover, Window by Window: On the fifth floor of the Empire State Building last week, a muffled din was escaping from an unassuming office door at the end of a hallway. Inside, men in safety goggles were bent over large glass panes, scraping, washing and filling them with gas. The office space had been transformed into a processing center for the building's 6,514 windows, and the men were in the midst of meticulously removing, cleaning and reconstructing them to be more energy efficient. "No one in the world has done anything like what we're doing," Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials, which is outfitting the windows, told AOL News. "This is a groundbreaking energy retrofit." The window project is one of eight upgrades under way that, when complete, will cut the building's energy use an estimated 38 percent and save $4.4 million a year. The improvements will push the Empire State Building into the top 10 percent of energy-efficient buildings in the country, according to Anthony E. Malkin, president of Wien and Malkin, which manages the building. "If we don't impact energy consumption in the existing building environment, we're never going to be able to impact energy consumption in general," he said.
The windows in the 102-story building are only about 10 years old and already have a dual-pane design. To re-insulate them with a coated film and krypton gas, workers remove them at night so as not to bother the current tenants. The panes are separated and cleaned three times before the film is placed between them and resealed around the edges. They are then baked in an oven to smooth the film and filled with krypton gas, which provides one last layer of insulation. Only the panes that are damaged or can't be thoroughly cleaned are thrown out. "It probably doesn't benefit someone who builds glass, but it benefits everyone else," Surace said of the process. Progress is slow but steady. On the operation's first day last week, they produced zero windows. On the second day, they did 10. By the fourth day, they were up to 42. Their goal is 30 to 50 windows a day to get the project done by December. The entire retrofit is slated to be finished in 2013. Malkin hopes people will take notice. "If you were to achieve something in a lesser building, it wouldn't be taken seriously," he said. "But if you were to do it in a building like the Empire State Building, it could change the world."

Falling glass kills man: Large sheets of glass crashed down and killed a man at a North Shore industrial site last night. Four of his workmates were injured while trying to rescue him. The man was working inside a shipping container at the Sharpeye glass products company on Porana Rd, in the Wairau Valley industrial zone, at about 6.20pm when the accident occurred. "It appears some sheets of glass have crashed down on the man, causing fatal cuts," said Inspector Matt Rogers of the police northern communications centre. "Other people working there went to assist him after it occurred and received intensive cuts while trying to give first aid and get him out." Mr Rogers said his workmates must have heard a loud crashing noise before clambering over smashed glass inside the container to try to rescue the victim, a 42-year-old married Chinese-born man. Of the more seriously hurt workers, one had neck injuries and the other suffered head cuts, a spokesman said. A Labour Department spokeswoman said she understood the dead man had been unloading the shipping container when the glass collapsed on him.

The Last Word: Ian Taylor - Name: Ian Taylor. Company: Coodes. Job title: Managing Partner. What do you begrudge spending money on? Things I could do myself if I had more time like gardening, window cleaning and house maintenance.

In Eastern Europe, Pact With Russians Raises Old Specters: As President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia and President Barack Obama prepare to arrive in Prague on Thursday to sign a landmark arms control treaty, Marcela Balounova, like many Czechs, remains haunted by her memories of 1968, when nearly one million Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia, ushering in a period of political repression. Lubos Dobrovsky, 78, a former dissident who worked as a window cleaner during the communist era before going on to become defense minister and presiding over the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, dismissed the new arms reduction treaty as “a cheap marketing trick by Washington and Moscow.”

Lossiemouth’s Scott refuses to give it a rest against Thistle: Lossiemouth centre forward Shawn Scott did not let the loss of his teeth stop him scoring twice against his former club in the League Cup quarter-final on Saturday. Scott put the bite on Buckie, less than 24 hours after surgery. He had all his teeth extracted in hospital on Friday and should have been in bed on Saturday afternoon. But after a couple of pain-killing injections on the morning of the game the window cleaner’s double sunk his old club.

Rain downs Coast profits: Window cleaners, ice-cream stalls, builders and tourism operators are among the Coast's small businesses still swamped by the prolonged wet season. Not even rainwater tank sellers have escaped, with overflowing dams banishing the drought to a distant memory for locals. I Can See Clearly Now window cleaner Matthew Brown had his quietest two months in 11 years. He was forced to share limited jobs among his five full-time staff to prevent laying them off. "I had to look at a way so we could all keep our jobs and reduce hours so we were all sharing," he said. "I would have to ask someone to sit on the bench and give the job to the guy who has kids." Wetdream Watertanks partner Celia Imeson said the constant rain had put buying water tanks out of residents' minds. "The dams are full ... there is plenty of water, gardens are growing. We will wait and see what happens when people get their water bills," she said. McCrackens Water Services retailer Phil Irwin agreed. "People forget about using water because it's falling out of sky on a regular basis," he said.