Bumper Edition - Window Cleaning News

New Heights: Our roving photographer caught a window washer in his lens this week. A window washer at an Oyster Point business park obviously thinks it's best to stand on solid ground.. A window washer scrubs the upper-floor windows of this office building in an Oyster Point business park using a brush on a very long pole.

Lost cash prompts random act of kindness: Barnstable - Osterville resident Bill Harty took a cup of kindness on New Year's Eve when someone returned the wallet he had lost — and the $1,300 in cash inside it. "That was my mortgage payment and my heating oil bill," for his house in Maine, Harty said in a phone interview. Harty, a house painter, had cashed a check from a client because he needed immediate access to the funds but hadn't gotten a chance to deposit the money in his own bank account. He usually keeps his wallet under his seat, and on an errand Thursday night in West Barnstable, Harty thinks he accidentally kicked it out of the truck. The 59-year-old didn't realize it was gone until the next day. "I tore my house apart, I tore my truck apart," he recalled.

On Friday morning, Susan Parker, a 57-year-old with a window-cleaning business, was out for her morning walk on Cedar Street in West Barnstable when she noticed the wallet. "I wanted to get to a phone immediately," she said when she saw the wallet with the cash sticking out of it. Parker looked through the wallet, got his contact information and realized that she knew him by reputation. Both she and Harty said they might have come in contact through their jobs years ago. But even if he had been a total stranger, she said she would have acted the same way. "Anybody could use $1,300," she said. "I believe in karma. What goes around comes around."

Parker couldn't get in touch with Harty until later in the afternoon because he was working. "'Hurry up and come and get the wallet,'" Harty remembered Parker saying. "I said, 'Oh my god, I can't believe this woman,'" Harty said. Because of his near-loss, Harty said he's a changed man; He'll never leave his wallet under his seat again. And he is looking at the world with new eyes. "It renewed my faith in people," he said.

We should not dismiss the prime minister's undertaking to support business start-ups with a revived enterprise allowance scheme as just more Tory blather – though there is much to be cynical about. Principally, the new enterprise allowance (NEA) fails to target the key under-25 age group, those most caught in the double whammy of fewer jobs and greater financial obstacles in the way of taking up education beyond 16 (with the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance and higher tuition fees). This is the group that David Cameron should be directly addressing in his regional jobs tour.

The biggest mistake would be for the government to see it as a quick fix for getting people off the dole or as a way to regularise the informal economy (in other words flushing out those who currently take the dole and do a bit of window cleaning or decorating work on the side). Encouraging young people to use their talent and passion to make a go of a freelance or one-person business has to be the focus. As the civil servants implementing Thatcher's scheme found, the right kind of help at the beginning produces long-term results and leads to further job creation. The coalition needs to put more effort and money into this. It should not ask school leavers or graduates to twiddle their thumbs for six months. It must acknowledge that getting a business up and running – window cleaning or designing birthday cards – will cost more than £1,250 if it is to be successful.

The Washington Post Launches “Service Alley” - Finding a home care professional during a repair emergency becomes much easier with today’s launch of “Service Alley” from The Washington Post. Service Alley is The Washington Post’s online marketplace of D.C. area home service providers that makes it effortless to find, research and contact local home improvement resources. The new marketplace also lets Washingtonians keep record of their favorite contractors and discover new ones through searches and viewing other peoples’ favorites. People can login with Facebook, which lets them view trusted recommendations from their friends. Service Alley lets visitors browse thousands of listings in more than 50 categories and compare ratings, look for coupons and find recommendations from friends and neighbors. Cleaning Services including carpet and upholstery, ducts and vents, gutter cleaning, hazardous removal, pressure washing, window cleaning and much more. Visitors to Service Alley can also take advantage of service coupons, write reviews and create digital and printable lists of their favorite home care professionals.

Law catches up with thief years later: A window cleaner has finally been sentenced for a burglary he committed nearly five years ago after he failed to answer his bail. Karl Jones stole a vacuum cleaner from the warehouse at Aldi, Kidsgrove, in January 2006. He admitted the charge and was due to be sentenced on March 31, 2006. But he did not attend court and has remained at large ever since. Jones, aged 34, of Gordon Road, Goldenhill, pleaded guilty to failing to surrender to the custody of the court when he appeared at North Staffordshire Magistrates' Court yesterday.

Prosecutor Lynn Warrington said Jones had entered Aldi as a customer on January 30, 2006 but then went into the warehouse area and stole the vacuum cleaner, worth £34.99. He left through a fire exit and activated an alarm. The store manager studied the CCTV and recognised Jones. The court was told the vacuum cleaner was never recovered. Paul Hyatt, defending, said Jones committed the burglary because of his drug dependency but had now turned his life around. He said: "He was on heroin at the time. He was a heroin addict for 10 years. But he lives with his brother and since 2006 he has worked as a window cleaner. "He has kept out of trouble for five years and is off drugs." Magistrates sentenced Jones to a 12-month community order with 120 hours' unpaid work and ordered him to pay £34.99 compensation to Aldi and £85 prosecution costs.

Guernsey’s Chamber of Commerce has welcomed its 600th member. Window blind supplier and fitter J K Window Blinds, which was established in 2007, joined the business group towards the end of last year and in doing so helped it chalk up the milestone figure – which has already been added to. Directors Kevin Philp, Jon Lucas and John Philp had previously worked in construction, soft furnishings and home improvements before setting up the company, which supplies made-to-measure blinds, shutters, awnings and soft furnishings in the domestic and commercial markets. The company, which has recently moved to Mont Crevelt House at South Side, St Sampson’s, also offers window cleaning services under the J K Window Cleaning banner.

Four patients who were taken to a hospital after breathing an irritant odor caused by mixing household chemicals Thursday night have been treated and released. The individuals were further evaluated for trouble breathing due to the odor, said acting Maj. Paul Cruz of the Prince George's County Fire Department. Never mix bleach with ammonia. Bleach or products containing bleach, such as tub and tile cleaners, should never be mixed with ammonia or products that contain ammonia, such as window cleaner. Toxic gases will be released. Do not mix bleach with acidic products such as toilet bowl cleaners.
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How to bring up daughters – by the Girls School Association: When I tell her about the single-sex grammar school I attended, where a visit from the window cleaner would send the girls into a flurry of excitement. So is there any truth in the less-than-flattering stereotypes of girls' schools? "I think things have moved on and teenage girls are much more comfortable in boys' company. Parents are more liberal these days and social lives outside of school are more mixed and more open. We are lucky here because we are next to a boys' school. We have shared buses and extracurricular activities and the sixth-formers are free to visit each others' common rooms. There is a constant stream of boys going past my window, so we don't have any fuss about the window cleaner."

A retired Arbroath window cleaner has had a book published more than 50 years after conceiving the idea. Set in post-war Glasgow, it is the true story of his childhood, which was one of enduring poverty and hardship. As a boy, Allan Kelly had fancied the idea of being a writer, and even then he felt his unusual childhood would make a good story. He had always loved reading, and writing was his favourite activity in class. But deemed a failure at school, he didn’t pursue the idea. Leaving with no qualifications, he went from one labouring job to another. Variously he worked at Wills cigarette factory, Collinses clothes factory, and on Glasgow Corporation buses. Later he found himself working on the construction of a stretch of motorway at Provanmill. With unemployment rising at the end of the 1970s, he moved with his family to Arbroath where he worked at the Foundry for several years before setting himself up as a self-employed window cleaner. It was meant to be a temporary measure, but he ended up sticking with it for 25 years.

Prince William and our future Queen Catherine say they will not employ any servants after their wedding. Will they be the first members of the Royal family to do their own ironing and dusting? William's decision, perhaps taken to emphasise a desire to lead as normal a life as possible, is in contrast to his dad, who employs around 149 staff. Men don't feel they have to take on DIY to appear macho in the 21st century. These days, we can employ a handyman. Male domestic workers has risen from 17% to 39% in 10 years. Modern servants are dog-walkers, gardeners, blokes who mow the lawn, baby-minders, cleaners, cooks, ironing ladies, window cleaners and car-washers.They are usually foreign and earn the minimum wage, or a little more - depending on where you live. There are more people working as servants than ever before: one employment website calculates that half of all households pay for help of one kind or another.

Pete Postlethwaite 1946-2011: Tributes paid to actor Steven Spielberg rated 'probably world's best.' HE was once described by Steven Spielberg as “probably the best actor in the world”. Coming from arguably the world’s most famous director, that was quite some compliment. So it is little surprise that the film and TV world united yesterday to pay Pete Postlethwaite such a glowing tribute after he lost his battle with cancer at just 64. Pete trained at the Old Vic before moving to Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre, where he worked alongside Julie Walters, Bill Nighy and Jonathan Pryce. He had a long-running affair with Julie and they even shared a bedsit in London. Recalling their first meeting, Julie said: “He walked into rehearsal in an old, faded, window cleaner’s jacket and a pair of denim jeans.

Praise for hard-working MP: In reply to Colin Cawthray's letter ('Give tax payer a say on MPs' expenses, YEP, December 13). I would like to say everybody is entitled to their own views. But I fully support Jon Trickett claiming for his office windows cleaning costing £20. Jon hasn't the time to get a sponge and do the job himself as suggested; Jon works hard for the people he represents, as do all his staff in the office. I pay my taxes and fully support Jon, so I would like to say keep on the window cleaner, Jon, and keep up the good work. Initial letter.

These days, you'd think a thrift shop would thrive: Bill and Jennifer Matthews made the decision to close Matthews Discount Store one night in December. The next day, Jennifer was in the store on State Street in New Albany, selling the shop's merchandise on eBay. Teddy bear welcome wreaths, hair care products, videos, bunk beds - everything had to be cleared out before the end of January, when the Matthewses had arranged to stop renting the building. They had already sold the company box truck. Now they were trying to sell Jennifer's Lincoln Navigator. “We figured we would get out before we just went …,” said Jennifer. Her husband finished the sentence for her: “Yeah, before we lose everything.”

A few weeks earlier, vandals broke the storefront window and ran off with two bags of merchandise, none of it worth anywhere near the $500 the window cost to replace, said Bill. Now the front window has a large “sale” sign painted across it. The merchandise is already marked down. Bill's dream was always to buy cheap and sell cheap in a little shop that had a little of everything. For seven or eight years before opening the discount store, he and Jennifer operated a similar operation on a smaller scale at local Peddler's Malls where vendors rent booths to sell their products. They did so well Bill decided to quit his job with a roofing company and persuaded his wife to quit her work as a bank teller and their grown son, Patrick, to give up his gig with a window cleaning company so they could all open a store together. That was about two years ago.

For a while everything went well. They used Jennifer's 401(k) and the bonus Bill received from his former boss to start their business. They regularly pulled in about $5,000 or $6,000 in profits apiece each month. Then the economy tanked. The Matthewses thought their thrift shop, with its low prices, would be the kind of place people would flock to in bad times. “Everybody who comes here is like, ‘Oh, you're in the right business, you're in the right business,' ” said Bill. But they weren't. One week he had the store's back room filled, then people lost their jobs and no one had money to buy. When the merchandise stopped moving, he stopped ordering new things to sell. Patrick went back to his old job five or six months ago. Bill recently let his former boss know he was in the market for part-time work. Of course, snow and ice aren't exactly prime conditions for the roofing business, said Jennifer, who added “we're getting hit everywhere.”

Families revolt at being charged £955 annual home maintenance bill: Families living on a new housing estate are refusing to pay thousands of pounds in service charges after claiming they are being charged too much. The annual maintenance charge is paid by residents living in 90 apartments within the City Waterside area of Hanley. It is paid to a housing association to cover cleaning, gardening, window cleaning and repair work at the complex. But the annual charge for some residents has risen from £798 in August 2009 to £860 and now £955. Now some residents are withholding their payments. Among the affected residents are Eve and John Maley who bought a two-bedroom apartment, in Eastwood Road, after moving from Northwood. Mrs Maley claims her windows have never been cleaned and that the building has had a water leak for months. The couple are now paying £60-a-year for a private window cleaner.

Robot takes on toilet: The Bedford-based creator of the automatic Roomba vacuum is out with its newest creation: a floor-cleaning robot small enough to circle your toilet. Set to be unveiled Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the iRobot Scooba 230 is a 6.5-inch in diameter disk that washes, scrubs and squeegees in tight corners and small spaces. As for the future of robotic conveniences, Angle said engineers are focusing on the basics. “The driving force behind the robots is solving problems people want to be solved,” Angle said. “You won’t see them playing music and cooking a gourmet meal.” He added that the robotics industry will likely tackle “things like lawn-mowing and window-washing. Things that take time, but that we don’t like doing.”

Searching for the Missing People of Las Vegas: One year ago, Steven Koecher pulled his car into a Sun City Anthem neighborhood and walked away. He has not been seen or heard from since. The last known images of Koecher were captured on a neighbor's home-surveillance camera. He is seen walking down a neighborhood sidewalk, crossing the street, and disappearing out of frame. In the year since he disappeared, Koecher's family has spent countless hours looking for him. They have become amateur detectives, scouring Steven's life for the smallest anomaly. He has no criminal past, no connection to drugs or other elements that make people want to leave their lives behind. Friends and family think employment may have been the reason for Koecher's trip south, but that remains speculation. He took a job handing out fliers for a St. George window washing business, but it hardly paid the bills. When Koecher disappeared, he was broke. The Henderson Police Department is investigating Koecher's case, but say they have no new leads.

Shattered glass offers clues that may improve weather and climate forecasts: Studying the way glass and other brittle objects shatter can help scientists hone their weather forecasts and climate predictions, according to a study released last week. The study, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that tiny particles of dust that released into the air when dirt is broken apart follow similar fragmentation patterns as glass. "As small as they are, conglomerates of dust particles in soils behave the same way on impact as a glass dropped on a kitchen floor," Kok said in a statement. "Knowing this pattern can help us put together a clearer picture of what our future climate will look like." "The idea that all these objects shatter in the same way is a beautiful thing, actually," Kok said. "It's nature's way of creating order in chaos."

DOVER TOWNSHIP — All are safe on the ground after a chairlift at Treetops Resort stalled Wednesday evening, forcing the evacuation of about a hundred skiers and snowboarders by rope chair. During the evacuation, four rescue teams used rope launchers to fire a line over the lift cable, then secured a bosun’s chair — much like a window washer uses — and a pulley to the line. People were evacuated from the lift chairs one person at a time from four chairs simultaneously, and the whole process took about an hour and a half. Most kept their skis and snowboards on, since dropping them could pose a risk to people on the ground.

Joint Enforcement Task Force on the Underground Economy and Employee Misclassification (JTF). On July 1 Richard Power got a surprise visit from two state investigators, who whipped out their badges and asked Power, owner of Worcester-based Commonwealth Environmental Services, to show proof of his worker’s compensation insurance. Power, a former member of the U.S. Air National Guard, always tries to keep his business paperwork up to date, including worker’s comp, unemployment insurance and businesses taxes. But there had been a mistake: Power’s worker’s comp policy had expired, unbeknownst to him. The state investigators ordered Power to immediately stop working until he could show proof of insurance. Within a week Power obtained a new policy and he was able to go back to work. He had to pay a $900 fine and was barred from bidding on any public projects for one year.

Situations like the one Power found himself in have become increasingly more common in the last year as the state has ramped up enforcement of the so-called “underground economy.” The label describes businesses that, for whatever reason, are not up to date on mandatory businesses expenses or have misclassified employees as contractors. Doing so allows businesses to save significant costs related to insurance and benefits. State officials claim that some businesses do it purposely to save a buck. But many business owners claim, like Power, that it’s all an honest mistake. Whatever the reason, the state is finding these businesses and has increased fines against companies by more than fourfold in the last year.

In 2009, the first full year of the program, the Joint Enforcement Task Force (JTF) collected $1.4 million in revenues through fines. But 2010 proved to be a banner year with the state collection nearly $6.5 million, including more than $2 million in fines levied against businesses with lapsed policies or no unemployment insurance at all. For the thousands of businesses that have been cited by the task force, getting caught by the JTF means anywhere from a $100 fine up to tens of thousands of dollars in penalties and possible probation.

While some businesses say the issue is a simple oversight in paperwork, state officials say other businesses appear to have purposely skipped on paying employee costs in an effort to boost their bottom line and to gain an edge on companies that are complying with the laws. If a worker is classified as an independent contractor, a business does not have to pay for unemployment insurance, worker’s comp and other benefits. That can add up to big savings for a company.

A worker can only be an independent contractor if they perform work outside the regular nature of the business, if the hiring business does not control the way the job is performed and if the laborer considers himself an independent worker. Other states and the federal government have looser definitions. So, for example, a law firm cannot hire a lawyer and call them an independent contractor, because that is within the purview of what the law firm does. The firm could, however, hire a window washer as an independent contractor.

Paul Tillotson - Music is experience: His first gig was playing the jaw harp, sitting on a stool at church beside his mother. Now, jazz pianist Paul Tillotson can pack almost any venue he wants with loyal and enthusiastic fans who know his songs, groove on his give-and-take, laugh at his antics — and come back for more. But he left Boise to get where he is today. “I had to leave,” he says. “Music, like Charlie Parker said, is your experience. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.” For 20 years in New York City, he jokes that success meant paying his rent. For a year and a half, he resorted to window washing to make ends meet, so he’s gratified to see he’s come further than that. And the current measure? With typical good humor, he still says: paying the rent.

One of the things that endears us to Taiwanese travel show host Janet Hsieh, who helms TLC’s Fun Taiwan and Fun Asia series, is her strong desire to have a good time wherever she is. In fact, her infectious glee and enthusiasm for trying out new things is so believable that anyone who has met her in the flesh knows she is the same on and off camera. Hsieh has visited many exciting places in the Fun Asia series, pointing out that some of those destinations were actually on her travel wishlist. "When the producers come up with a list, I just go yes, yes, yes!" confessed the enthusiastic Hsieh.  We’re actually focusing on the people and I think that is the most important thing for any traveller visiting a place. "You can have 101 buildings anywhere. For me, it’s important to interview the person who built them or the window cleaner," she said.

Ukrspyrt, the state enterprise of spirit and liquor-and-vodka production industry, is intended to improve quality of spirit for production of liquor and vodka, Ukrspyrt Director-General Ihor Sukhonosov has announced in an interview with Uriadovyi Kurier newspaper. Sukhonosov explains, at the moment 4% of etheraldehyde cut (crude alcohol purification by-product, output in the form of fusel and volatile oils) are skimmed from 100% of the spirits made, while Ukrspyrt plans to introduce a technology for skimming 20% of etheraldehyde cut from spirits, which the state enterprise plans processing into window washer and other alcohol-containing goods. Liquor- and spirits-makers believe that the reorganisation of Ukrspyrt into a state enterprise will fuel corruption and strengthen the monopoly in the alcohol production industry, also pertaining to price formation.

Voices from the Past: Elmore Harker: As Police and Fire Chief, one of Oak Lawn’s native sons left a legacy of honor and integrity. Elmore Harker became a professional window and appliance glazer with the Chicago branch of the Pittsburgh Plate Company, which installed industrial-sized panes in downtown buildings. Throughout the 1920's, Harker worked in the heart of the Loop, fixing and cleaning windows on numerous downtown structures, including the Chicago Board of Trade.  Balancing himself precariously on a wooden platform, Harker was constantly in danger of falling to his death, a fate which many of his co-workers tragically met.

Votes delight talent with window cleaning contestant: The last time Hayden Lawrence performed on television was as a 14-year-old with the Marlborough Boys' College choir on the pre-recorded television show Praise Be. So the now Christchurch-based 22-year-old was a bit nervous, but mostly excited, before his solo live performance on Television New Zealand's Freshly Squeezed Talent show on New Year's Eve. Mr Lawrence won auditions to perform on the show. He sang When a Man Loves a Woman. And the judges loved him: Annie Crummer said: "What an amazing voice you have, and fantastic song and thank you so much for making it yours." Mr Lawrence is working as a window cleaner in Christchurch and saving money to travel to Britain in March.

World Title for Waterford: Local businessman Richie Penkert has won the World title and broken the European record at the recent World Drugfree Powerlifting Championships in Castleblaney. Richie is the owner of Mr. Window, window cleaning service where he has to juggle his time between work and competition preparation. Richie has been involved in weightlifting for the last 20 years competing both nationally and international in various competitions. He expects to have a very busy year in 2011 as he tries to establish his business in the city and country while trying to train for his upcoming competitions in both the European and World Championships.