Australian Man Falls To His Death While Trying To Clean His Own Windows

Tragic fall: the man plunged from the fifth floor of this building after attempting to clean his own windows.

Wife screamed as husband fell to his death from Kirribilli window: Neighbours heard a woman's screams seconds after her husband fell to his death from the sixth-floor window of a harbourside unit at Kirribilli on Monday. The woman ran to a lodge across the road, crying as she begged someone to help revive her husband.

She told staff at Glenferrie Lodge that her husband was cleaning a window in their Carrabella Street unit when he fell and landed in the car park below about 8am. Onlookers tried desperately to revive the 47-year-old man but he went into cardiac arrest at the scene and died. Police said they believed the man had fallen in what was described as an “awful incident” and, at this stage, did not believe self harm was involved.

Sabina Heggie lives in the house next door to the block. “I was woken up by the sounds of screams from next door and when I looked out my bedroom window I could see a woman rushing around and a man lying on the ground near the wall and he wasn't moving,” Ms Heggie said. Several hours later, she placed pink and white lillies on the spot where the man had fallen. “I didn't know him but my heart goes out to his wife. I feel so sorry for her.”

A Glenferrie Lodge cleaner, Anne Yang, said she tried to comfort the woman at the unit block, which is less than 200 metres from Kirribilli House. Ms Yang said she saw the man lying in a white T-shirt and underwear on the ground as others tried to resuscitate him. “After this [the] lady said he cleaned the window, fell off the window,” Ms Yang said. “She just said he fell off the window. She just like shock, really scary, like shaking.”

Vijai Rameshwaram is the manager of Glenferrie Lodge and said the man's wife came running into the reception area, shivering and crying. “A woman came running from the apartment and she was shivering,” Mr Rameshwaram said. He said she asked staff if anyone knew how to do CPR and explained she had already called an ambulance. “She was crying, she was in shock.” The woman was seen leaving the street in an ambulance.

A man has died after falling from the sixth floor of a harbourside apartment at Kirribilli in what police are calling an “awful incident.”

Harbourside Local Area Command crime manager Detective Inspector Mike Birley said: “[It's] an awful incident. “[His] wife was somewhere in the place [and] she's very upset,” Detective Inspector Birley said. Paramedics were called just after 8am and found the man in cardiac arrest but he died at the scene. “We attempted to revive him. He was critical in cardiac arrest but he died at the scene,” an Ambulance Service of NSW said.

The man has yet to be formally identified. A NSW Police media spokesman said initial inquires suggested the death was by “misadventure” but investigations continued. “Police from Harbourside Local Area Command are in attendance [and have] established a crime scene to be examined by forensic officers,” the spokesman said. “Investigations into the man's death are continuing. However, it is not believed to be suspicious,” he said. Officers want to interview anyone who saw the fatal fall. Police have now left the unit block, which overlooks the water and faces the direction of Taronga Zoo at Mosman.

Australian Window Cleaners Buzzed By Giant

Window cleaners Lawrence Jones and Carl Nothling got the fright of their lives yesterday when they turned around to see one of the world's largest planes heading directly for them.

Window cleaners sitting pretty as Globemasters buzz Brisbane: When your job means you dangle hundreds of metres above the ground every day there is little rattles you. But window cleaners Lawrence Jones and Carl Nothling got the fright of their lives yesterday when they turned around to see one of the world's largest planes heading directly for them. Unaware that four of the Air Force's new C-17A Globemasters were due to fly low over the city on a public relations exercise, the duo from Pacific Rope Maneuvers were hard at work cleaning windows at the top of the Brisbane Square building when they noticed hundreds of people lining the nearby Victoria Bridge.

Mr Jones, 27, said he rang his colleague on the roof of the building to find out what was going on when suddenly the four 53m-long and 52m-wide Globemasters came roaring past  and one appeared to heading right for them. "There was one moment I was scared,'' Mr Jones said. The skies over southeast Queensland were home to four giant aircraft when the RAAF's new Globemasters took to the air. "The second or third one that flew over the building looked really close, like it was coming right at us. As it was coming we were just saying `please turn, please turn' and it did just in time.''

Photographer Alex Aspinall was on hand for the Globemaster flyover, but window cleaners Laurence Jones and Carl Nothling had an even better view high above the city.

Twenty-eight floors below the duo, passerby Alex Aspinall had his camera pointed skyward  and captured the exact moment that left Mr Jones and Mr Nothling shaking in their harnesses. Like the window cleaners, Mr Aspinall had also managed to miss the news of the flypast. He was walking to work just in time to see it all unwind. "It was a coincidence really,'' he said. "As I got off the train I saw hordes of people queued up on the bridge. I noticed the window cleaners as I was coming over the bridge and wondered if that's what people were looking at. "It was a pleasing shot in the end. All the other aircraft had come over the river but that one took a much wider pass around ... it looked like it came quite close to the top of that building. "I can imagine it was pretty scary up there.''

C-17A Globemasters are one of the largest planes in the World, standing 322 metres (1056 feet) tall.

But despite the fright, the window cleaner Mr Jones said it had been ``the highlight of my day''. "Being there on the ropes and seeing it so close, it was pretty nice,'' he said. The huge planes took off from Amberley Air Force base west of Brisbane, thundered across the central business district a few minutes later about 300m above the ground before flying over the beaches of the Gold Coast at below the height of the city's loftiest building, the Q1, which stands 322 metres tall.

The formation, which thrilled tens of thousands of onlookers,  included the newest Globemaster, which was delivered on November 6 and is the Royal Australian Air Force's sixth. Wing Commander Paul Long says the Globemasters have made a tremendous contribution since they first arrived in December 2006. "Our C-17As have supported operations in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan and last year were instrumental in providing support for disaster relief tasking in Queensland, Japan and New Zealand,'' he said in a statement.

Melbourne Window Cleaners DIY A Curve Pole

"Viewmore Window Cleaning" is a family operated business with 2 generations working in the window cleaning industry. John Harrington is the owner/operator and has been living and working in the Bayside suburbs of Melbourne for over 25 years. Two years ago his son Daniel joined the business and together they have been able to offer a genuine service to their clients based on good old fashion service and values." This article was kindly submitted by John Harrington of "Viewmore Window Cleaning" in Melbourne. Don’t forget to visit his website - Melbourne Window Cleaning – Viewmore Window Cleaning.

"Daniel earlier this week launched his own site, Window Cleaning Forum Australia which is aiming to become an interactive site with high quality information about window cleaning in Australia. Having noticed that there was no online discussion sites for window cleaning in Australia, and that the only specific information required you a fee to join their site, Daniel decided to start his own with the hope that contributing window cleaners across the country will help grow the site." Discuss this article on the forum.

DIY Curve Pole for $20

Introduction:



Seen those fancy curved window cleaning poles that have a curved top section of the pole to give you a better angle when window cleaning? Not sure if it worth spending the money on? Well I’ll teach you how to make a simple, cost effective version, that works just as well and is more customizable to your required task. All prices in Australian dollars (AUD) What do you need?

• $10 A window cleaning pole. We use a pole from the pool cleaning section at K-Mart.
• $5 Window Cleaning Pole Tip
• $5 Irrigation Pipe (Check your local hardware)
• $0.50 Super Glue
• A few spare cable ties.
• Heat Gun (not included in price).

How much is the official Mr Longarm Pro Curve?
12’ 3 Section $41.00 AUD (not incl postage from USA)
18’ 3 Section $51.50 AUD (not incl postage from USA)
Step 1:

Assemble all your equipment to your work station, you should have some of the required pieces lying around (super glue and cable ties) so that will be easy to get. You can see exactly what I used below, the pole is a short 8 foot version, but you can use whatever size you like.



Step 2:
Take your irrigation pipe, this is what we will use to create the curved section of the pole.
This is optional: Cable tie the bottom of the pipe to a chair leg to get a perfect bend.

Take your heat gun, and aim it at the point where you want the bend to be. Where the heat gun is aimed will be the center of the curve as it will curve the surrounding areas too. Maintain the heat gun, and bend the pipe by pulling/pushing (depending on where you are standing) from the top of the pipe until you reach a degree of curvature that you are satisfied with. The pipe will reduce the bend slightly as it cools, so you should factor that into your calculations. It was cold when I made my pole, so it cooled fairly quickly but you can place it in a bucket of water if you want it to cool almost instantly.



Step 3:
Using your heat gun again, this time heat the end of the pipe you are going to be connecting the tip of the pole to. Heat the end of the pipe until it becomes soft enough to slide the tip in firmly. You may need some glue to keep it in place if the tip is slightly loose. In my case, it was a perfect fit and is incredibly solid without glue.



Step 4:
Putting it all together! This is a fairly straight forward step, all you need to do is slide the pipe in the top of the pole. It will only slide as far as the bend, so you don’t need to worry about how far to push it, although you want a reasonable length of pipe inside the pole in order for it to be strong enough to handle pressure. If you find the pole twists, which it likely will, just place either some super glue around the pipe and slide it back in. The glue will fasten and hold the pipe in place.



Finished Product:


Optional Steps:
1. Due to the angle of the curve, the steel pole itself won’t come in contact with the window you are cleaning, hence why this is an optional step. You can wrap the end of the steel pole, where you slid the pipe in, with duct tape or something similar in order to create a buffer between the metal edge and any glass. This will provide a greater level of strength to the pole as any twists will have resistance from the glue and the tape.

2. Also if you use wagtail squeegee’s, they work very well on this pole, you just need to create a marker near the tip of the pole so you can line it up correctly.
Customize it!

The pipe is able to be bent to any angle, so you can make it as curved as you want! You could even make the curve longer make it similar to the goose neck of a water fed pole to reach into deeper ledges and sills. Let us know how you went by posting pictures and sharing ideas in our forum.

Editors note: This article in no way or form stipulates that building this pole will emulate the unique properties found in the Mr. Longarm Pole with it's own unique twisting & cleaning action.