Window Cleaning News + Free Book

Photographer Kerry lands on both feet after his fall: A FORMER window cleaner who suffered horrendous injuries after falling off a ladder has turned his life around by taking up a new career. Kerry Taylor, 31, swapped soap and suds for shutter speeds after opting for a new life behind the camera lens. And tonight the BBC TV series DIY SOS helps him on his way to a new career.

A businessman claims to have lost thousands of pounds after BT (British Telecom) left him disconnected for more than four months. A group of four families moved into new housing off Back Lane, in Badwell Ash, three months ago and, a month before the move, informed BT they would need a phone line. Ash Asasi said he was promised it would be up and running within a few weeks, so he continued to spend around £3,500 advertising his window cleaning business with his home phone number. Mr Asasi said: "During the summer, I normally make around £2,000 a month, but it has been only a few hundred this year. The business has gone down and down."I'm really fed up now, this is the 21st century but I feel like I'm living in Africa." Mrs Jarvis said: "It's an absolute nightmare. We are dependent on having a home line not just for a landline but also for the internet. "My husband is also self-employed and everyone has our home telephone number and email address." A spokeswoman for BT said it was hoped work by contractors would be finished yesterday and apologised for the delay customers had experienced. She said the delay was due to a large amount of preparation work.
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Girl filmed in shower using spy camera: A pervert window cleaner has been jailed for setting up a spy camera to film a 15-year-old girl showering.Richard Pogson, 44, filmed the girl for his own sexual gratification and stored the clips on videos, a court heard. He was locked up for six months by a judge who said the offences were “of the utmost seriousness”. But after the case, angry relatives of the teenager said Pogson should have been imprisoned for several years. The girl’s weeping mother, who cannot be identified, said her daughter had been violated and betrayed. Pogson told officers of his sorrow and remorse. A former serviceman, he was of good character and had been married for 20 years. His wife was 20 years his senior and suffered a stroke in 2002. Pogson was her sole carer and she continued to support him. He had lost his window cleaning job as a result of the court proceedings and he and his wife had been threatened. Pogson had committed a gross breach of trust by filming those who used his bathroom.
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Man injured in Hawthorn assault, Australia: Police have arrested a man following an assault at a Hawthorn fast food restaurant early this morning which resulted in a man being taken to hospital.
Investigators have been told that at about 5am, a 20-year-old Glen Iris man had attended the restaurant and began throwing food around. When asked to leave by the manager, he became involved in an argument. The argument escalated and the manager was hit to the head with the handle of a window washer, causing him to fall to the ground unconscious. He was later taken to hospital with head injuries. The Glen Iris man has been interviewed by Boroondara CIU members and is assisting with inquiries. No charges have been laid at this stage.
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Kevin the Window Cleaning Business Coach now has the book available - read it for free, go to his site for details.

Water Fed Pole Academy Giveaway

Those great guys at WFP training academy Joe & Jeff always come up with some great stuff. One of their forum subjects includes an "off topic" board. They were the ones that put me on to "Give away of the day." Todays give away is "Leadertask" Click on the above left picture to see if the give away is still available, click on the right pic' for features.

"Want to complete more? Get tired less? Earn more? And permanently improve the quality of life, work hard less and have more time to speculate in peace? LeaderTask will help you with that! LeaderTask = Business organizer + Personal Information Manager + Calendar + Address Book!" This may be a freebie that a small business window cleaner can actually use. Just go to "giveaway of the day" to download - YOU HAVE AROUND 10 HOURS LEFT FOR THE FREE PROGRAM INCLUDING THE CODE FOR FULL USE.

Above is a video that Joe made around a year a go for the WFP Academy training forum. The video Joe made for me can be seen HERE, please go to the "youtube" page to watch - & leave a comment. THANKS! THE MORE HITS IT GETS THE MORE POPULAR THE BLOG GETS!

P.S. DON'T FORGET TONIGHT IS WCR LIVE SHOW NIGHT (1 A.M. LONDON TIME)

Government Data Reveals Cleaning Payments

Millionaire’s MP wife claimed £1,600 for cleaning windows:

AN MP married to a Welsh millionaire spent £1,600 of taxpayers’ cash on cleaning the windows of their luxury London flat. Barbara Follett, the Labour MP for Stevenage and wife of novelist Ken Follett, called the cleaners 18 times between February 2003 and March 2004 to the flat they share in the Soho area of the city. The cleaning cost £80 a time plus £14 VAT, and every penny was claimed back from the taxpayer. A home in the same street as the Folletts’ is currently on sale for £4.25m. The details are among extensive data finally released yesterday after Commons authorities gave up a three-year £100,000 legal battle to keep them secret.

SpiderMan as a Window Cleaner...again

Wall-climbing technique now used for robots could lead to tech that allows soldiers, window washers to scale sheer surfaces, too. are a whole range of scenarios, from security- or surveillance-related situations to natural disasters, in which it could be really useful to have a robot that can climb walls. But the idea gets so much traction because it's also just flat-out cool.
We've covered the efforts to design machines that scale vertical surfaces using techniques borrowed from geckos, and another that uses vacuum forces. But this weekend, at a major robotics conference, researchers from SRI International will be discussing a different approach: electro-adhesion. The SRI robots can clamp on to glass, wood, brick, concrete and more by using electrostatic charges generated by a battery. The materials used are compliant, so their robots can attach to just about any surface - rough and dusty or clean and flat. In the future, they say the technology could allow humans to climb walls, too, whether they be Special Forces operatives or window cleaners.

Mass held for Deceased

NYC construction workers hold Mass for dead colleagues. NEW YORK — Thousands gathered at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Monday at a Mass organized by city construction workers to remember more than two dozen of their colleagues killed on the job in the past year. Workers, some who came straight from the job dressed in work boots and jeans, were joined by family members of some of the 26 union and nonunion workers killed in the past year. Several times the workers raised their hats to nine chairs, each with a different colored hard hat and roses or daffodils on the seats. Eight referred to the union construction workers who lost their lives since last April, while the ninth represented the 18 who died in nonunion jobs, Jordan said. Bells rang as labor officials recited the names of those killed. The dead include six of seven victims of the March 15 crane collapse, a window washer who fell off a Manhattan skyscraper and a man who plunged 40 stories to his death off a Donald Trump tower. The ceremony was on Workers Memorial Day, which is held annually to commemorate the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act. But city construction workers have not held a Mass this large before and many said the crane collapse called greater attention to the high risks of their industry.

Window Cleaning News Round-Up

Omaha firefighters rescued a construction worker Monday morning after a scaffold malfunction left him suspended two stories up on the side of a downtown building. Two workers were on the scaffold on the west side of the Wells Fargo building at 20th and Farnam when it gave way shortly after 11 a.m. One worker managed to climb down. The other wasn't able to get down. "He was stuck on about the second floor,” says Omaha Fire Battalion Chief Mark Ervin. "We estimated he was about 30 feet from concrete. "What saved him? “The fall harness,” says Chief Ervin. “He was tethered to the roof for safety." Otherwise it could have killed him. “There's a very good chance it could have killed him,” says Chief Ervin. After a few minutes, firefighters were able to raise a bucket to reach the man. Paramedics checked him out to make sure he was okay. It's not clear what caused the scaffold to break. Traffic was briefly stopped in the area while the worker was brought down.

Mark Bromley: from soapy rags to riches (he hopes). As his first play opens at the King's Head, a window cleaner explains why he wants to get rid of his ladder and bucket. Thirty-six-year-old Mark Bromley is a window cleaner, but he's not washing today. He has written a pair of plays, and he's here to direct them. “I've got a ladder and a bucket and two days a week I listen to music and clean windows,” he says. “The sun's out - lovely. It could be very lucrative, but I don't want any more customers. I'm thinking about my play now.” He rubs a hand over red eyes. “And I'm flat on my arse financially.” To hire the theatre, Bromley had to raise £2,200, which he did through donations, a sponsored run and intensive window-cleaning. He is yet to pay the actors and has a 14-year-old daughter to support. “I want to do what I love doing, but I have no other means of income so I'll have to get up a ladder this week - and it's the most important week of my life.” Bromley's livelihood depends on how many tickets he sells and on bringing the production up to scratch to attract an agent. “I want to give up window cleaning this year. I've had enough of struggling.” “What gets me,” he says, sitting up, “is that Guy Ritchie - a one-trick pony - is swanning around making films, and he's not cleaning f***ing windows. I believe I have something better to offer, but I'm not given the chance,” he peaks before sitting back and grabbing his pint. “So I have turned back to theatre, it's more egalitarian.”
Dining downturn: Restaurateurs face rising costs & thriftier customers. The steaks at Cattlemens are a little smaller. The pizzas at Mary's Pizza Shack are a little pricier. The pastas at Flavor have less cheese and more vegetables. And the busboys at Checkers also wash windows. "In the 12 years I've been here, I've never seen anything like it," said Katherine Castillo, owner of Checkers Bistro & Wine Bar in downtown Santa Rosa. "It's a scary time right now, but I'm hopeful it's not going to last," says Castillo, who managed the restaurant for a decade before buying it in 2006. At Flavor, on Old Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa, chef and co-owner Charles Downing said the cost increases are brutal. She's cut back on fresh flowers. She's stopped using a window-washing service, asking the busboys to do it instead. ("They've got nothing but time," she says.)
Democratic senators want tougher OSHA penalties. People can get more prison time for mail fraud than for violating safety standards that can kill workers, Democratic senators said Tuesday as they called for tougher punishment for workplace fatalities and stricter enforcement from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The maximum OSHA civil penalty for a safety violation is $70,000 and the maximum prison sentence for a willful violation of a safety standard that leads to a worker's death is six months, said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. In contrast, mail fraud can draw a top sentence of 30 years. There were 5,840 fatal work injuries in the U.S. in 2006 - a fatality rate of 4.0 per 100,000 employed workers - the most recent numbers available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. OSHA said that the fatality rate was the lowest since the BLS instituted its Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries in 1992.
Normally, the Philadelphia School District would welcome a free window washing. But on this day, service comes with a healthy dose of youthful indignation. To represent their cause, protesters are dressed in head–to–toe white jump suits. Donning rubber gloves, they wash the building’s windows in staged protest. Reemerging from the district headquarters, the CEO dances with students to Outkast’s ”So Fresh So Clean” as the window washing continues. The din of chants and cheers subsides as she saunters to the mike to give her first public address to students since taking office.