Alarm Sensors For Glass

Temasek Polytechnic graduate Luke Lim developed a sticker sensor that can detect cracks in surfaces like glass doors or window screens. Called Shatter Alert, his innovation is patent-pending.

Sticker sensor detects cracks in glass doors, windows: Imagine a sticker that can detect cracks in surfaces like glass doors or window screens. Mr Luke Lim, 25, has designed just that, after three years of toying with the concept and testing different materials. The idea started as a project with a course mate when he was in his final year at Temasek Polytechnic (TP), reading computer engineering.

"We wanted to create a sensor that would activate only when the window is broken. Existing alarm and sensory systems are reactive to other sounds like thunder," said Mr Lim, who graduated from TP in 2012. "But we couldn't commercialise it at that point because the technology was too expensive and we had to find a way to bring the cost down."

After graduating, Mr Lim, with the help of his lecturer Kok Boon Kiong and guidance from TP's entrepreneurship centre, developed a prototype that has been on the market since September last year.

It is available through Glass Security, a company Mr Lim set up with a co-founder, who is graduating from university this year.

Mr Kok, a senior lecturer in infocomm and network engineering, said Mr Lim worked hard on his project, even during his national service. "He would burn his weekends coming to TP to find me, continue working on the product and doing research. There's a lot of trial and error and using different methods, and he learnt a lot. He has the belief and passion in his idea, and so I supported him," he said.

In 2013, Mr Lim was awarded a seed grant of $50,000 from Spring Singapore for his patent-pending technology, now known as Shatter Alert. "Based on the touchscreen technology of smartphones, we made the film thinner and more flexible, so that it's possible for it to be attached to surfaces," he said.

The transparent sticker sensor can be stuck on surfaces of any material such as plastic, glass or concrete. It costs about $300 to be installed on two car windows, along with an alarm system. Mr Lim said that he has finalised talks with a Malaysian distributor to supply the product there and is also exploring the market in India. The technology can potentially be used in support structures such as bridges and buildings, he added.

Top Ten Alarm Sensors On The Market Right Now: Glass Break Sensors Review - Why Buy a Glass Break Sensor? A burglary in the night or while you're away from home can cost you valuable items as well as your sense of security. One way to protect your home is to install a glass break sensor that alerts you when a window is broken in your home, allowing entry without your knowledge. These window sensors include the Honeywell FG-730 Glassbreak Detector, Bosch DS1108i Glassbreak Detector and ELK-6040 Two-Way Wireless Glass Break Sensor.

There are several basic types of glass sensors. These types of window alarms come in hard-wired or wireless models and are available as surface mounts or audio discriminators. Surface-mount sensors work by detecting a shock to the glass panels of a window, which is good for windows that don't open, such as decorative side panes alongside a front door.

Audio discriminators work by triggering an alarm when a noise occurs that is on the same decibel level as the sound of breaking glass. This type can be a better option in large rooms with multiple windows. Audio discriminators are normally mounted on a wall or ceiling and can be used to protect windows in an entire room, patio doors and other types of operational windows. Others are designed to work with a transceiver to provide protection for the room.

Glass Break Sensors: What to Look For. Window alarms come in different types to protect stationary and opening windows. Learn about the differences to choose the right one.

Breakage Detection

There are two main ways in which a sensor can detect a broken window: via ultra thin strands of wire or by monitoring the typical audio frequencies that accompany the sound of breaking glass. Those in the first category tend to require extensive wiring and costly glass, whereas those in the second category are much simpler to install, and you don't need to place them on the window. The downside to sound-based glass break detectors is their propensity for false alarms, although discrimination algorithms can ignore some similar types of sound.

Vibration Detection

Vibration detection window sensors work by monitoring windows for vibration. When a window is struck by an object, it vibrates before shattering, which sends an alert to the alarm system. These systems are particularly useful for non-opening windows, but they can be set off by natural events, such as birds flying into the window or hail and high winds. Sensitivity settings may allow you to adjust the level of vibration that sets off the alarm.

Power Source

Power sources can be either hard-wired or battery operated. Hard-wired sources are vulnerable during power outages and can be disabled by cutting power to the home, but the power source doesn't need to be swapped out every few years. Battery-operated models don't have this vulnerability, but they do require a battery to run, and these batteries can run out. Some systems combine the two in the event of power outages.

Ease of Installation

Not all window alarms are easy to install. You can choose stick-on sensors, sensors that are wired to the window and operated by battery, or hard-wired sensors that require professional installation. Anything that requires hard installation usually takes longer to set up and may require regular servicing.

Automatic Reset

Some alarms are not equipped with an automatic reset. In alarms with automatic reset, the alarm sounds for less than one minute and then the device resets itself. While this can be a useful option, some homeowners prefer the option of resetting the alarm themselves.

Glass News

Another inch of snow possible; wind-chill -14: Today, about another inch of snow is expected along with a wind-chill factor as low as 14 degrees below zero, according to the National Weather Service's Grand Rapid station. The wind-chill represents how cold it feels outside. By day's end, the area could have a total of just under 5 inches of snow on the ground, primarily from Thursday's storm, the weather service reported. Despite the snow and single-digit temperatures James Whitaker, with Great Lakes Window Cleaning, cleans the windows at Farnum Building in downtown Lansing Friday, January 9, 2015. Whitaker said they use ethanol alcohol to keep the cleaning solution from freezing. He joked that he'll take cleaning windows in the heat of summer anyday and that he thinks about quitting every winter.

Pella (yep, the window company) enters the connected-home market (LAS VEGAS): You know the connected-home market is going mainstream when a company like Pella jumps in with both feet. The noted window- and door-manufacturer announced a whole lineup of wireless products at CES, including doors, windows, garage doors, and motorized shades with Z-Wave sensors built right into the products. This neatly solves one of the biggest aesthetic problems with the smart home: The ugly plastic boxes that bulge off the surface of your door and window frames like angry boils.

Now few of us have the budget to replace all our doors and windows just to get hidden sensors, so Pella will also offer add-on sensors that can be used with any brand of door or window. This enables a homeowner to upgrade their doors and windows one or a few at a time, but still get all the benefits of Pella’s system.

A Pella spokesperson told me an installer can also retrofit any Pella door or window manufactured since 2005 with the embedded sensors.The products will be marketed under the brand name Insynctive. In addition to the usual sensors that report if a door, window, or garage door is open or closed (a tilt sensor, in the case of a garage door), Pella also developed a deadbolt sensor that can inform you if the door is locked or unlocked. This information is relayed to a status indicator that can be stored in a wall holster or held in your hand.

Beyond sensors, Pella also introduced a new line of motorized interior window shades, and windows and French doors with motorized blinds between two panes of glass. The motors run on rechargeable batteries that are connected to miniature external solar panels. Here again, existing Pella doors and windows with built-in blinds can be retrofitted if they were manufactured in 2005 or later. Pella’s Insynctive products are controlled by a handheld remote, or they can be tied into other lighting and connected-home systems using a Z-Wave to ethernet hub. To that end, Pella announced partnerships with Wink and Nexia at the DIY level, and Crestron and Savant at the custom-installer level.

Solar chip monitors windows: A new kind of radio chip is intended to warn when windows are left open. This way, you can avoid having the heat go out the window on cold days. The sensor also detects break-in attempts early on. The key: This maintenance-free chip powers up with energy supplied by solar power.  

It happens all too often in the cold times of the year: You open the window in the morning for fresh air and forget to shut it again. A thermostat reports cold temperatures, and the heating is turned up full blast – right out the window. But open windows are a problem with more than just the heating or storms. A window tilted open, for example, is a direct invitation to intruders. It would be desirable to have an automated system that notices open windows and sends an alarm signal to the tenant. There are certainly home and building systems today that register the window status. As a rule, however, the sensors have to be attached by cable to the alarm center inside the home or building itself. In other cases, battery-operated radio sensors are used. But changing batteries in structures that have several windows can lead to a considerable maintenance expense. Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems IMS in Duisburg therefore developed a pragmatic alternative: a radio sensor chip about the size of a fingernail that is mounted directly in the window. The tiny sensor is coated with a solar cell and it supplies itself with power.

Sensors differentiate between ball and crowbar - At ten millimeters, the chip is as narrow as a pane of insulating glass is thick. It is installed on the aluminum profile between the glass that maintains the distance between the panes. Thanks to this window space, the solar cell obtains adequate light, even in the darkness of winter. Integrated in the chip are magnet and acceleration sensors that register if the window is open just a crack or all the way. The chip can send a signal via radio to the base station in the building if a window has remained open for too long. The applications of the radio chip are diverse. It can remind homeowners to ventilate regularly or warn if a window is still open when they leave the home. In addition, it offers reliable protection from intruders even for closed windows. Because the sensors can differentiate very precisely between various fluctuations - for example, a ball that slams against the pane, or an intruder’s crowbar that ratchets open the window frame. Within a tenth of a second, the system detects the disturbance and sounds the alarm if there is any doubt.

Chemical-Sensing Displays and Other Surprising Uses of Glass - An inside look at Corning’s labs suggests what’s next for the inventor of Gorilla Glass: Someday your smartphone might be able to help you in a new way when you’re traveling: by telling you whether the water is safe to drink. Although a water app isn’t close yet, researchers at Corning and elsewhere recently discovered that they could use Gorilla Glass, the toughened glass made by Corning that’s commonly used on smartphone screens, to make extremely sensitive chemical and biological sensors. It could detect, say, traces of sarin gas in the air or specific pathogens in water.

The sensors are just one project I learned about during a visit to Corning’s R&D labs in upstate New York. In the last few decades, Corning’s advances in glass-making have led to technologies such as fiber optics and flat-panel displays. Now, thanks to Gorilla Glass, it’s associated with the latest smartphones. But despite the remarkable success of that product, it is keen to catch the next high-tech boom. Corning spends about 8 percent of its sales on R&D—which will amount to about $800 million this year. It’s a hedge against the very real possibility that one of its businesses could go dark—as has happened in the past. Between 2000 and 2002, Corning lost more than half of its revenue when its fiber-optics business collapsed with much of the rest of the telecom market. Its stock plummeted from $113 to just over $1. This year, it got another scare when one of its largest customers, Apple, came close to replacing Gorilla Glass in iPhones with sapphire.

Displays, in one way or another, account for about half of Corning’s revenue, with roughly a third of that coming from Gorilla Glass. To expand this market and withstand challenges from other materials, Corning is trying to add capabilities to Gorilla Glass, such as the sensor application. And it’s looking for new markets for Gorilla Glass beyond displays.

The ability to turn your phone into a biological and chemical sensor is one of the earliest-stage projects in the lab. Researchers at Corning and Polytechnique Montreal discovered that they could make very high quality waveguides, which confine and direct light, in Gorilla Glass. The researchers were able to make these waveguides very near to the surface, which is essential for sensors. Doing so in ordinary glass would break it. Making the waveguide involves focusing a beam of intense laser light near the surface of the glass, then tracing it along the glass, which locally changes its optical properties.

To make a sensor, the researchers make a waveguide that splits into two identical pathways for light. Then the paths converge, and the light from both paths meet up. One path serves as the sensing path, and the other as a reference. Even a tiny change to the light in the sensing path—such as its intensity—can be detected by observing how the light from the two paths interacts when they meet, producing distinct patterns.

The researchers demonstrated a simple sensor that detects changes in temperature. Heating up the sensing path changes its shape, which changes the properties of the light passing through it. Because the waveguide is so close to the surface, part of the light actually extends out of the glass, and anything placed on the surface of the glass will interact with part of the light. This means that to make a chemical or biological sensor, you could prepare the surface of the glass so that a specific target will bind to it. For example, you might treat it with antibodies that latch onto E. coli. or other contaminants; detecting their presence would be as simple as putting a drop of water on the phone.

The waveguides are microscopically thin, and therefore invisible, so they wouldn’t obscure a display. And because they’re quite small, sensors for several different biological or chemical targets could be incorporated into a smartphone.

Corning researchers have also discovered that Gorilla Glass has useful acoustic properties. The way it vibrates is different than conventional glass—it damps sound waves. The simplest application is noise insulation—it blocks sound better than ordinary glass.

But the same acoustic properties could also turn displays into speakers. I saw such a prototype in one of Corning’s labs. A wire in the display attaches to a small actuator that vibrates the glass to produce sound waves. Because of the way the waves propagate through the glass, they can be more precisely controlled than with ordinary glass, allowing for higher quality sound reproduction.

In another lab, researchers showed off a seemingly ordinary window. Then, with a flip of a switch on a circuit board, it turned into a display—one showing an old Coke commercial—and I could only barely make out what was behind the image. When the ad was over, I could see through the display again. Corning was particularly secretive about how it managed to make this technology work.

Here are (clockwise from bottom) NTU professor Sun Xiaowei, research fellow Liu He, and Ph.D. student Zheng Ke with their self-tinting window.

Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) scientists have developed a smart window which can darken or brighten without the need for an external power source. This unique self-tinting window requires zero electricity to operate and is also a rechargeable battery. The window's stored energy can be used for other purposes, such as to light up low-powered electronics like a light emitting diode (LED).

Currently, the window solutions in the market are either using permanent tinting which cannot brighten at night or are windows that can change its light transmission properties only with an external power source. The NTU smart window however can be turned into a cool blue tint in bright daylight, cutting light penetration by about half, and then reverts back to clear glass at night or as required. This breakthrough research led by NTU Professor Sun Xiaowei, was published recently in Nature Communications, a prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal.

How it works - The trick to making the self-powered smart window is a new technology developed by Prof Sun's team from NTU's School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. "Our new smart electrochromic window is bi-functional; it is also a transparent battery," Prof Sun explained. "It charges up and turns blue when there is oxygen present in the electrolyte - in other words, it breathes."

The NTU smart window contains liquid electrolyte placed in between two glass sheets coated with indium tin oxide (ITO), commonly used as transparent conductive coatings for television displays. One sheet is coated with an additional layer of a pigment known as Prussian Blue and the other one is attached to a thin strip of aluminium foil. The Prussian Blue gives the glass a blue tint when it is fully charged.

The two glass sheets are connected by typical electrical cables. When the electrical circuit between them is broken, a chemical reaction starts between Prussian Blue and the dissolved oxygen in the electrolyte, turning the glass blue. To turn off the blue tint, the electrical circuit is closed to discharge the battery, turning the Prussian Blue into a colourless Prussian White.

Such an innovative technology can adjust the amount of sunlight coming into buildings in the day, which promises significant savings on cooling and lighting costs. "Our technology is very attractive as a zero-sum consumption smart window. Buildings owners and even common households can reap energy savings right from the outset and over the long term. Developers who are looking at constructing environmentally-friendly green buildings will find our technology attractive for their building plans," said Prof Sun.

Prof Sun is an electrical engineering expert whose other innovations include various solar technologies, glass-free 3D technologies, next-generation lightings and displays. The NTU team is now enhancing their invention and is looking forward to collaborating with industry partners to commercialise their technology.

Smart window startup View is raising another $75M: A year after raising a $100 million financing round, smart window startup View (formerly called Soladigm) is raising another $75 million round, and has closed on about $29 million of the round, according to a filing with the SEC. View makes dynamic windows, also called “electrochromic windows,” which use low-voltage electrical current to reflect or absorb light, tinting or untinting the window on demand.

If it closes the round, View will have raised more than $375 million over its eight year lifetime from investors including private equity firm Madrone Capital Partners (associated with the Walton family, the heirs to the Walmart fortune), Khosla Ventures, GE, Corning, DBL Investors, and the Westly Group. Making glass, and the IT needed to tint the glass, is an expensive proposition, but View can lower its production costs as it scales up manufacturing.

View spent 2014 working on growing production at its factory in Mississippi, as well as sales, distribution and marketing. At the beginning of 2014, View was shipping glass that was 50 square feet in size, and the company had installed about 50 projects across North America including a 27,000 square foot project at a hospital in Toronto, and a 37,000 square foot project at a tech center in Louisiana.

View’s windows of course are more expensive to buy than regular windows or cheap shading options like blinds. But View’s customers (premium hotels, corporate offices, etc.) are buying them both to be early adopters of cool tech, but also to reduce energy use and energy costs associated with air conditioning and heating. The coloring effect of View’s window can cool or warm a room, and can cut 20 percent off the costs of heating and cooling, 20 percent off of lighting, and can reduce peak load (electricity at peak times of use) by 25 percent.

View’s window manufacturing process is similar to one that’s used in the semiconductor industry, but using large glass pieces. The windows are made by depositing a 1 micrometer thick layer of tungsten oxide onto a pane of glass, and then that layer is sandwiched by another pane of glass. The original core technology came out of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. View also makes the controller system, and the software and apps that can control the window tint from an iPhone.

Solar panels on our cliffs! The Navitus wind farm decision is still blowing hot and cold but personally I feel that it should be a “non starter” in favour of less-obtrusive solar panels. With the local coastline predominantly south-facing, surely Navitus would be able to mount solar panels on the side of our cliffs from Hengistbury Head all along our World Heritage Jurassic Coast as far as Lulworth Cove. This would appease the turbine objectors and still generate loads of lovely loot, erm, electricity, without creating the monstrous offshore eyesore currently proposed. Whilst providing much needed jobs for local window cleaners, enterprising beach hut owners could rig up their TV and kettles and make hot showers available for surfers.

Smart windows will keep buildings cool by turning white: There’s a lot of focus at the moment on making the houses we live in and the buildings we work in more energy efficient, to the point where air conditioning isn’t necessary. There’s still a long way to go before that happens, but a newly-developed smart window should help cut energy bills if it makes it into production. You can insulate walls and the roof of a building easily, but windows are a problem area. We need them to allow light into a building, but you can’t insulate them with typical non-transparent insulation materials. There is an alternative, though, in the form of hydrogels.

Hydrogels are a mix of water and polymer that can be made to react smartly to a changing environment. Existing hydrogels don’t work that well for use in a window because they swell so much when subjected to heat. So, a new hydrogel has been created that is suspended as small beads in a liquid and then sandwiched between two sheets of glass. This new hydrogel reacts to changes in temperature. The window will be transparent below a certain temperature, but beyond that it turns white, and therefore bouncing the light and heat away from the building. In so doing, this passive system can help control the interior temperature of a building on very hot days without the need to turn on expensive AC units.

As the swelling of the hydrogel is controlled effectively, it is viable for use in new smart windows which need to work faultlessly for decades. These windows will surely carry a premium price, but the building owner will recoup the cost and then some in lower, or even non-existent AC power bills.

A rendering of the interior of the new Vikings stadium.

For Vikings stadium's bird-safe glass, 3M might have solution: The Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority is in talks with the Vikings, 3M Co. and the Audubon Society about testing possible "bird-safe window film solutions" for the team's new stadium in Minneapolis, chairwoman Michele Kelm-Helgen said Wednesday. Environmental advocates say the stadium's large walls of transparent glass will be deadly for migrating birds, which can't distinguish between actual objects and reflections. The advocates have been pushing for "fritted," or patterned, glass to deter bird collisions, and some even called for the ouster of Kelm-Helgen last month over the issue.

"We are continuing to ... explore the possibility of a study that would occur during bird migratory seasons in various locations in Minnesota," Kelm-Helgen said in a statement. "The proposed plan would be to include the stadium in the study once it is built." The authority has agreed to a lights-out policy to deter bird collisions but has rejected proposals to install fritted glass -- which was estimated to cost about $1 million -- because the glass would mar the transparent look it wants for the new facility. The new stadium will have about 190,000 square feet of glass.

Kelm-Helgen said the latest "initial conversations" regarding a solution "have been positive and productive." "We are hopeful that we will have more information to share in the near future," she said. Testing could begin in spring 2015 and continue in the fall.

Kelm-Helgen said state Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, asked the authority to meet with the Audubon Society about the potential new solution. Dibble said it's still early in the talks, but the 3M product could maintain the transparent, open feel that stadium officials want but still make the glass visible to birds. "It seems to be, if it works, the thing that would solve everyone's problem," he said.

Dibble said that if additional bird safety measures aren't forthcoming, he plans in the next legislative session to push to require the stadium authority to implement them.

Matthew Anderson, executive director of Audubon Minnesota, said it's unclear whether the new solution would be as safe for birds as fritted glass. The stadium sits in the Mississippi flyway, Anderson said, a "superhighway" for migrating birds. He said research has shown more than 980 million birds die each year in North America as a result of flying into buildings. Many details still must be worked out, Anderson said, but "we've got the right players having the right conversation." It's unclear what the 3M product is, how much it would cost, and whether the authority or the team would pay the bill. A call to 3M was not returned. A Vikings spokesman deferred comment to the authority. The glass is to be installed in early 2015. The $1 billion stadium is scheduled to open in 2016.

Who Wants a Supertall Skyline? The Emerging Aesthetic of the 1,000-Foot Tower - When you’re putting up a multi­billion-dollar tower that’s a quarter-mile high, there’s not much leeway to make it a work of art. On the other hand, when you’re putting up a multibillion-­dollar tower that’s a quarter-mile high, it had damn well better be a work of art. Dozens of supertall buildings are being built or planned, radically redrawing the skyline. If we avert our gaze, we’ll get a bundle of glass stakes fencing off the air above ­Manhattan. Skyscrapers can be better. The difficulty of making an elegant symbolic presence out of an immense vertical machine has been vexing architects for more than a century. And yet it must be done.

Too many high-gloss behemoths are so superficially designed that they betray at least part of their mandate. The coming flock glories in the upward thrust, but the earliest skyscraper designers groped toward a vertical style. They enlarged European precedents, creating piled-up palazzos encrusted with giant cornices, columns, and pediments. Sullivan’s generation divided the tower into three parts — evoking a column’s base, shaft, and capital; a tree’s roots, trunk, and branches; or a drama’s exposition, denouement, and conclusion. Sullivan saw in this the natural, and therefore sublime, expression of what a building does: high-ceilinged shops on the bottom, in the middle a warren of offices repeating as many times as necessary, topped by a windowless attic. “Form ever follows function,” he declared, a formulation slightly less terse and much less prescriptive than the modernist battle cry it inspired: Form follows function! The recent image of the two window cleaners dangling on a cockeyed plank at One World Trade dramatized the disjunction between an implacably geometric juggernaut and the messy frailty of individual lives. The architectural challenge of supertall buildings is to accommodate humans in structures of inhuman scale.

Because today’s economics permit a tiny number of largely absent owners to have a disproportionate impact on the skyline, these buildings invert the rationale that propelled skyscraper construction for more than a century. Instead of packing the largest number of people onto the smallest patch of earth, they fill up the skyline with vacant acres of glassed-in parquet. These are mostly generic products masquerading as luxury goods: stratospheric views, ceilings high enough to echo, and features like on-site pet spas. This bounty of comforts is usually wrapped in floor-to-ceiling glass, which facilitates the imperial gaze — or pretends to. Actually, the glass wall maligns traditional windows, which provide both openings and shelter. You can’t appreciate a vista with your shins, or see much through the glass above your head. The layouts of these crystalline crows’ nests afford nowhere to retreat from contact with the sky. They offer the thrill of simulated exposure. No wonder the owners maintain a selection of cozier homes.

It’s not enough just to gawp at these towers’ bravado or grumble at the arrogance of the hyperrich gobbling up the sky. Like it or not, the elongated condo is an ever more assertive category of New York architecture, and it too can function as a form of public art. The combination of slenderness and height means that skyscrapers can sprout from modest lots, minimizing their impact on the street and narrowing the shadows they cast. The fact that they contain the caviar of real estate means that they can afford the luxury of being good. We have to live with the follies of the outlandishly wealthy; we can at least insist that they pamper themselves in a way that also enriches the city.

Window Cleaning News

China exports unexpectedly fell in March: A window cleaner moves past an advertisement poster of a jewelry boutique in Beijing, China Thursday, April 10, 2014. China reported an unexpected contraction in exports in March, raising the danger of job losses as Beijing tries to overhaul its slowing economy.

Window cleaners hang from the facade of Ngee Ann city mall in Singapore - Xenophobia rears its ugly head in Singapore once more. Comments left on 'Say "No" to an overpopulated Singapore' refer to Filipinos as "f**king vermin", "scum", "shit heads of a third world country" and "undesirable underlings". Some are calling for Singaporeans to show up at the event to make trouble. One guy even called for men to "put on our number 4s with full battle order" to "surround the Pinoys".

Window Washer Critically Injured After 6-Floor Fall: A window washer has been hospitalized with critical injuries after falling six floors Thursday evening. Crews responded to the 1800 block of 7th Street NW around 6 p.m. for the accident. Police say the winow washer fell from the 9th floor of a building to the 3rd floor. An investigation is pending.

Workers abseiling from building: Falls from heights are a major cause of death and injury in Australian workplaces, according to Safe Work Australia.

Working at heights deaths: Self-regulation failing to prevent fatal building falls, unions say - Unions are calling for tougher safety regulations and enforcement to stop workers falling to their deaths at worksites, saying more people will be killed unless self-regulation is scrapped. Falls from heights are a major cause of death and injury in Australian workplaces, according to Safe Work Australia. Of the 800,000 Australians who work at heights, including tradesmen, cleaning, and maintenance workers, on average 26 of them fall to their death each year, and almost 8,000 are injured.

Working At Heights Association secretary Gordon Cadzow says regulators are not enforcing the safety standards. "It's the second largest cause of death in industry," he said. "There has to be a policeman and the policeman has to enforce the law. "Falling from height, there's no second chance. I've been close to fatalities in the past and I don't want to get close to them again." In 2011, 45-year-old West Australian builder Bernard Wills was on his first day on a new job - a high shed under construction near Esperance - when he fell through a skylight to his death. Late last year, Wills' employer was fined $65,000 for not following safety procedures. His family believes his death could have been avoided if safety standards had been strictly policed by regulators.

"The failure to do these safety measures resulted in his death and that's why he isn't here today," his sister Theresa Curley said. "I think that there's enough knowledgeable and experienced people within the whole industry, from the regulators right down, that can look at these problems with working at height risks and reduce the probability that someone who was so inexperienced would find themselves on that roof and have the opportunity to risk their life."

Lack of safety regulations likened to 'Wild West' - For those who work at heights, their lives literally depend on the ropes and anchors holding them up. There is a certification system to ensure their safety, but it is hopelessly unreliable and unregulated, with abseil anchor points often left untested. Peter Ferguson from the Australian Rope Access Association argues that people are being allowed to get away with not applying the rules. "It's pointless having regulations if they aren't policed, and the policing just simply isn't happening at the moment," he said.

Gren Hinton from Proaccess window cleaning says safety checks of equipment and structures are hit and miss. "Some of them will be tested, some of them won't be tested." "And there's no certification or accrediting body for the companies installing. You can't trust anything. It's basically the Wild West out there." Engineer Clive Austin and his team were hired to carry out maintenance on a Melbourne apartment building.  They checked the abseiling anchors and found that, while they were certified, they were woefully faulty. Mr Austin asked the building owners to replace the anchors. Instead, his company was replaced. He reported this to the regulator, which did nothing because the replacement team had not started. "We reported that to WorkSafe," Mr Austin said. "They said they wouldn't investigate because it didn't constitute a building site."

When put to Len Neist of the Victorian WorkCover authority that six workers required to do heavy maintenance on one site must surely constitute a workplace, he responded: "We have limited resources". But Mr Austin says that is not good enough. "There needs to be some sort of regulation to make sure that the anchors are safe," he said. "We want to come home."

Mr Cadzow says falls from ladders are another big risk. "When we looked at ladders, over 90 per cent inspected were not to Australian standards," he said "We've taken this data to the regulator and asked him to treat this as a serious matter. The response has been disappointing."Plumber Keith Dickman was working up a ladder on a construction site in Melbourne when he fell and died.  In 2012, the Victorian Coroner's Court found the defective ladder and unsafe work practices contributed to his death. 

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The Mole and Jersey Show Season 2 Episode 2 - This show just keeps on getting better & better!!

Victoria Police tougher on crime than grime as cleaning budget cut: Victoria Police has been forced to cut back on cleaning at police stations as it grapples with ''a difficult time of fiscal restraint''. A leaked email to staff from western region Assistant Commissioner Jack Blayney said cleaning services would be reduced at police stations and other Victoria Police buildings to slash costs. ''You will also be aware that we are moving through a difficult time of fiscal restraint. We are not the only organisation that needs to reduce costs,'' the email said. Mr Blayney said the force was investigating other ways to reduce spending and he would monitor the new cleaning regime - which may be an interim measure. A police spokeswoman said there would be no change to the cleaning of police cells, locker rooms, kitchens, bathrooms and toilets. ''However, general cleaning, including vacuuming, dusting, and internal window cleaning, has been reduced on average to three times a week.'' She said the cleaning cuts were expected to save Victoria Police about $1 million a year.

Window cleaner’s epic 48-mile Norfolk Coast Path run for Crohn’s and Colitis charity: Karl Warnes, from Castle Acre, ran almost 50 miles along the Norfolk coast path to raise money for in aid of Crohn's and Colitis UK. He was supported by his brother Craig Warnes and cousin Robin Clarke, who completed the journey on cycles. Karl Warnes, from Castle Acre near Swaffham, said he had never previously run more than 14 miles before taking on the epic 48-mile route from Hunstanton to Cromer on Good Friday. He completed the gruelling challenge in 9hrs 25mins, battling against wind, rain and difficult coastal terrain underfoot, including sand, loose shingle and muddy footpaths. The 24-year-old was backed by his brother Craig Warnes, also from Castle Acre, and cousin Robin Clarke, from Great Dunham, who both also completed the journey on bicycles, carrying much-needed supplies of water and energy snacks. The run has so far raised more than £800 for Crohn’s and Colitis UK – a charity founded to offer support and research into the bowel conditions which can devastate lives and have no known cure.

Mr Warnes’ 21-year-old girlfriend Rebecca Mack has suffered with Crohn’s for seven years. “It is important, because my girlfriend has Crohn’s so I wanted to raise awareness really,” he said. “I have only done about 14 miles before. I play football every other week and I go the gym, but I’ve only done proper training for a long run since Christmas. It has been whenever I have had time to run in the mornings or at the weekends. “I was hoping to do it in under 10 hours, so I’m very happy. Some of it was a pebble beach and the weather was pretty bad at times as well, which does not help. There was a lot of wind and heavy rain, that was the worst part.

One-Armed Biker Leads as Paulistas Take to Cycling: David Sousa was left for dead. At dawn on March 10, 2013, a car slammed into him while he was cycling on Sao Paulo’s main road. Only after finding Sousa’s severed right arm in his car did the hit-and-run driver stop. That’s when prosecutors say he tossed the appendage into one of the sewage-choked waterways that criss-cross the biggest city in South America. In fact, the 22-year-old Sousa survived. And after fellow cyclists took to Avenida Paulista, the scene of the injury, behind a standard of a plastic arm holding a fistful of flowers, Sousa became the face of a nascent biking movement. “Sometimes I wish I had a gas mask,” Sousa said during a recent ride in which a speeding car forced him into a storm drain. A few blocks later, another almost hit him while it was backing out of a driveway. Since getting back on his bike, rigged so he controls both front and back brakes with his left hand, Sousa has been knocked off twice by cars in collisions.
He hopes the case against the driver, whose lawyers dispute prosecutors’ allegation that he was under the influence of alcohol and that he was at fault in last year’s accident, brings compensation to help pay for business classes he began after losing his job as a window washer. The arm was never found after a six-day search by firemen. Sousa tried public transport to get to school from his home in eastern Sao Paulo, a region that has been largely engulfed by sprawling slums, known as favelas, but he can’t stand the long waits and overcrowding. “The bike facilitates my mobility,” said Sousa, who is riding a new BMW sent to him by an anonymous businessman who read about his accident in the newspapers. “On my bike, I can do what I want when I want.”

Traders are challenging shoppers to spend a fiver at local retailers to give their high street a boost. Supporters of the Totally Locally Cheadle scheme say if people spent just £5 a week at independent shops it would be worth an extra £2.9 million to the town's economy. The campaign was launched at the town's St George's Market on Saturday, following the success of Totally Locally in Leek. Marc Briand, who is co-ordinating the schemes in both towns, hopes Totally Locally will achieve similar results in Cheadle. "Research has shown that if you spend £10 at a supermarket it's worth about £20 to the local economy. But if you spend it at a local retailer that value rises to £50, because that business will use other local businesses, such as accounts, suppliers and window cleaners." A 'Fiver Fest' will take place in Cheadle on Saturday, May 10, coinciding with the next farmers' market. The event will see local retailers offering special £5 offers to help promote the campaign's message.

Watch This Window Washing Video, If You Dare … Chicago - WARNING: If you get dizzy standing on a chair, you might not like this video. However, if you are interested in what it feels like to wash high-rise windows, this video is totally for you. Armed with a brush and wiper blade, window washer Michael Kelly strapped a video camera to his helmet and posted to YouTube about 20 minutes of stomach-churning video as he slowly slid down a building in the Financial District at 175 W. Jackson on Monday. The view is fantastic, although disconcerting at times–especially if you get skittish at higher altitude. Using a suction cup as a grip, Kelly deftly moves from side to side around stone and brick pillars to attack his target. For the most part, the only sounds you here are the thudding of the suction cup and the sloshing of cleaning solution. It seems Mr. Kelly has done this a few times before. Sitting in a small seat and guided by a sturdy rope, Kelly quickly applies soapy water and swipes is wiper blade a few times and then bounces and slides along the side of the building, sometimes floating away from the building and looking down at the street below.

Pure Window Cleaning Reach and Wash on St Michael's Mount: It's a tough and challenging job when the annual spring clean for St Michael's Mount's windows comes along. Penzance-based Pure Window Cleaning Reach and Wash has had the task of cleaning the numerous windows every spring for the past three years. It is a job which takes three operators the whole day. The cleaning poles have to extend 25ft more than their usual length to reach up to some of the windows which are 60ft high. Owner Ian Strick said: "There are many factors that have to be considered when the annual clean comes along. "Tide times and wind speed have to be considered and because Saturday is the only day that the Mount isn't open to the public, it is the only day that we can clean them." Reach and Wash is a family-run business, established for 20 years and, added Mr Strick, it has three operating guidelines: remaining safe, staying green, and ensuring the privacy of the customer. He says that as the company uses a carbon fibre extendable pole, no ladders are needed to reach windows and so the safety of the cleaner and privacy of the customer are guaranteed. Reach and Wash stay green by the removal of chemicals; the filters used in the purification of their water are from natural sources and recyclable and due to the use of pure water, no detergent residue is left behind and the windows look cleaner immediately.

Name your price to do that job on new ‘Jobbers’ website: Window cleaning, garage sorting, boat cleaning ... the list of jobs on people’s to-do list is usually long, and there’s never time to do it. These are also times of unemployment and underemployment — and with the culture of entrepreneurship strong in Bermuda, Stafford Lowe has founded a new venture to bring jobs and job seekers together. It’s called Jobber.bm. Mr Lowe said: “Jobber.bm is a new ‘job auction’ website designed to connect the people who are struggling with their to-do lists of jobs with the heroes in their local communities who are able to help them out. “The website operates a bidding system where a job ‘poster’ can advertise the task they need help with and the maximum price that they’re willing to pay, and ‘jobbers’ can then put forward a bid to try to win the job. The poster remains completely anonymous to everyone except the jobber the poster ends up choosing for the job.”

Just one month old, the website has taken off beyond Mr Lowe wildest expectations with almost 200 people signing up for it, and several jobs completed. “And we have five to 10 new jobbers signing up every day,” he said. “If the poster doesn’t like any of the bids they have received, they can just let the job auction expire and re-post it again later.” Those people who have signed up will receive e-mail alerts whenever a job in an area they have expressed interest is posted, so they can bid right away. He said: “While jobbers are encouraged to bid aggressively, posters are often very discerning about reading both the jobbers’ personal statements and the specific reasons they put forward in their bid for why they should be chosen. “It’s not really about which jobber is willing to do the job for the least amount of money, but more about finding the best person available to help at a price that’s fair.”

At the age of 42, most boxers — with the exception of George Foreman and Evander Holyfield — are reminiscing about their careers. Jerry Schwickrath of West Deer, a 1989 Fox Chapel Area High School graduate, was just beginning his. Last month, the now-43-year-old claimed a Golden Gloves championship in the Masters Division (ages 35 and up) at Three Lakes Golf Course in Penn Hills. What makes the accomplishment even more impressive was that the win was his first official bout.
“About a year ago, a friend of mine who's a boxing trainer invited me down to the gym, and I guess they liked what they saw,” Schwickrath said. “They convinced me to enter the Golden Gloves, so I began training.” Part of the training involved competing in the Tough Mudder competition that was held in August in Ohio. “It's a 12-mile obstacle course in mud, basically,” he said. “They have many events, and they're pretty grueling. You have to run five miles in 40 minutes, and there are a lot of hills. You have to jump in ice water, run in fire and a lot of other tough obstacles. That got me in pretty good shape.” Schwickrath, who didn't compete in any sports in high school, also credits his job with keeping him in shape. “I own a window-cleaning business, and I've got over 2,000 customers,” he said. “There's a lot of climbing involved with some of the places I clean, and it's the main reason I've kept in shape.”

Bomb squad called in as unexploded WW2 hand grenade found in Crosland Moor garden shed: Window cleaner Tim Rees told how he saw the activity while on his rounds. He said: “I saw the vehicles and thought the worst that it was a crime scene and then I found out they had found a hand grenade. “They had sealed off the area and at first people didn’t know what had happened. “I’ve heard the couple who found it have only just bought the house from an elderly couple who had died. “They were clearing out the house and garden when they came across it.” Army bomb disposal experts were called to the scene. The device was made safe and the army left earlier this afternoon.

UK small businesses still struggling to stay afloat: Micro-businesses across the UK, whether window cleaners, self-employed hairdressers or taxi drivers, are simply struggling to make ends meet and find the funds needed to grow their businesses. A recent Amigo Loans study revealed a fifth (21 per cent) have no idea how they will grow the business in the future, and a further 15 per cent say growth just simply isn’t possible for them right now.

Quotes of the Day - Linda Robson: "People used to ask me what my husband did, and I truthfully said that he was a window cleaner. But I was told that wasn't posh enough. Now I tell them that he is a glazing hygienist" - Birds Of A Feather actress Linda Robson.

The Shetland branch of “Women for Independence” saw an encouraging turn out at its launch on Thursday night at Lerwick’s Isleburgh Community Centre. A gathering of around 25 (including two men) engaged in a wide ranging discussion about matters relating to the future of an independent Scotland over a selection of home bakes and hot drinks. As the evening progressed, the existence of several more special interest groups came to light, including Window Cleaners for Independence, Hairdressers for Independence and North Yorkshire for Scottish Independence.

Brooklyn may have a collective case of Winter Weather PTSD: The winter of 2013-14 will go down in the books as one of the worst in a generation. There were over 15 snowstorms, consistently cold days, bitter winds, and commensurate numbers of people injured from falls, sprains, and car accidents. The first storm started on November 12 2013 and the last storm, a "light snow event" took place on February 18, 2014. Winter went on for three months, going on three years, it seemed. A local window washing business, a mom and pop, says customers are delaying their spring wash. Some people are still walking around in winter coats despite 50 degree weather. You'd think we lived in Maine.  It's like everyone has a touch of weather-related PTSD. New York's an indoor/outdoor city, with a lot of office workers and also a lot of people who go to not just jobs but school, classes, events, cultural venues and to eat out and see friends.  And everybody's got a lousy story from this winter.

Glass, by Alex Christofi: Westland commented: “Glass is a brilliant debut from a hugely talented young writer. A completely winning story of a young man finding his way in the world, it features window-cleaning, skyscrapers, a cathedral, first love, last love, family bereavement, a closet fascist, and a German intellectual. And the most endearing lead character I’ve ever come across. Gunter Glass stole my heart, and is guaranteed to steal yours.”

Opening the doors: When completing her MA in Fine Arts, Grayson made a huge painting of someone washing windows as seen from the other side of the window - "like the painter is trapped behind the canvas". The popularity of this piece encouraged her to create another - seeing a figure through a shower door. She then had the idea of a collaborative effort where several artists all start from the same concept of using a door. She made a list of people who she thought produced interesting work and approached them. Doors Unhinged was born. 

Brighton motorists fined more than £3.5 million last year: City parking wardens issued fines worth more than £3.5 million last year. Motorists in Brighton and Hove were given 103,219 tickets for flouting parking regulations – boosting council coffers by at least £3.6 million if each ticket was paid within two weeks at £35.  Thirteen tickets were also waived because they were given to window cleaners. A spokeswoman for Brighton and Hove City Council said: “Window cleaners who are using equipment from a vehicle to carry out their work may apply to the council for a parking permit. “On seeing the badge the civil enforcement officer will check that window cleaning is in progress and if not a penalty charge notice (PCN) may be issued

It's a bird! it's a plane! No - it's somewhere in between. Melbourne researchers are developing drones that will detect and glide on natural air currents to conserve energy - something birds have been doing for millennia. In the right conditions, the drones could glide between buildings and skyscrapers for hours on end, barely expending any battery power, project leader Dr Reece Clothier of RMIT University says. He and his colleagues are working on specialised sensors that will enable autonomous drones to detect surrounding wind patterns in real time. The drones could use the information to navigate towards favourable updrafts, while also avoiding damaging eddies and turbulent air. "It's replicating what birds do," he says. "They know where these updrafts are, they fly to them and they hold their position."

The idea struck Dr Clothier and his research team as they watched birds surfing the updrafts between skyscrapers in Melbourne's CBD. "We thought, 'wouldn't it be great to develop an unmanned aircraft that could do exactly what those birds are doing?'" A prototype drone unveiled on Monday is named Kestrel - a homage to the falcons that hover on headwinds and then swoop swiftly on their prey. It's early days, but Dr Clothier says the technology could one day be integral. "Unmanned aircraft are likely to see a lot of applications that require them to fly in built-up areas," he says - from policing and inspecting buildings to surveillance and even window-washing. The research is focused on fixed-wing drones, but Dr Clothier says there's no reason it couldn't be extended to drones powered by rotors. The project is just the latest to look to nature for inspiration.

Finally – finally! – spring has arrived. The flowers are blooming, the trees are turning green again and – hey, how did those baseboards get so dusty? Amid all the joys of spring comes something not quite so inviting: spring cleaning. Done right, it can breathe new life into your home and free your spirit from the weight of clutter, soap scum and dog hair. “Spring is new beginnings,” said Beth Dannenhauer, owner of the Maid in Heaven cleaning service in Charlotte. “It kind of transcends into the house: ‘Let’s just give this a good cleaning.’ It’s good for the soul.” And, she points out, it’s also good for the body. Accumulated dust mites, airborne allergens and dust particles can make us sick, especially in today’s nearly air-tight homes.

“Healthwise,” said Dannenhauer, “it’s very important to get that house clean, get it disinfected, do those chores that you maybe don’t do but once a year.” But while most of us feel at least a tiny twinge of that spring-cleaning bug this time of year, not everyone actually rolls up sleeves and gets it done. We like the idea of a tidier, healthier home, but we don’t really like scrubbing baseboards. Geralin Thomas, owner of Metropolitan Organizing in Cary, says there are ways to make all those deep-cleaning chores feel less like, well, chores. “Sometimes it’s easier to do things in a group, surround yourself with people who are motivated and will keep you motivated,” she said. If your family members don’t quite meet that standard, enlist some friends or neighbors and create a traveling band of spring cleaners. One person’s house gets the deep clean one weekend, then it’s on to another group member’s house the next. Bring some snacks, play some music and be sure to indulge in a reward when it’s all done, maybe a night out or a glass of wine, Thomas said.

If you find yourself grumbling, instead of whistling while you work, keep in mind all the benefits a clean house offers the mind and body. “It’s very much like exercising,” Thomas said. “A lot of times you have to talk yourself into it, and then while you’re sweating it out it’s no fun. But the minute you’re done, you think, ‘I feel so much better! I’m glad I did it.’ ” Starting a spring-cleaning project can be overwhelming – so much grime, so little time. So we asked some experts, including Dannenhauer and Thomas, for their top five tasks and tips to inspire you to take out the mop and get moving. By the numbers - The American Cleaning Institute polled 1,777 adults about their spring-cleaning habits. Here are some highlights from that 2013 poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points: Washing windows: 80% 

Waiting game at the Anglo trial - The jury in the trial of three Anglo Irish Bank executives were tasked one week ago today with deciding whether to bring the first convictions against Irish bankers under specific laws. Waiting around for a verdict is tedious, but people watching and observing the everyday goings on – such as the mundanity of window washing, where three men scaled down the side of the building, swinging from side to side with wipers and suds, caught most people’s eye. TV3′s Brian O’ Donovan went outside to capture the scene as taking images is prohibited inside the Criminal Courts of Justice.

Living Smart: Don't let dirty windows obscure your view of nature in full spring glory. Whether you do the job yourself or hire an experienced pro, few home investments are as immediately satisfying as clean, sparkling windows. Here are expert DIY tips that my research team gathered from top-rated window cleaners:

Start with the right supplies. If your windows are standard glass, not leaded or stained, and they aren't tinted, you should be able to safely use commonly available window-cleaning products. But you can always just clean with hot, soapy water and rinse with water and a small amount of vinegar to improve shine. Or, you can try these options: Combine a cup of rubbing alcohol, a cup of water and a tablespoon of vinegar. For glass that's cloudy, try straight ammonia. (Don't combine vinegar and ammonia, as they cancel each other out.) Good wipe-down materials include paper or microfiber cloths and newspapers. Avoid plain, cotton towels, which will leave behind lint.

For cleaning hard-to-reach outside windows, consider an extendable tool with a telescoping handle that has a soft scrubber on one side and a squeegee on the other. Spray the scrubber with cleaning solution, clean the window and squeegee to remove the cleaner. To more easily see streaks that will require a second shot of elbow grease, wipe the inside of glass in a different direction than the outside. For instance, go side-to-side on the inside and up and down on the back. Here's a tip if you find that your lower windows, or siding, have dark stains. Your mulch may be to blame. Cheap mulch may be infested with a fungus that, when mature, shoots black spores that stick to glass and siding and are hard to remove completely. If you have problems with this, consider switching to higher quality mulch.

Ideally, it's best to clean windows twice a year. That may be reason enough to hire out the work, but there are other reasons to consider professionals, including the dangers inherent in working on a ladder. In addition, expert window cleaners have the right supplies to more readily remove paint, glue and other material from glass. They also have experience in cleaning other window components and areas, including screens and sills. They can also identify and deal with window problems, such as screen patterns etched on glass, sashes painted shut, screens that don't fit right, clogged channels, non-working or damaged window weights in older windows, wood rot and insect infestations. A pro may also be your best bet if you have specialty windows, including leaded glass, stained glass and tinted glass. Before you hire a window cleaner, do a little research, since anybody can claim to be an expert in this area. Make sure the company has positive reviews on a trusted site, is appropriately licensed and insured, has proven experience, and is willing to provide a free estimate.

Patient Lenox Barden, 5, gives a high five to Iron Man through a window on the fourth floor of WakeMed Children's hospital. Three window washers dressed as superheroes rappeled down the side of the building Wednesday, April 16, 2014 in Raleigh to bring a little fun and excitement to patients and staff. This was the second year that Batman, Iron Man and Spiderman have “dropped in” at the hospital.

Superheroes visit WakeMed Children's hospital patients: WakeMed Children’s Hospital patients and their family members, along with hospital staff, had a surprise visit from three superheroes who dropped in outside the fourth floor lobby window on Wednesday. Mild-mannered window washers from Scottie’s Building Services donned Batman Superman and Iron Man costumes to become superheroes for a day, fighting grime and cheering up young patients at the Raleigh hospital. Pediatric patients that felt well enough (and their families) gathered in the Children's Hospital lobby to see the superheroes up close, exchange high-fives through the glass and take photographs. The superheroes also made special window drops for kids that could not leave their rooms. This was the second year that the hospital hosted the heroes.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Superheroes washed windows at Charlotte's Hemby Children's Hospital Tuesday, delighting kids and their parents. “I hope they're careful and they don't fall off the ladder or something,” said 9-year-old Mae Rainey as Superman, Batman, Spiderman and the Hulk came into her room. Nah, these guys are superheroes. “They usually save the day or something like that. Were they saving your day?” – MB “No, I didn't have any trouble.” – MR They're not the only heroes you'll find here. Mychael Kitriss, 9, has spent the last month in the hospital fighting leukemia. “I’ve never been to a hospital before and I didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said. It’s been hard for mom Lisa to watch. “There were a few days that she just didn’t think she was going to pull through it and I just kept telling her to fight like a girl.” She's getting her strength back, though nothing like her favorite superhero - the Hulk. “Every time he gets mad he had to go buy a new shirt. They’re just cool and they save other people and that’s really cool.” But Mom has a different take on the whole superhero thing. “She looks at those superheroes at being so much better. They do all these wonderful things and she has no idea how strong she’s been, and that she’s the ultimate superhero in all of this.” She's got the strength, now all she needs is the cape.

Metropolitan Window Cleaning’s Blake Dawson and Matthew Drape transformed themselves into Spider-Man and Batman to abseil down walls. Lachlan Fry, 5, in hospital for an infected broken arm, was already in Batman tracksuit pants and T-shirt, and couldn’t resist the chance to get a photo with the superheroes before going home for Easter. “He loves the hospital. It’s like a little hotel for kids,” said mum Kym. “They go to so much effort to make it not a scary place.”

Their superpowers? Boosting spirits at children's hospital: The superhero window washers made their first appearance at Lurie last year after Phil Kujawa, 46, the foreman of the crew, saw a news report about a similar event in another city. He mentioned the idea to his bosses at Chicago-based Corporate Cleaning and quickly got the green light. Then, Kujawa had the little issue of getting his crew to don the capes and tights. “At first, they were like, ‘I am not wearing that,’” Kujawa recalled. He emphasized how much it would mean to the kids, and eventually won over his crew. Each window washer, Kujawa said, was carefully selected for his experience and skill. (Because of the several architectural details on the building, Lurie Children’s is not an easy building to clean, he said.) What’s more, each man had to look like a hero.
Roberto Duran, 32, with a chiseled jaw and clean-cut good looks, would make a perfect Captain America, his bosses thought. Gerardo Vaca, 36, with a short, athletic build, seemed more a Spider-Man type. And Pedro Castro, 45 with a bushy mustache, was chosen to become Batman “as a little bit of a joke,” Kujawa said with a laugh. “We wanted to see what he would look like in a costume.” Now, he said, his team revels in the chance to assume the super identities. The heroes clean the windows, of course. But the real mission is to bring a bit of happiness to the kids.

At Lurie, officials built a whole day of events around the superheroes’ appearance. They call it “Superhero Day,” and send an advance alert to the staff asking everyone to don capes and masks. Though staff likely know what that super alert means, the arrival of the caped window-washers, via ropes from the roof, is kept secret from patients and families until the last moment. Video here.

£26k window cleaning bill for Leicester City Council - Leicester City Council spends £26,484 to have the windows of its buildings cleaned twice a year. Information about the council's contract with Ace Cleaning Company has been published following a Freedom of Information request by a member of the public. The council says it has 182 buildings – from offices to leisure centre, shops houses and residential homes – covered by its window cleaning contract, which will be up for tender in late 2016.

Police in Fermanagh have been helping householders to show doorstep criminals the door through a new scheme to keep rogue traders at bay. Using the new 'No Cold Calling Zone...no uninvited traders' window stickers, developed in association with Trading Standards, cold callers can now be warned away and a contact number provided to report those who ignore the sticker's warning to Trading Standards. The stickers have been distributed throughout Northern Ireland in recent months. While it should be noted that not all cold callers are rogue traders, the project has been developed by police to put a stop to those unofficial traders who may over-charge an unsuspecting and often elderly householder for poor quality work or work that is never completed at all.

The stickers give a householder the opportunity to warn cold callers that they are not wanted at their door, that ignoring that warning could constitute a breach of Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading regulations and that further action may be taken by Trading Standards. The project is not designed to apply to established callers such as a milk delivery or window-cleaners. Inspector Roy Robinson said: "Most callers at your door will be genuine but someone could be trying to gain access to look around your property or charge you far too much for shoddy or non-existent work.

Tall order to build platform at the peak of Burj Khalifa (Dubai): There is no questioning the bravery of the two base jumpers who leapt from the Burj Khalifa, but spare a thought for the team who had to erect a three-and-half-metre steel platform at the tiny peak of the tallest building in the world. The Burj Khalifa’s pinnacle has a circumference of just 1.2m and the base-jumping platform needed to support the weight of eight men during a day of base jumping, 828m off the ground. The task of ensuring this platform was put into place safely, and on time, fell to Megarme, a Dubai rope-access company, and its operations manager, Daniel Eede. “No one has ever built anything like this, it was completely new to everyone,” said Mr Eede, a UK national. “All in all we had 60 pieces of steelwork to build the actual platform and it all had to fit together perfectly. Obviously safety was our highest priority.”

The structure was taken piece by piece in lifts to the 159th floor, and then had to be hauled up the remainder of the structure using a cradle and, finally, by rope-hauling systems. The construction firm Eversendai built the platform itself, and every effort was made to ensure the stunt went off without a hitch. Prior to installation, a mock-up of the project was made at Eversendai’s building yard in Ajman, and minor adjustments were made to make it as safe as possible. Despite the unique event, Megarme is familiar with the world’s tallest building, as the company is responsible for the day-to-day window cleaning that takes place, and installing the fireworks on the structure for celebrations.

Mr Eede said the platform took four days to erect and he had been amused to see the online speculation about what was going on. “We started seeing people posting photos of the ‘mysterious platform’ and asking questions. But among the group we were all sworn to secrecy and we all found it quite funny.” He said that when the day finally came it was thrilling, and emotional. “These are two guys who are just living life to the fullest. Everyone says they are crazy but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. They were amazingly professional – and you saw the emotion when they landed safely.  “I have been involved in an incredible amount of rope-access projects – the Wembley Arch and London Eye – but this by far topped my career,” he said. He said that the pair of daredevils - Fred Fugen and Vince Reffet - went on to perform three more jumps that day.

On Earth Day Ash Burnell, president of Sun Valley Window Cleaners is holding the first annual Sun Valley Window Cleaners Downtown Cleanup. The event is being held in cooperation with the Downtown Kelowna Business Association and Powerplant Whole Foods (Martin McDermott). The two companies have come together to encourage residents and businesses to come out on Earth Day and make the downtown shine. Martin will be providing wholesome, organic raw food bars that day enticing shopkeepers and Kelowna residents to come out and pitch in. Ash does a fair amount of pressure washing and window cleaning in the downtown area for private businesses but noticed that there were many key areas that fell outside of anyone’s responsibility and are badly neglected. With the new revitalization of downtown, he feels that Kelowna residents and businesses should take ownership of this public space and keep it looking pristine. The entire crew of eight from Sun Valley will be volunteering downtown with their three commercial pressure washers and brooms cleaning up back alleys and key areas throughout downtown. The event will kick off at 9 a.m. at Kerry Park (across from Kelowna O’Bryan’s) and run until 4 p.m. The association will be coordinating the locations that are in greatest need and dispatching volunteers to those areas. Fuel up with a Powerplant bar and help Sun Valley Window Cleaners make this cleanup a Kelowna tradition.

Question: In the 100-year-old colonial house we bought, some Andersen windows used to have grids that are missing. You can still see the holes where the grids were fixed once. The other windows in the house are Pella windows with structured wooden grids on the interior glass, which look very nice. Who can install those missing grids on the other windows so that it doesn’t look cheap (not too flat), and at what cost? Andersen told us that they won’t do this. — Chevy Chase reader.

TW Perry, an Andersen dealer in Chevy Chase (301-652-2600; www.twperry.com), can order replacement grids for you. Lou Skojec, the sales manager, said the best way to be sure of getting the exact parts you need is to go to the store with two bits of data for each window. Etched into the glass near a corner, you should find the letters AW plus a code that identifies the year the window was made. And on the edge of a window screen, assuming your windows have them, you should find a four-digit numerical code that a window dealer can use to identify the window size. For example, “2032” on an Andersen window means it is 24 by 38 inches. If you don’t have screens, measure the daylight openings, the visible height and width of each glass pane.

Getting grids that fit requires both the date and the size because companies change their designs over the years, Skojec said. For a window with upper and lower sashes, expect to pay $30 to $60 for a pair of replacement grids, he said. Once you have the grids, you should be able to install them yourself. Check when you pick up the grids, but the process usually involves placing the bottom tab in the slot, then bowing out the grid slightly to get the top pin in place. Then you repeat this process on the left and right. If you’d rather someone else do the installation, a window-cleaning company can probably help you.

Death Notices for April 22: Ralph Whitlock, 53, high-rise window washer, died Monday. Services pending. Mark Griffith-Riverside, Sand Springs.

Sacha: Smear campaign against me: SACHA Singh, the woman whose assault allegations against Tourism Minister Chandresh Sharma resulted in his resignation yesterday, is claiming that a smear campaign has been launched against her by United National Congress (UNC) and supporters. She made the claim yesterday during a media conference held at the offices of her businesses AMS Biotech Security Concepts Ltd, Affordable Window Wash Ltd AWWL and AmSure Trinidad and Tobago Ltd at Piarco Plaza, BWIA Boulevard. Businesswoman Sacha Singh, who is embroiled in assault allegations against her former boyfriend, MP Chandresh Sharma, got a $60,000 contract to clean windows at state-owned National Petroleum (NP) long before she met Sharma. Singh told the T&T Guardian she landed the job late in 2011 and she met Sharma in January 2013. “NP’s records would show that Affordable Window Wash Ltd cleaned their windows during 2011 and 2012.” Sacha Singh, the ex-girlfriend of former tourism minister Chandresh Sharma, has the contract to clean glass windows at National Petroleum (NP), St Joseph MP Terrence Deyalsingh revealed yesterday.

The 30-year-old from Trincity and former Miss TT/India had reported to police that Sharma, her alleged then boyfriend, hit her and pushed her down at Grand Bazaar mall on March 12. Yesterday Sharma tendered his resignation and it was accepted by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. Yesterday at the media conference Facebook pages nude and semi-nude pictures were being posted. “And I hope and I plead to our honourable Prime Minister, who is a female, to please kindly...help me help these people to stop posting my personal pictures. It is really defaming my character,” she said.  She noted the pictures were taken from her personal laptop by former staff and business partners three months after they were fired, and posted last June on a sex site. She recalled Sharma and his legal advisers and cyber police who assisted in having the site taken down about eight months ago.

Man posed as window cleaner to try to con people out of money: A man “in the grip of heroin” called at houses pretending to be a window cleaner collecting payment, a court has heard. One of the people Benjamin Williams tried to trick was a woman who had recently lost her husband, a court has heard, and his call left her feeling vulnerable. Swansea Magistrates Court was told that 26-year-old Williams had called at houses in Heol Caerllion in Cwmrhydyceirw and in Lan Street and Clydach Road in Morriston in the evenings, trying to trick people by saying he was there to collect their window cleaning bills. Most people were suspicious of the caller and he left empty handed — but one person handed over £10. A probation report presented to the court said that at the time of the window cleaner frauds, Williams was smoking 3.5g of heroin a day.

Wilkes-Barre police recovered about 100 bags of heroin from a rental car after responding to a suspicious person call. Police were called to Wilkes-Barre Window Cleaning at 140 Lehigh St. around 1 p.m. on Friday for a report of a suspicious person parked in the business' lot, according to an affidavit. When police arrived, Dashawn McLendon, 19, of 153 Park Ave., told them the vehicle was his, but police said the gray Nissan Altima came back registered as a rental from New York. Police said they smelled a strong odor of marijuana and asked McLendon if he had been smoking. He told police he had "weed" on him once police told him they were going to pat him down. Police placed McLendon into custody after finding a small amount of marijuana in his pocket, according to the affidavit. Police then searched McLendon's car and found two bricks - or 100 bags - of heroin stamped "High Voltage," as well as two loose bags of heroin stamped "Magic City." Police also recovered $723 and two cellphones. McLendon was charged with possession with intent to deliver and possession of a small amount of marijuana and jailed Friday afternoon, unable to post $100,000 bail. 

Fake jobs conmen tricked Sunderland pensioner out of £5,000:  Two men who cheated a vulnerable man in his early 60s out of thousands of pounds have escaped jail. One of the men, Andrew Crosby, 38, struck up a friendship with the frail pensioner in October 2012 while washing his windows, and began to borrow money from him as well as overcharging him for menial jobs such as cleaning bins. Crosby, of Clovelly Road, Hylton Castle, Sunderland, charged as much as £90 each time he visited his victim. Realising the man was an “easy target”, Crosby then informed some other men, who began visiting the man and demanding money for jobs that had not been given the go-ahead. Another man, Dennis Middlemas, 49, was employed by these men to collect the money from the vulnerable man at his home in Sunderland. Judge John Evans said: “A total of about £5,500 was taken, not all by these defendants. “In essence, it was purported that they were doing work for him. “It’s clear that in addition excessive bills for window cleaning and wheelie bin cleaning were given.” The court heard that the victim became concerned about the never-ending bills and contacted the police.

CCTV released following Andover incidents: Police are appealing for two men to come forward following a number of incidents in Andover. On Friday 11th April the men entered a number of shops including Waitrose, Salvation Army and Noami House charity shop claiming to be window cleaners in order to access staff areas or get payment. A mobile phone was stolen from the staff area of one store and a charity box was stolen from the counter of another. Officers would like to talk to the men captured on the CCTV images about the incidents as they may be able to assist with the investigation.

A father who watched his son bravely tackle a burglar who ransacked a family’s home at Christmas says he’s “extremely proud”. Derek Shearer, 59, and his son stepped up to help on Christmas Eve when they spotted a gang racing away from a property in Selsey Close, Toll Bar End. Derek said: “This chap was knocking doors claiming to be a window cleaner. He was hopping about, it was a cold windy day. "He told me he was waiting to speak to a neighbour about cleaning her windows. I thought it was odd – he didn’t ask to clean ours.” In fact Jason Bradbury and unknown colleagues were burgling the house, and when they raced off Derek’s son brushed off his own health worries to follow them. Derek said: “My son told them they were going to get caught because of the CCTV. When they got abusive he backed off and they left. It shook him up. He couldn’t leave the house on Christmas Day.”

A predatory paedophile who advertised for his victims in a local paper and was described as a "monster in disguise" by one of the young boys he abused has had his sentence slashed - because he is ill and old. The 73-year-old, who cannot be named because it might identify his victims, was originally jailed for eight years for molesting three teenage boys in the early 1980s, including two he had employed for weekend work in a home handyman business in the western suburbs. He advertised in a local newspaper for boys to assist him as a handyman, window cleaner and gardener. During sentencing last year, a District Court judge said the offences against the three boys, aged between 13 and 14, had ruined their lives - with one of the victims going on to become a convicted child abuser himself.

In Mexico, Kidnapping is a persistent threat: Ransom demands here in Morelos, a small state just south of the capital Mexico City that by some counts tops the nation in kidnappings, have ranged from $13,000 to as low as $250, according to the state police. At such prices just about anyone can afford to be snatched. Becerra’s group is demanding the resignation of Gov. Graco Ramirez, who took office 18 months ago after campaigning on a vow to attack crime, particularly kidnapping. The group hopes to force a recall election in the fall, which if successful, would be Mexico’s first such removal of a governor by popular vote.
Some 1,700 kidnappings were reported across Mexico in 2013, nearly 10 percent of them in Morelos. Another 278 abductions were reported nationwide and 34 in Morelos in the first two months of this year, according to the government. Analysts say as few as 1 in 5 abductions are ever reported, in part because victims’ families fear police agents are involved with the gangs. Investigations and ransom negotiations frequently become complicated because victims are targeted by family members and acquaintances, Pineda says. Victims in such cases often are killed because they can identify their captors. Today, the remnants of those lieutenants’ gangs carry out many of the kidnappings, joined by newcomers who trade low-wage jobs for easier criminal profits.
“They’re the cartels of window washers and brick layers,” says Becerra, the anti-crime activist. Becerra’s group claims that Gov. Ramirez and his police have failed miserably — either from “stupidity or complicity” in their efforts to end the crime wave and must go. Ramirez, who is the state’s first governor from the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, says the complaints are politically motivated. He argues that he inherited the crime plague from predecessors who cut deals with gang bosses, giving them free rein.