Niagara Falls Window Cleaner In A Fix

Up he goes.

Spotted in Niagara Falls, Canada recently a window cleaner working from a suspended platform, who has his own way of fixing a jammed line. In the words of our reader – “whilst walking down the street the other day, we came across this fella whose cradle winch seem to have packed up!” “Without thinking he just scrambled up the rope and sorted the problem out, then carried on working.” “What was he thinking of!” Since putting this story up we have discovered that the window cleaner in question is actually a dummy model on the side of the Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum in Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls and to the looks of things it would seem we believed it!

Robert Ripley, the franchise founder who has museums worldwide, was an exceptional flamboyant character who travelled the world collecting artefacts and writing stories about his weird and unusual findings. His museum’s are definitely for the fans of the bizarre and unbelievable with the museum in Niagara Falls designed to look like the fallen Empire State building with King Kong standing on top of it! But that's still not to say we are overly impressed with the platform he is using, no toe-boards and a floor that looks ready to give - its no wonder why he is climbing out of that death trap!

Halfway up.

Almost there.. apparently he fixed the problem and returned to the platform.

Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum in Niagara Falls.

Window Cleaning Frachisors Jostle For Position

The company now operates in Vancouver, Seattle, Fraser Valley, Calgary and soon Edmonton, Victoria and Portland.

Yes, Those are ‘Men In Kilts’ - Attention introverts with nice calves and an intense interest in gleaming glass. Men In Kilts wants you. Well, you needn’t be an introvert, but it is guaranteed to test you if you are. “I’m very much an introvert, but I love wearing a kilt,” founder Nicholas Brand tells me in our recent interview. “It gets you meeting people and talking to people. I’m handing out business cards all day long. Dale Carnegie talked about disarming the person you’re talking to. The kilt is a natural disarmer.”

A franchising company described on its website as “a team of passionate kilt wearing professionals, providing window and exterior cleaning services to both commercial and residential customers,” Canada-based Men In Kilts knows how to simultaneously take its business seriously and keep things light. There’s a post on its website featuring a bit from a woman describing a traffic jam while picking up her child from school. The cause? Mothers checking out Men In Kilts. The photo accompanying the post is a bunch of Matchbox-sized cars set up to look like traffic.

 “We’re not sending people to Mars,” Brand says. “We’re not curing cancer. Let’s have fun.” By all means. Let’s drive trucks covered in tartan, get chatty with the person in Starbucks who can’t resist asking about the kilt, get a kick out of the women doing double takes on the street. Let’s put “No Peeking” right out on the homepage. No one said business had to be staid. “If I had called it Nick’s Window Cleaning, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Brand says. “Men In Kilts is rememberable.”

A created word that gets right to the genesis of this company. At age 24, Brand knew he wanted to start a business. A couple of his teachers in high school had their own businesses – one simply taught physical education because he loved it – and so did his uncle, who retired in his 50s. Brand had seen his parents laid off in their 50s. Put it all together and he saw working for himself as the best way to be in control of his destiny. Brand says he strategically picked window cleaning because about once a month he used to clean the windows at the restaurant where he was employed and he liked the instant gratification of it. He knew he was working on a shoestring.

Over beers with friends and his new wife one night, a friend said, “You should wear a kilt.” They laughed about it. While Brand is Canadian, his father is from Aberdeen in northeast Scotland and his mother’s grandparents are Scottish. He had worn a kilt a couple of times, including at his wedding, where there were 18 people in kilts. So the idea was innovative, but not so far-fetched, really. With his 1985 Honda Accord and a ladder that was bigger than the car, Brand got going. He and his wife delivered flyers. He “horribly underpriced” his services for a while. He rotated three or four kilts hand-sewn by his wife using a Halloween pattern.

He started to like the ‘wow’ factor he got in an hour or two with a customer. “For the first three or four years, it was just me.” Brand said. “I had a friend who would help me whenever.” But the business was building and gaining momentum. He had no time for marketing, working 12-14 hour days, and he needed somebody to manage the business side. Completely self-taught, he learned things like where to buy equipment and that the buildings over four stories high are often safer for window cleaners because of regulations that don’t apply to smaller ones.

Then one of his biggest clients at the time, Brent Hohlweg, told him he thought he was sitting on a gold mine and expressed interest in getting involved. He became a partner in 2006. They talked about getting their trucks to “stick out more” and that a customer had suggested they paint them Tartan. “Brett said, ‘That’s brilliant,’” Brand says. “Business exploded. It tripled the first year.”

The next step was franchising. In 2009 Tressa Wood, who had worked at 1-800-GOT-JUNK, was looking for other opportunities and brought her “massive franchising experience” to Men In Kilts. “Our one-year goal is to add 5 to10 franchises in North America,” Brand said. “Our lofty goal is to have 30 franchises by the end of 2013. We now have six.”

Brand, driving a tartan Mini, still gets approached like crazy. “I interact with a lot of ex-military who wore kilts for the military,” he says. For those interested in acquiring a franchise, there’s even Tartan Boot Camp. You’ve got to be willing to wear a kilt and handle the attention that comes with it. And of course, you’ve got to be dedicated to the company vision. “I’m 10 years into this,” Brand said. “If I knew then what I know now, I’d be five years ahead.” But what fun would that have been? Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2012/06/22/yes-those-are-men-in-kilts/#ixzz1yjfbaVlK

Seeing Men in Kilts Excites The Franchise King: It takes a lot to get franchise expert Joel Libava’s (The Franchise King®) juices flowing. He’s kind of a skeptical guy when it comes to new franchise business opportunities; most of them put him to sleep. But, one franchisor out of Vancouver, Canada has transformed Joel into a believer. Check out which franchise he’s getting turned on by. Two years ago if you would have asked Joel Libava his opinion on all the new franchise concepts that were being introduced, you would have been met with Joel’s typical response. “And?” In other words, Joel’s been kind of bored. There just aren’t that many franchises that excited him then, and really don’t know. And, it’s not that some of the newer franchise concepts he’s finding out about by the PR community are lousy. It’s just that they aren’t very different. And Joel knows that in a world that throws thousands of marketing messages out daily, you need to differentiate or…well…you know. Then it happened; a young franchisor appeared on the scene that totally changed his mind…and his attitude, quite frankly, about the state of franchising.

Actually, it wasn’t actually the franchisor or the concept that did it for The Franchise King®; it was what the franchisees of this service franchise were wearing that turned Joel on. It was their kilts. Nicholas Brand and the team over at Men in Kilts, decided that the normally boring-but profitable window cleaning business needed a shot in the arm. (Or in this case, a shot in a hairy leg!)So, they changed the delivery method. Franchisees and their team members show up to their residential and commercial window cleaning jobs donned in kilts. They’re a site to behold, and this one thing…this one change…has transformed the entire window cleaning business into one that is all of a sudden being taken very seriously.

As a matter of fact, MSNBC just filmed an episode (below) of Your Business with JJ Ramberg featuring the Men in Kilts franchise. Sometimes, the smallest things in a business are overlooked. When they aren’t, big things can happen. Case in point; the founder of Men in Kilts looked at what his window cleaners were wearing-and changed how they dress….in the silliest way possible. The Franchise King®, Joel Libava, is a franchise industry expert, and the author of Become a Franchise Owner! The Start-Up Guide To Lowering Risk, Making Money, And Owning What You Do. (John Wiley & Sons, Publisher) Joel specializes in teaching people how to buy a franchise.

Telax is proud to announce their partnership with franchise online management expert’s Vonigo, and a deal with franchisor, Men In Kilts Window Cleaning: Telax Hosted Call Center, North America’s leader in cloud-based contact center software, today announced a partnership agreement with Vonigo, the cloudware solution of choice for savvy multi-location service businesses. Supporting franchise businesses in the quest for significant, cost effective growth, Vonigo provides unparalleled cloud computing solutions for their customers. Their approach has enabled Telax to complete deals with long time Vonigo customer, Men In Kilts Window Cleaning. The partnership represents an impressive first step into the franchise industry for Telax. “Telax is going to be a front-line player in the franchise industry. We’re happy to be the first to partner with them. We’re both going to be better able to provide the service our customers expect,” says John Carter, Vonigo co-founder.

Telax Hosted Call Center is North America’s leader in hosted call center solutions. Based in Toronto, Canada, Telax has been providing cloud-based business solutions to prominent public and private sector organizations since 1999. Vonigo, the secret behind efficient multi-location service companies, is a secure online management system that streamlines service company operations across multiple locations, making complex tasks like client relations, estimating, scheduling, work orders and invoicing simple. Eliminating the headaches of on-site software, home-grown solutions or manual operations, the platform is designed specifically for service companies large and small with customers in the field, including franchise operations. Vonigo shines best for any service company with multiple locations and smaller companies aspiring to grow. Customers include Men in Kilts, Frogbox, and Better Life Maids.

Men In Kilts was started in 2002 by Nicholas Brand with $500, a squeegee, and a hand-sewn kilt. The first franchise was opened in 2010 in Vancouver, B.C., with Fraser Valley, B.C., Seattle, Wash., and Calgary soon to follow. Men In Kilts’ commercial and residential services include:

•     window cleaning
•     gutter cleaning
•     pressure washing
•     exterior building cleaning
•     snow removal services will be available in all colder markets later this year

Men In Kilts plans for fast expansion into all major cities across North America, including Toronto, San Francisco, LA, and Denver. The company projects a 300 percent increase in system-wide revenue in 2012.

FiSH Named a Top Low Cost Franchise: In addition to being named one of the top 50 large franchises based on franchisee satisfaction, Fish Window Cleaning® also has been recognized by Franchise Business Review as one of the 14 top low-cost service franchises to own. To be recognized, franchises had to have one of the highest franchisee satisfaction scores in their business category and require an average investment of $100,000 or less.  The selection was based on a survey of over 11,000 franchisees from low cost franchises representing more than 130 brands.  The franchises named have differing business models, but all had these traits in common: no requirements for a big office, retail space, a lot of inventory or any resources that require large amounts of capital.

The survey used to gauge franchisee satisfaction featured 33 benchmark questions for franchisees to rank their system in the areas of financial opportunity, training and support, leadership, operations and product development, core values, general satisfaction and the franchise community.  An additional 19 questions asked franchisees about their market area, demographics, business lifestyle, overall enjoyment of running their franchises and their role in the franchise community. Fish Window Cleaning was founded in 1978 by S. Michael Merrick, and began franchising in 1998.  Currently the system has 239 U.S. locations.  FISH is the largest window cleaning company in the country.  The organization ranked 14th in the 2012 Franchisee Satisfaction Survey conducted by Franchise Business Review, 68th on Dun & Bradstreet’s AllBusiness Allstars 2012 Top 100 Franchises, 119th on Entrepreneur Magazine’s 2012 Franchise 500 and was named to the 2011 Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing businesses.

Window Genie of Chicago Gives Back to Benefit the American Brain Tumor Association: Bill Grogan, owner of Window Genie Chicago gives discount to customers who donate to the American Brain Tumor Association. Window Genie is the Cincinnati based franchisor of home services known to “Clean Windows and a Whole Lot More!” Doing a whole lot more now includes giving back to the community through the new program, Windows 4 Wishes. Window Genie’s culture is defined by 5 foundational pillars, one being “community citizenship.” Windows 4 Wishes is the corporate initiative encouraging community outreach amongst all Window Genie franchise owners. Each locally owned and operated Window Genie location owner will choose an organization/charity to benefit in their community. With Windows 4 Wishes, there are four ways in which a franchisee can give back to the organization/charity of their choice: donate money, volunteer their time, promote that organization for free and/or offer free Window Genie services.

Bill Grogan, Window Genie owner in Southwest Chicago has chosen to give back to the American Brain Tumor Association (ABTA). Representing Window Genie, he participated in the 5K run/walk on Saturday, May 12 in Chicago called Breakthrough for Brain Tumors. Bill personally raised $285 for the team Miracle Minds of Mokena. Miracle Minds of Mokena came in second place overall by exceeding their goal of $20,000 and raising $31,646 for the ABTA. In addition, ABTA has provided Grogan with a form for him to distribute to his customers to raise awareness and encourage donations. For each customer that chooses to donate to ABTA, regardless of the amount they give, Grogan will offer a 10% discount on Window Genie services for their home. Grogan said of his choice to give back to ABTA, “I am supporting ABTA because a very good friend has been battling a brain tumor for two and a half years. Also, my neighbor recovered from a brain tumor seven years ago, but another developed last month and he had surgery to remove that one. I want to contribute what we can to ABTA because of what they do to help individuals facing brain tumors.”

UnSafe Work Practises Highlighted

Witness told the Winnipeg Sun that the window washer's rope broke, causing him to fall all the way down through a ground-floor overhead window and into the complex’s lobby.

Province planning crackdown on unsafe workplaces: Chris Piper fell eight stories and survived. Two weeks ago, he was cleaning windows when something went terribly wrong. He's still recovering but the death-defying fall was just one of about 37,000 workplace accidents that happen every year in Manitoba. 24-year old Curtis Martel says he's been injured so many times at work, he's lost count. "A lot of day to day things, like cuts and burns, working in restaurants that's really common, slips, falls, chemical burns," said Martel. From minor injures to fatalities, the province is now cracking down on employers who repeatedly fail to keep their workplaces safe. "I think you can expect to see more fines in the coming months," announced Jennifer Howard, Minister Responsible for the Worker's Compensation Board.

Come Monday, any company with a lot of accidents will be displayed on, www.safemanitoba.com, for you to see. "Some companies need to be named and shamed in order to change their work practices," said Martel. As well, the province will reward good employers by reducing Worker's Compensation rates if there are fewer injured workers, some the Federation of Labour says will cause other problems. "Sadly there are a number of employers out there that use that way to game the system," said Kevin Rebeck, "they use intimidation, pressure or misinformation so workers don't report their claims." "We need to make sure the incentives actually result in safer workplaces," said Howard. The province is conducting a review of the entire Workplace Safety and Health Act, changes it hopes will prevent accidents from happening.

Teng Laguilam hands over donations made by Filipino residents to Jovita Bulseco. Bulseco said her problem began after she fell while cleaning a window in her employer’s home.

OFWs help ailing housemaid (Jeddah) — Kindhearted Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) taking part in a basketball tournament here donated money to help an ailing Filipino domestic helper who is collecting money to finance an operation to remove a tumor in her spine. Audience members, players and organizers of the Filipino Basketball Tournament all donated money to help 37-year-old Jovita Bulseco pay for her operation. “I am very happy seeing my fellow OFWs donating money from their hearts and I am convinced that bayanihan spirit among Filipinos is still alive,” said a teary-eyed Bulseco.

Teng Laguialam, President of the Filipino Salesman and Merchandizers (FILSAMA) and Commissioner of the Filipino Basketball League said it is their duty as Filipinos to render assistance to any fellow countrymen in need. Acknowledging the amount donated was not very big, Laguialam said the compassion he saw from the kababayan after he informed them of Bulseco’s situation, made him proud to be a Filipino.

Bulseco said her problem began after she fell while cleaning a window in her employer’s home. Two months later, when her condition worsened, she was finally taken to the hospital. She said she isn’t ashamed to ask for help and will do anything for the sake of her children’s future. Due to her condition, Bulseco has difficulty walking and relies on a walking stick. She learned of the tumor in her spine after an advocacy group in Jeddah brought her to the hospital to have her spine checked.

Bulseco said she began asking for financial assistance from her compatriots because her employer is unlikely to shoulder her medical expenses or the costs of her operation. “I still have hope that my employer will help me. I hope I can survive this problem for the sake of my children,” said Bulseco.

Hong Kong Window Cleaner Death

Window cleaner at work in Shanghai, China. Click to enlarge.

Window cleaner falls to death: A window cleaner died after falling 16 stories from a gondola outside a Tsim Sha Tsui hotel. According to reports, Chan Wai, 38, and a colleague named 'So' boarded the gondola (swinging scaffold) outside the Royal Garden Hotel about 10am. They were preparing to clean the external walls of the hotel, owned by Sun Hung Kai Properties, when the gondola tilted to one side, throwing Chan out. So was able to keep his balance and was not injured. It is suspected that Chan, who was not wearing a helmet, had not yet fastened his harness when the gondola tilted. He fell 16 stories and was certified dead at the scene. An initial investigation showed the cables fitted to the gondola are in good condition.

Hong Kong Construction Industry Employees' General Union chairman Chow Luen-kiu said there should be two bolts to lock the two steel cables on either side of a gondola. It is suspected that Chan may have mistakenly unlocked a bolt, which made the gondola tilt. The Labour and Fire Services departments are looking into the cause of the accident. Chan had been a window cleaner for four years. The widower lived in Tsz Wan Shan with his mother. The hotel has given his family HK$300,000 as consolation money. Meanwhile, the owners of some shops near the hotel voiced dissatisfaction with police investigators. They claimed officers arrived at the scene some time after the fall and left the body of the dead worker exposed for six hours, which affected business. Describing the case as "rare," Chow advised workers to inspect the cables of gondolas before getting into them.

FOCUSED: A woman ate breakfast as a window cleaner worked outside on the 23rd floor of a hotel in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, China. Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

Chasing The Window Washer

Washing windows on 20-story buildings is difficult, and so is getting pictures like this one. Click to enlarge.

Chasing the window washer - By Paul Kapteyn Staff Photographer (Photos in high places): On my way into work in late April, I happened to see some window washers hanging from the roof of 100 Front St. in downtown Worcester. The 20-story building is the future home of the Telegram & Gazette. Though window washer pictures can be a dime a dozen, what made this more interesting was that these guys looked more like rappelling cliff-climbers - no platform in sight. I decided to try to get a photo of one of these fearless men from inside the building.

Little did I know what I was in for. I estimated which floor I needed to be on in order to get the photo, figuring about halfway up the building might work. I took the elevator to the 11th floor, looked out the window of the elevator lobby and saw nothing but dangling ropes. The building's designers went with fixed windows, perhaps anticipating that some crazy photographer might want to stick his head out the window. I returned to the bank of elevators.

I took the elevator up a couple of floors. Still no sign of the washer - just the dangling ropes. I squished my face against the glass trying to see if he was above or below, but no dice. Back to waiting for the elevators. I tried the 10th floor, but still saw only ropes. The movement of the ropes seemed to indicate that the washer was just below me. Of course, the elevators had run off on their own again. Press the button and wait. Go down two floors. Peering up through the window, I saw dangling feet. I took the elevator up to the 9th floor, and there he was, sitting in a harness, a bucket dangling below him.

He was attached to a window with suction cups in one hand and a tethered squeegee in the other. I grabbed a few frames and saw that he was heading to the eighth. I took the elevator to the eighth floor and waited as he worked his way down to where I was positioned. It was impressive to watch how quickly and efficiently he moved from window to window. Sunlight was streaming through the windows, so I stayed in the shadows and lined myself up with a small divider between two large panes of glass, to avoid getting a reflection of myself.

Satisfied that I had gotten a decent image, I now had to get his name. I knocked on the glass, but he apparently couldn't hear me. Repeated knocking finally got his attention, but it soon became clear that sign language is not one of my gifts. Using large block letters, I wrote in my notebook: "YOUR NAME? NEWSPAPER PHOTO" and held it up to the glass. He still apparently didn't understand what I was asking for, and just shook his head. Of course, the reflective glass probably limited his ability to see inside, and from his perspective, why would he want to try to carry on a conversation in sign language with someone while dangling from a building 100 feet off the ground?

I went back down to the first floor to speak with the security guard, who brought me to the building manager, who in turn put me in touch with the local supervisor of the cleaning company contracted by the building owners. The supervisor connected me with a representative from Fish Window Cleaning, to whom I described the person I had photographed. She knew exactly who I was talking about, and said that Mr. Carlos Lemus would be thrilled, since a photograph had just been published in the Boston Herald, showing him cleaning windows at Fenway Park in preparation for its centennial celebration. That may not be as exciting as being photographed cleaning the windows of the future home of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Fenway has been around for 100 years, but the T&G has been in its current building since medieval times.

Getting this image was a good reminder that the simple idea of a photograph can often turn into a much longer process. It's never just a matter of pressing a button.

3 Cleaners - 3 Different Money Styles

Window cleaner Mick Tate is retiring after almost 40 years.

Ravensthorpe window cleaner retiring after almost 40 years: A window cleaner is winding down after almost 40 years. For almost all of his working life, Mick Tate has been cleaning the windows of houses, shops and factories in Ravensthorpe. But now, at the age of 67, he has decided to cut down on the amount of work he takes on and ease his way into retirement. “When you get to my age, you can’t fly up and down a ladder like you used to at 27,” he said. Mr Tate, of Queen Street, Mirfield, first took over the window cleaning business from a family friend, Walter Barker, in 1974. “He was a wonderful character,” Mr Tate said. “He was retiring and said, would I like to take over. “I worked at ICI at the time, and I didn’t particularly like it, so I worked with Walter for 12 months and the rest is history.”

Mr Tate grew up in Ravensthorpe and is still known to many of the children who live on his window cleaning round as ‘Mr Mick’. He spent many years playing football and rugby with amateur teams in the area and still goes crown green bowling in Lower Hopton. He hopes to use his retirement to spend more time travelling and visiting his son, Daniel. “My son recently moved to Canada,” Mr Tate said. “My wife Brenda and I have just been out there, and I would like to go back.” Mr Tate still plans to work occasional shifts, but he will be winding down over the next few months. “I’m still fit enough to work a couple of mornings a week, which I intend to do, but a lot of my work has now gone,” he said.

Meet the woman who has lived without money for 16 years... and discovered it actually made her happier: A German woman has lived without money for 16 years following a lifetime of guilt about wealth stemming from her time as a World War Two refugee. Growing up in Prussia Heidemarie Schwermer was the daughter of a successful businessman and her family kept a nanny and full-time gardener on their payroll. But when war struck Europe in 1939 for the second time that century Schwermer and her family became penniless and were forced to flee to Germany. After years of hardship Schwermer's father was able to start over with a tobacco company and cash started pouring in again. But Schwermer now found herself at odds with their affluent lifestyle. 'We were well-off but ended up as riff-raff,' she said. 'We became rich again and we had to defend it. I've always had to justify myself, whether we were rich or poor.'

Schwermer, now 69, worked at a teacher and then a psychotherapist on a good wage. But instead of welcoming the hard-earned cash she yearned for those formative childhood years of struggle and strife. As a result she became obsessed with finding new ways to live without money, eventually setting up Germany's first exchange circle in 1994. 'Give and Take Central' helped people swap simple services like babysitting or house cleaning for tangible goods and Schwermer found she need money less and less. Eventually when a friend asked the divorced mother-of-two to house-sit for her Schwermer decided to take the plunge and live without money for one whole year. She sold everything - including her apartment - saving just a few small items that she packed into a suitcase. What was only meant to last 12 months became her life for the next 16 years. 'I only wanted to try to do an experiment and in that year, but I noticed a new life,' she told Business Insider. 'I didn't want to go back to the old life.'

In the beginning Schwermer stayed with old friends but as word of her lifestyle spread she began giving talks on her mission - meeting new hosts on the lecture circuit. She only accepts train fare for her speaking engagements and rejects any other attempts to pay her. At first she also did odd jobs around her hosts' homes, like gardening or window washing, to earn her keep but she says that these days they don't expect anything in return. In a documentary made about her life entitled 'Living Without Money', she's seen foraging for leftover produce at fresh air markets and trading a shopkeeper a few hours of cleaning services in return for food. She often receives clothing from friends, donating what she doesn't have room for in the small suitcase she carts from home to home.

'Cleaning Fairy' defends entering homes without permission: Last month a woman was arrested in connection with breaking into a home, not to steal anything, but to clean it without the owners' permission. Now she's indicating she didn't do anything wrong. In May, Digital Journal reported on a case where a woman took it upon herself to enter a stranger's home, do some cleaning, and then leave a bill for services rendered. She entered a Westlake, Ohio, home and cleaned it while one of the family members was asleep upstairs. She left a bill for her services, scribbled on a napkin, charging the family $75.

Susan Warren, the woman dubbed in the media as the "Cleaning Fairy", was brought into police custody in connection with entering the family's home and charged with burglary. She was released on $5,000 bond after spending two weeks in jail. Media reports indicated she had an earlier trespassing charge for a similar offense. Now the woman is defending her actions and, after her arrest, pleaded not guilty in an Ohio court. Warren says she was not committing a crime, but "doing a good deed." "I needed to make some money, I figured maybe I was doing them a favor," Warren said. "Burglary, I'm being accused. I'm being charged with burglary. I didn't break in." “I opened the front door, but that was all I did,” she noted.

Reporter Dan Deroos asked Warren why she thought her actions didn't equate to burglary and she replied because "I didn't take anything." She indicated to Deroos she doesn't think she should be charged, but if so, should only be charged with trespassing. Fox News reported Warren said, “I never stole anything! I left a bill on a napkin, which I admit, was very unprofessional. I get that. I just needed money.” According to the Financial Post, the "cleaning fairy" allegedly entered two other homes, but charges were not filed. Reportedly, Warren is surprised at the attention her case has gotten, and she says that this publicity has ruined her (presumably legitimate?) cleaning business. She "can't seem to comprehend why she is facing charges," reported Fox.

“That’s how business works in this country. I mean, some people want a piece of paper to look at, they want an invoice, they want a bill. I couldn’t find a piece of paper and I sure as hell was not going to go through their personal things,” said Warren. Apparently, it's not OK to go through personal things, but perfectly acceptable to walk into the home of another, and touch their things to clean them without permission? Aside from all that, last month when the story broke, the family said she really didn't even do much cleaning to warrant the $75, even if hired to do the job. As she defends her behavior, Warren feels the homeowners still owe her the $75 for straightening up the residence.

Probably The Best Window Cleaning Company In The World

Curt Kempton with the most professional window cleaning company in the World.

Remember the Carlsberg advert where the guy picks up the phone in an abandoned old office & as he closes the door you see the sign "Carlsberg complaints dept'?" Well from the presentation & marketing of his company - 5 Star Window Care, Curt Kempton in Arizona seems to be the guy that fits this bill. Curt Kempton is on a mission, he has won the the most professional window cleaning company in the world by the International Window Cleaning Association (IWCA), after showing marketing materials, customer appreciation programs, uniforms, equipment, employees, procedures, customer testimonials, and giving a comprehensive presentation. The International Window Cleaning Association voted 5 Star Window Care the most professional image, not only once, but for the last 3 years in a row! Curt is now changing the face of window cleaning companies forever with his Instant Bid program & now his Mastermind Group for window cleaners.

Curt Kempton of 5 Star Window Care says "We are a Customer Service Company... That Just Happens to do Windows! 

Curt has just released a new video for his company & I asked him just how he did it...

"So about 2 months ago, we decided we'd like to do a fun video to advertise using social media. We got in touch with Propusganda and sat down with them to figure out what the concept was. I was a big fan of the "Dollar Shave Club" video, plus all of the Old Spice commercials. I just wanted it to be more refined. In the end, We came up with 4 shots that we would like to do, all starting out as bad news, then going into a "reveal" where 5 Star awesomeness saved the day. "

"The production company was great. They wrote the script, let me edit with them, and understood our company culture pretty well before even getting to the final draft. Once we came up with everything on paper, then we got the shots lined up conceptually and went to find a set. They secured a set along with about 6 actors & actresses. We spent 2 hours the day before on the set just walking around and getting an idea of how the shots would work, and re-writing any lines necessary. The day of the shoot we started at 9am... I was surprised to see a makeup artist, all the props, and actors walking all over the place."

"It was a little surreal. I had brought my son along for the first couple hours so he could see all of the equipment. He seemed to enjoy it, but in the end, it was everything else going on that was so wild. We spent the next 10 hours shooting, messing up lines, and having fun. They provided all of the food, and the entertainment was plenty. 2 weeks later, they emailed me the files and the rest is history."

"A few weeks before this video we had decided that we wanted to do something fun for our customers, so we planned a customer party. The production company was happy to help us with this video too..."