Not too old to YOLO

Teenagers love having their own jargon to distinguish them from the fuddy duddies.  If you’ve got one (a teenager, not a fuddy duddy) you may be familiar with the phrase YOLO – You Only Live Once.  Teenagers use it to signal that they are about to do something unbelievably stupid - but,  hey, YOLO!

Sadly, I said goodbye to my teenage years some time back, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t empathise with YOLO.  But the implications of YOLO change with age.  Rather than “Hey, look how imbecilic I am!” it’s more likely to resonate with a need for quality of life, while we still have it coursing through us.  For example: YOLO – so mend bridges before it’s too late.  YOLO – so get cracking on your bucket list.  YOLO – so don’t put up with a job you hate. 

I’ve always loved providing a great service cleaning windows across Kent and Sussex.  But I hate climbing ladders.  Every time I had to climb one, I was quaking inside.  So in true YOLO spirit, I stopped climbing them. 

Waterfed Pole Window Cleaning gave me my YOLO breakthrough.  I can now clean windows up to six storeys high while keeping my feet firmly on terra firma.  What’s more, the windows are cleaner and stay cleaner for longer than they ever did when I was hauling buckets up and down ladders.

YOLO – so make sure you enjoy what you do.  I do! 

Giving you back your privacy

The twenty-first century isn’t a very private place. 

Every time you buy something, your bank builds a sharper profile of you, your family, your likes and dislikes.  Cookies follow your every click on the internet to customise your cyber experience (or, more cynically, to optimise which ads you are bombarded with).  And you only have to slip over to discover you are the latest YouTube sensation.  

Wouldn’t it be nice to get back some good old-fashioned privacy?  We think so.  At Waterfed Pole Window Cleaning, we are committed to rekindling that twentieth-century concept of privacy.  And we are among a handful of window cleaners spearheading the campaign.

Unlike traditional window cleaners, who peer in through your upper windows as they perch on their ladders, we keep our feet firmly on the ground, using our very, very long waterfed poles to clean windows up to six storeys high.  With Waterfed Pole Window Cleaning, what goes on in your upper storeys, is your business.

So, we can’t help you if you sign Bohemian Rhapsody at top volume in your car.  When you pull up at the traffic lights, we can do nothing if the teenager standing at the crossing decides your rendition needs sharing with the world.   But we can promise that if we’re round cleaning your windows, you can step out of your shower and we’ll be none the wiser!  

The birds and the bees

Isn’t nature resilient?  We may have had the harshest March for 30 years, but that hasn’t deterred Mother Nature.  The birds and the bees are now in full flow, making out like, well, birds and bees.

When I’m out cleaning windows, there’s nothing quite like fabulous bird song to lift my spirits. At this time of year, the birds are cranking it up as they establish their territories and get nesting.  As they belt out their Greatest Hits it’s impossible not to smile.

Which is why I get sad when my clients report that their windows are so clean after I’ve visited that the birds fly into them.  By way of apology, I’d like to invite my customers to follow my tips to keep the birds away from my shinywindows.

Placing a cat statue on the window sill inside – ideally glaring out of the window – can help. 

But even a statue won’t help if the birds are seeing the sky and the trees reflected in the window.  So the most effective strategy is to stick silhouettes of birds on the outside of the glass, so your garden birds think the territory is taken and steer clear.  Birds of prey silhouettes will also make your feathered friends think twice about flying straight on.

Another great deterrent is a cobweb sticker – no bird wants to get tangled up with a spider’s sticky web.  As with the bird stickers, position it in the middle of the pane or in a strike hotspot, if there is one place the birds keep hitting.

So please keep enjoying my lovely clean windows, but make sure they are bird friendly. 

April showers - does it matter if it rains after your windows are cleaned?

April is traditionally the month of showers.   So it’s the perfect time for me to address the most common question put to window cleaners: does it matter if it rains after your windows are cleaned?

And the answer?  Well, that depends upon how your windows have been cleaned.

Most traditional window cleaners squeegee over the pane and give the window ledge a quick wipe over with a fairly grimy cloth.  If that’s what your window cleaner does, then yes, it will matter if it rains soon after.  Because your window cleaner has missed out the magic first step to clean windows that stay clean – come rain or shine.  He hasn’t bothered to clean the window frame.  Over time, your window frame gets covered in exhaust fumes, dust and bits of dry leaves etc.  If you don’t clean the frames, as soon as it rains all that filth washes over your window panes and make them dirty again.

Which is why, at Waterfed Pole Window Cleaning, we clean the frames first with lots of lovely pure water.  And only when the frames are clean do we move onto the panes and the ledges.  Which means when we clean your windows, they stay clean for up to two months.  Come April showers.  Or sleet.  Or snow.