[WCE]

I think it depends on the services you offer. In my case - domestic is booming have had no one cancel yet (although I have just had today one customer ask for time to pay as they have been made redundant) and work still flowing in. Commercial the same in the last month alone I have added £5000 p/a of new work and again no one has canceled. However I was doing very well in build cleans and have contracts with all the major developers. The work here has just dried up overnight - no one is building much at all at the moment. This time last year I had on average £750 - 1000 worth of build cleans a week to do. This week I have a grand total of 0!  In fact this week from the 8 sites that are left (I did have 14 sites on the go but the rest have closed!) I have 1 show home to do and thats on the only site not to cut back on them. All the rest have cut down from fortnightly to monthly and one has cut right back to bi-monthly. Now thats an industry in turmoil. I am just glad that I don't have all my eggs in one basket. The company that does most of the sites in the areas general cleaning have over the last 25 years built up their business specialising in build cleans and they have gone from making very good money to being right on the verge of going bust - all in the space of a few months. I know the owners well and said to them about 18 months ago that it was silly to concentrate just on the build cleans - if something went wrong they had no back up plan. Did they listen? No. They had been going through the housing boom and like I said doing very well so they ignored my advice. Now they have hardly any work and have finally realised that they have left it too late to find other work in another sector. I give them two months max if it stays like this, then they will go bust.  So I think that it depends what services you actually provide. The key IMO to surviving the crunch is diversity- ie don't keep all your eggs in one basket.     

[cvdewsbury]

do you think the media talk people into a crisis.

yes......a mate of mine runs a couple of medium size business and was talking to his financial advisor re the property market he was told that the word in the financial world was that if no one starts panicking and the media stop whipping up things, the property market should see an upward turn in from january 09.

Again reading through the posts above very few people seem to be losing domestic customers,that tells you a lot.

[WCE]

do you think the media talk people into a crisis.

yes......a mate of mine runs a couple of medium size business and was talking to his financial advisor re the property market he was told that the word in the financial world was that if no one starts panicking and the media stop whipping up things, the property market should see an upward turn in from january 09.

Again reading through the posts above very few people seem to be losing domestic customers,that tells you a lot.

I cant see the property market having an upward turn that soon. The reason I say that is we haven't really seen the effect of the increased heating bills yet. With the increase in inflation etc and christmas the month before (And jan always being quiet anyway in the housing market) I think that if we do see an upward turn next year in then it wont be until later on in 2009. Prehaps the summer time will see it happen.   

[macmac]

What ever happened to the ALPINE pop vans?
The ones who used to come round selling soft drinks, cream soda & the likes?

Wonder if they got the boot with the last credit crunch

Anyone remember them

Tony

[windowwashers]

What ever happened to the ALPINE pop vans?
The ones who used to come round selling soft drinks, cream soda & the likes?

Wonder if they got the boot with the last credit crunch

Anyone remember them

Tony

I remember vans coming round when I was a kid, I used to collect other peoples and make 10p each retuning bottles to them, I also used to walk people from the supermarket waitrose in Watford to there cars and take trolloys back for the 10p in it. there was a lot bigger bACK THEN i STRUGGLED TO WALK HOME SOME TIMES LOL
25 years ago I was earning near on £5 a night from trolleys and about £5 a week on bottles

My mum and dad were not well off back then, I never went without anything I wanted even though life was quite hard back then if you want to make money you always can if just takes action.

[Londoner]

It was the Corona man who used to come round here selling pop. Long gone now along with the paraffin man called Reg.

The thing is that people live in a sort of cloud cuckoo land. Even though they are running into debt a lot of them still carry on with their lifestyle. they don't cut back with the holidays and the wife still has her cleaning lady and goes to the hairdresser every week.
I read a while back that BMWs and Mercs are the cars most likely to be repossed by the finance company.

A bloke I know has recently gone under in a big way. He was a taxi operator with about 20 cabs and he's had the lot repossed and is in the process of losing his house.

The significant point is that right up to the end he was acting the big man, He wears a Rolex watch and was flashing his money about down the pub.

A few months before he bought his wife a really chavvy great 4x4. Brand new, black with blacked out windows and loads of chrome.  Yet when he bought it he was in debt up to his eyeballs already. So why did he do it?

[Oakley Windows]

It was the Corona man who used to come round here selling pop. Long gone now along with the paraffin man called Reg.

And Mr Weymouth the painter and decorator 

[ftp]

You guys must be so OLD you'll be telling me about the mobile butchers van, the grocery van and the fish monger who used to park up your road! I suppose you took spangles to school too.







Mind you, we did have to lick the road clean!

[crystal]

Just had my first cancellation this year, customer posted money  through the  door with a nice  letter thanking me for the service but her husbands brother has just been made redundant and he will be cleaning them from now on
thats after five years and they aint short of moolah
talk about keep it in the family  bah   

[Darren O]

macmac i remember them they used to chase us for stealing ginger of there van but i was only about 10.The last time i seen a alpine van was about 3 years ago but they were using transits instead of the massive lorry.

[macmac]

What about the mobile video library, anyone have one of them?

The coupon man for vernons pools?

Tony

[Tosh]

The coupon man for vernons pools?

Our 'Pools Man' (when I was a kid) used to be accompanied by a local - tough nut - boxer with a big German Shephard, 'cos he kept on getting mugged.

We thought that was normal, but it's a bit like me going collecting with a body-guard.

Anyway, I picked up two £20 accounts next door to each other, two tiny bungalows just accross the road and was asked to quote for some 17th  Century house a bit further down the road.

Maybe the credit cruch isn't affecting everyone.

[DASERVICES]

Gas has just gone up 35%

So start expecting customers to start saving pennies, the one thing they will look at is window cleaning. What I tend to do is say to them instead of cancelling do you want it done every 10 weeks.

[Oakley Windows]

I find it odd that people on here say things like we're going to lose work etc etc, as the window cleaner is the first to go. IMO the holiday, the smart car, the new kitchen, the spa-pool in the garden are the first to go.

Surely its blindingly obvious that the most expensive things go first.

Window-cleaning is bomb-proof.

[dave0123]

I think gardiners will go before window cleaners.

because people like clean windows they ring you up if your late so they obv want it doing.. reason being to my eyes is they dont want to go up a ladder them sevls.

now gardens can be done by them self if they are trying to save money.

[matt]

i normally dont pick up work, its mainly because i do most of the houses in all the streets / roads i do, thus i dont get asked many times

last week i was phoned up by a lady who i used to clean for, she had moved

it is in a area i dont do, but i drive past, so its no harm to stop by, i didnt really want the work, but i said i would call in, it was  a 5 bed house with conserv, i thought what with the credit crunch coming, i thought i should take it on
i arrive, she wants insides and out done, the conserv roof, it turned out to be a half day job, then 2 others in the street ask me for a card ( time wasters as they would have just asked me to do them, not a card )

this week ive been phoned 3 times by people who have been recommended me by customers, 1 of them is a big farm house and 3 holiday homes, its about 15 mins outside my area, but looks like its a half day job aswell

[ftp]

Think i'll have to get my phone checked over - hasn't rung much this week. 

[john tomkins]

Think i'll have to get my phone checked over - hasn't rung much this week. 

No luck with that "street of gold" then

[ftp]

Nope nothing at all.    Did pick up an old rectory whilst i was there, one off and leafletted three £850,000 houses that had just been built (looked spotless though).

[Paul Coleman]

You guys must be so OLD you'll be telling me about the mobile butchers van, the grocery van and the fish monger who used to park up your road! I suppose you took spangles to school too.







Mind you, we did have to lick the road clean!

I do actually recall an ice cream man that used to come around on a bike - the non motorised type.  Mind you, I was very young.  It was probably about 1961/62 or thereabouts.