[rosskesava]

I had one of those bells a while back that stuck pushed in and I didn't know.

The customer opened the door with 'door rage'.

He then ran back inside his house and came back with steak mallet and smashed the bell from the door frame ruining the mallet in the process.

He then stood there looking at me breathing heavily and shouted 'What do you want'.

I held up my squeegie and said weakly 'We clean your windows'.

He said a sort of 'Oh. Thank you. Yes.'

We cleaned his windows and he paid us and off we went.

[Duke]

LOL....yeah I can understand that......I get day's when just the slightest push and I'm turned into.....'The Cleaner from Hell'.....I can be a right irritable sod if/when things are not going as I want them to......ahh, it's all about anger management I guess. Recently joined another forum.....great for having a whinge...here's the link (nothing to do with windows, I hasten to add...but worth a look)


http://www.grumpyoldwomen.co.uk/forum/phpBB210/viewforum.php?f=3&sid=c58e52a8d1d1ad70dcc68e2203efbc3a

[Duke]

PS my posting name is Grumplestiltskin.......and sometimes the subject of window cleaners comes up....I joined to fight back !

[rosskesava]

Thanks for the link.

Oh yes. I'll be registering tonight.

[Grafters Cleaning Services]

Yesterday I had to do a gutter  cleaning job, I estimated it would take me 1 and a half hours so priced it at £55-00. not bad me thinks £55-00 for less than 2 hours work, arrive at the house 9am, it is a middle house of a set of 3 terrace, I’m halfway through doing the front when the house owner pops out and says to me, “just off to work now do you need me to hang around” ……. “No” says I ……“as long as the back gate is open there’s no problems”
So off she goes. I’ve now finished the front, make my way to the rear gate and start on the back gutters, 30 minutes later I’m looking up at my work and thinking brill “it’s only taken me just over 1hour” so I pack up my gear and back to my window cleaning round. At 9 o’clock this morning I gets a call on my mobile. Customer…. “hi jay  Karen here, you did the gutters yesterday, brilliant job! However you cleaned my neighbours rear gutters and not mine, you must have gone through the first gate and not the second one.” ………So today in between jobs I had to go back again and do her rear gutters  which took me a further 30 minutes. So at the end of the day the overall job did take me the 2 hours I first anticipated. Incidentally I was hoping to catch the neighbours in and explain that I cleaned their rear gutters by mistake and I could also do the fronts maybe at a discounted rate to recuperate my lost time, alas they are out to work all day so I missed them.
So I think the moral of the story here is for me to slow down a bit and get it right or tell the customer that they are not allowed to leave the house until I have finished the job in case I end up in the wrong back garden.
Has anyone else any similar stories?
 

[windows_chepstow]

I recently climbed over a back gate and, through the patio windows, saw an old bloke sprawled out on the sofa, watching a film.  He was REALLY enjoying his own company (if you know what I mean).

I don't know who got the biggest shock.  He ran.  I cleaned the windows.  I didn't knock for the money, just stuck a note though and picked the cash up from his missis later in the week!

[Duke]

don't know about funny story.....but I've cleaned the wrong windows more than once...especially new round/customers.....s'pose it's funny...but annoying at the time...(my new customers are handed to me on a computer printout...I go there 'blind')

[windows_chepstow]

I think we've all done that!  Only I reckon I've done it more, (and I don't want to sound like 'Billy Two Sheds' here).

Once, while up a ladder, wind blowing - a woman shouted to me and asked me to clean her windows.  We negotiated a price and she left.  I knew the area very well.

I turned up to clean, a little suprised it was a bungalow, but cracked on anyway.

They weren't in.  I came to collect.  They weren't in.  Every time I call for my money and receive no answer, I leave a 'Your window cleaner came to collect' certificate.  I call twice and on the second time leave a 'It will be added to next month' chit.

Well, I cleaned the place three times, over three months and one day received a phone call.  (I put my telephone number on all my stationery.) 

The call basically said, we didn't ask you to clean our windows, and we're hardly home anyway.  Well, I was polite, but did state that they could've phoned me sooner than let me clean their windows for three months.

Wor lass went mad!  She would've bricked their windows if I let her!

So, I doubt there's many here that's cleaned the wrong house three months in a row - apart from me.  I am a Geordie mind!

[rosskesava]

Never done the wrong house 3 times but I've done the wrong house twice.

Last summer.

Lady stops us in the street, she gives us her address, etc, we take a look, phone her with the price and she agrees. We do her windows put SAE throught door etc.

She phones up a few days later and speaks to my (busines) partner to ask when we were going to do her windows.

We discover we've done the house next door (and no - they didn't want to pay) in error and so the next day at the end of our round, we squeeze in the ladies house.

All well and good.

The next month, on the day this same ladies house is due, my partner goes to the dentist so we arrange I work the morning, get done what I can on my own, and then pick him up after he's been to the dentist and carry on.

The first job is this same ladies house. I turn up and do her windows and carry on with the round.

A week or so later the same lady phones up and asked when were we going to clean her windows.

I done the windows on the same wrong house twice.

der..............

[Duke]

lol...I bet they think it's great....free window cleaning...I hope they don't tell all their friends...

[Ian_Giles]

Just a wry look at those irritating little things......

Doesn't it annoy you when; Instead of extending your pole an extra couple of feet, you stretch as high as you can with your pole, getting really close to the wall of the house, and a dripper runs down the pole and all the way along your arm under your clothes, down your armpit and all the way down your side I hate it when that happens

And don't you hate it when;  You have your pole extended as high as it will go, and you are struggling to reach up and loosen your clamp when it suddenly goes really loose as that section drops all the way and pinches your finger before you tighten the clamp again

Doesn't it annoy you when;  You get in to the car after the weekend and find the footwell full of water and a half empty 25L container in the back and you can only blame yourself for not unhooking the feed hose from the container to the hose reel, who would have thought that the little drip from that not quite perfect connection could have empied out the container

Anyone else?

I have a few more little observations, but I'm running late (Don't you hate it when that happens! lol)

Ian

[Ian_Giles]

Sigh, home for lunch

Another little addition to Doesn't it annoy you when...

Doesn't it annoy you when; You dash off to your first account of the day.......then find you have left behind the 'pole hose' in your rush to get started on time as a result of making postings on here before you go to work

Ian

[Roy Harding]

Dosen't it annoy you when you get to the top of your ladder, start to clean and then smell the sweet smell of dog muck. You look down to see it on every rung, also your trousers. I think this is the baptism of a true window cleanner.

[stephen]

i got to a job and realised i had forgot to put my ladder on the car 

[Staybright]

Finished a job and drove off with the ladders resting on the back of me van !! woke the whole street up with the crash of two ladders hitting the floor.!!

[Chris Gillespie]

when you get to the top of your ladder then realise you left your applicator in the bucket... my brothers always forgetting something! 

[pjulk]

Yep and if aint the applicator it's the squeegie or scrim

[AuRavelling79]

You've only used bungees for your ladder and you're overtaking a lorry at 60mph and lose your ladders into the fast lane of the dual carriageway.

[rosskesava]

You've got one job that's way off the round and their out when you call having phoned the night before to make sure they're in.

[windows_chepstow]

You clamber over a 'normally locked' back gate, only to discover it's open and you could've just turned the handle and walked through.