Wednesday - June 03, 2009

Laundry and then to bed. Again.

Me so tired. Wiped out. Heel pain. Hand cramps.

10 hours on the job today, playing hide ‘n go seek with the rain all damn day long. Spent more than half the day working inside, sweating gallons. Hotter than blazes. “Oh, we only turn the AC on when it gets really hot. We just stay downstairs until then.” Gee, thanks.

I’ve made a lot of progress, but I would have thought the job would have been done by now. First, the weather is just not cooperating. Pretty stupid being up on a ladder during a thunderstorm. So when it isn’t raining the humidity is a mere 99%, so I’ve been sweating buckets. Next, these windows are imported directly from Hell. 1920s vintage double hungs. Paint flaking, putty turning to dust, wood frames disintegrating from rot. Pollen and dust buildup enough to make the glass milky. Opaque! But the glass is clean now! But only after a major effort. Cleaning windows is one of those unwritten Labors of Hercules. And this crop is a problem child.

I just don’t get it. I use the best tools and the best cleaning solution, and I know what I’m doing. I follow good procedure, change my water often, rinse the scrubber often, put a new clean dry one on twice a day, new rubber in the squeegees, low dust paper towels, etc. And yet, I try to wipe these windows dry (good luck with that in this kind of humidity) and they smear. Paint dust? Did some fool use oil based putty? So I scrub them again. And again. And use Glass Perfect. And wipe, and follow with microfiber clothes. And maybe this time they won’t smear. Maybe they will.

I managed to get only 15 sides done today, plus a 50 pane french door. Pathetic. But those sides (one side = the inside of a double hung, all panes top and bottom plus it’s more modern storms, or the outside of a double hung plus it’s 1920’s hung from iron loops and nailed in place storm). were cleaned, scraped [ whoever painted, whenever, left all sorts of splatter ], cleaned again, usually recleaned, then wiped, polished an reinstalled. Oh, screens brushed and sills and surrounds scrubbed too.

Face the truth Drew: the only people who call in the professional window cleaners are the people whose windows are a cast iron bitch. Everybody else just uses Windex.

I have to learn to call it good enough, clean enough, and move on. It’s too easy to become really obsessive compulsive. Must fight that!

Posted by Drew458     on 06/03/2009 at 07:29 PM   
Filed Under: • work and the workplace •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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