Kindergarten Window Cleaning

Window Cleaning Buzz

Hello, my fellow window-cleaning nerds and connoisseurs! My name is Peter Trent, and I am a South West London-based window cleaner with over fifteen years of professional experience. A few friends and colleagues have encouraged me to share what I’ve learned and seen – to pass the knowledge, so to speak. But I will start my blog with a fairly recent personal and funny story that reminded me why I love my job.

My wife and I enrolled our four-year-old son Alex in one of the best kindergartens in Battersea. He quickly adjusted to this new adventure and found many new friends while his Mom could reignite her career as an interior designer. We were very happy with our choice – the location was a fifteen-minute walk away from home, close to an awesome park where the kids could play and featuring an excellent staff of energetic and sunny professionals.

Ecstatic as we were, ask any parent what their nightmare scenario is, and nine out of ten will tell you it’s a call from their children’s school or kindergarten. I had just finished a regular domestic window cleaning job at Cambridge Road in Battersea when Alex’s kindergarten number appeared on my phone screen. I admit I froze in my place. If there was a problem, the principal or teachers usually called the kid’s mother. So the issue was either critical, or they could not get in touch with my wife. Either way, I picked up in near panic.

“Hello, is this Mr Trent? My name is Anne Smith, and I am the principal at your son’s kindergarten.”

There was no trace of worry or concern in her voice, which calmed me down a bit. “Is everything OK?”

“Oh, everything is fine. I am really sorry to bother you about such a nuisance. In fact, I am not calling you as Alex’s father but in your professional capacity. You may not remember, but we ask all parents to submit entry forms that include their profession, and yours says you are a window cleaner. Is that correct?”

“Yes”, I responded in a much calmer voice, already guessing where this was going.

“We would like to book you for a specific job – interior window cleaning, two large rectangular panes. However, the task is a bit more specific. I can send you pictures to illustrate what I mean.”

Thirty seconds later, I received an email with two photos. Oh my, that was going to be a specific case! The windows in question were perfectly standard in size and shape – I had cleaned thousands of them in my practice. However, their bottom half was covered in all sorts of surrealistic figures, representing stylized animals, houses, and futuristic landscapes. I could guess from the pictures that the aspiring artists had used pastels for their work – permanent markers are extremely easy to remove, even by a non-professional.

Or how I removed pastel drawings from the windows.

I called my wife and told her the whole story, saying I would be picking Alex up today. She killed me with her initial reaction: “Why are they cleaning the windows? I’m sure they look pretty cool!” I should not have expected anything else from an interior designer.

It was still the early afternoon, so I had no reason to hurry. I stopped at Flour to the People Pizza at Battersea Park Rd for an Antonio pizza, then headed to the kindergarten. The principal was already waiting for me at the front door and showed me in.

Parents usually waited for their kids at the door, so this might have been the first time I stepped into the premises. As a professional cleaner, I could see that the staff kept the rooms in perfect order – which was commendable with a bunch of wild monkeys running around.

“We try to encourage the creative expression of all kids, as you can see. We have put two large whiteboards where they can draw anything they want. But I don’t have to tell you how children at this age love breaking the rules – so the windows became an extension of the boards”, explained Mrs Smith. “Permanent markers are not a problem – we do not even need a detergent to wash them away. Pastels are a different kind of problem altogether.”

“Have you tried an all-purpose cleaner?”

“Here is the thing – we try to limit the application of detergents as much as possible. Some children have respiratory problems and allergies, and their parents insist on natural cleaning products. Would that be a problem?”

“It shouldn’t be. Would it be OK to use regular dish soap?”

“For the windows?!” Mrs Smith looked at me incredulously.

“You would be surprised at the applications of everyday cleaning stuff”, I said reassuringly. I asked for a small bucket, filled it with warm water, and added some dish soap. An older colleague had shown me the trick for removing rust around metal window frames, and I saw no reason why it should not work on pastels. Instead of a squeegee, I planned to use a microfibre cloth and apply the soapy solution to the glass. Tip number two – I knew circular motion worked wonders instead of the simple up-down or left-right rubbing. Within seconds, the first pastel shapes began to come off the pane. It was a time-consuming job because of the square footage, but half an hour later, the windows were polished to a perfect shine.

All throughout the process, the few remaining kids in the room had observed my work with growing interest. If there was ever disappointment that their art was being removed, they did not show it – Alex and his best friend Victor even wanted to help. “You could employ them for the next cleaning job”, I jokingly suggested to Mrs Smith, who definitely enjoyed the idea.

At dinner, Alex officially announced that he wanted to be a window cleaner when he grew up. I am not sure his mother was amused.