Window washer’s offer to van victim
After 45 years as a daredevil window washer, a veteran of the trade is coming to the assistance of a new kid on the block whose van and gear were stolen. On Sunday, Carl Smith’s van of gear was stolen from outside his home in Palmerston North, stalling his fledgling business. He appealed through Stuff for help to find the equipment. Window washer of 45 years, Trevor Nielsen, was impressed by the initiative and got in touch to offer Smith a chunk of his client base. ‘‘I’m 72 and I’ve been told I have to cut back on my workload. I thought it’d be nice to help him.’’ The pair met yesterday at Nielsen’s Shannon house and talked over tricks of the trade. ‘‘There’s a lot I can learn, that’s for sure,’’ Smith said. ‘‘There’s not many buildings around I haven’t done,’’ Nielsen said. ‘‘I’ve had Massey, I’ve done work at Linton, at O¯ hakea, and a lot of country houses from Ashhurst to Foxton. I’ve had a few of my families for 40 years and seen them grow up and kids take off overseas.’’ A lot has changed since he started. He had been in the army training in Malaysia for the Vietnam War, but was discharged when he married, and joined friends washing windows. ‘‘The first building I did was a seven-storey... I’d be leaning out the windows backward because that’s what you did. I’ve been up on cranes and all sorts of things. ‘‘In those days the windows used to open all the way to get to the outside.’’ Developments in health and safety regulations changed the job considerably, he said. ‘‘We’d be hopping around on the roofs. One day when we were at the hospital there was a guy from OSH who’d had a heart attack. He spotted one of my guys hanging out of the window, and he nearly had another heart attack.’’ Nielsen had a few scares without a harness, and began trying to get changes to buildings to make the job safer. There’s a lot more to window washing than people think, he said. Some modern panes have coatings that can be easily scratched and need special techniques. Smith chose window washing because he could get started while working full-time elsewhere. He said Nielsen’s offer was a shock. ‘‘It’s really nice’’. Window washing was a good job to start out in if you were prepared to work hard and customers knew you were trustworthy,’ Nielsen said. ‘‘There’s work out there, heaps of it.’’