Windfall for window washers
For two years Jay held down a job. He wanted a permanent position. He says his employers wanted him to pay for his own forkhoist licence.
So Jay (not his real name) quit and now he stands on a south Auckland street corner, washing car windows outside a dairy.
As far as he is concerned, it was a brilliant decision.
The 18-year-old said if he worked a 12-hour day squirting and scrubbing car windows outside the Papakura shops, he could reasonably expect to make anywhere between $400 and $1000.
The money helped him to support the ‘‘10 to 14 people living in my house’’.
His 23-year-old colleague agreed. He said some shoppers handed him cash not to touch their car or conversely, simply to ‘‘watch it’’. One driver gave him five $20 notes.
He said he had created a social media profile and had tried to make window washing outside shops ‘‘a trend’’.
For the locals and shop owners, however, the window washers’ presence is a problem.
They said that at any one time there could be up to 10 men and teens standing outside the shops, singing, joking loudly amongst themselves and taunting local children. One local, who Stuff agreed not to name, said the window washers operated most days and seemed to work on an informal roster.
‘‘They operate when you park to do your shopping. I know of people who will not shop there.
‘‘People are being intimidated into paying, especially women and the elderly,’’ she said.
‘‘It happened to me and I was threatened. I called police and gave a description only to see the washer there the following day.’’
She said the shops have signs on their front windows but that did not deter the washers.
‘‘The shop keepers do nothing, being afraid of retaliation.’’
Some shop keepers also declined to speak to Stuff for fear of retaliation.
Stuff recently revealed that police had dished out nearly 700 fines nationally since a new law came into effect a year ago.
Of those, 40 per cent were issued in south Auckland.
Previously, the practice was deemed ‘‘a danger to transport’’ and officially a council matter.
In 2017, Parliament passed a law giving police the power to issue $150 spot fines.
However, the wording of the legislation specified the window washers must not wash, or offer to wash, windows ‘‘on a road unless the vehicle is legally parked’’. The cars outside the Papakura shops are legally parked when the window washers make their bid for business. Papakura neighbourhood policing team Sergeant Jeremy Steedman said police were doing everything within their power to try to deal with the problem.
‘‘We regularly engage with the [window washers] with the view to better their situation,’’ he said.
‘‘We have helped them get jobs – even offered to pick them up and drop them off – that’s the lengths we are going to. They just haven’t followed through with it – they show up for two or three days and that’s it.
‘‘We will keep working at it, it’s not a quick fix.’’
He said the police had many options to deal with the offence, including restorative justice paths through Papakura Marae, ‘‘but we still need a formal complaint – a signed statement’’.
He urged locals to ‘‘call us when it is happening so we can deal with it right there and then.
‘‘We want people in our community to feel safe and going to their local shop is something everyone should be able to do without the fear of intimidation.’’
Auckland Council’s manager of regulatory compliance, Steve Pearce, said there were rules in the public safety and nuisance bylaw that prohibited people from using a footpath in a way that wilfully obstructed, disturbed or interfered with any person’s use of the footpath.
However he said loitering on a footpath in itself was unlikely to be something that breaks any rules.
‘‘Window washing is controlled under the Land Transport Act and can be enforced by the police. If this is causing significant problems for the local businesses they can report it to both Auckland Council and the police and we’ll see if there is anything we can do to assist.’’