Philly.com Reported Death of a Window Cleaner.   How thought and prayers go out to the Acevedo Family.

Anthony Acevedo | Window cleaner, dies at 43

 

Anthony Acevedo, 43, a window cleaner at some of Philadelphia’s most lofty buildings, died in his sleep Monday from heart failure. Mr. Acevedo was responsible for cleaning the windows at One and Two Liberty Place, Mellon Tower, the Independence Blue Cross building, and Commerce Square.

Mr. Acevedo tackled dirty windows on high-rise buildings built in the 1980s, and more recently at the Comcast Tower and Kimmel Center.

In 1999, he joined Jenkintown Building Services Inc. and branched out to training novice cleaners. He was a master rigger, able to design and set up rigging to place cleaners outside the toughest buildings, friends said.

“Big Ant,” as friends called him, learned his trade from his father, Augustine.

“I remember seeing him on his father’s shoulders as his father walked down the street, pole and bucket in hand, yelling ‘Window Man,’ as he solicited new accounts,” said friend Paul Stringer.

By his late teens, Mr. Acevedo was working with the cleaning crews. In recent years, his focus shifted to managing projects and setting rigging.

Born and raised in Kensington and Northeast Philadelphia, he graduated from Lincoln High School in 1984. In 1991, he moved with his family to Jim Thorpe, Pa. In 2006, he moved back to the Northeast.

Window cleaning, sports, and friends were his passions, said friend Butch Chapman.

He is survived by his father; stepmother Nancy; two sisters; and nine brothers. His mother and another brother predeceased him.

Funeral services will be from 9 to 11 a.m. today at Edward Melber Funeral Home, 524 Center St., Jim Thorpe.

Donations may be made to the Anthony Acevedo Sports Scholarship Fund, c/o Jenkintown Building Services Inc., 101 Greenwood Ave., Jenkintown, Pa. 19046.

Man beaten with squeegee after gas pump argument

Now here is a story By Joe Lamb a story you can see how dangerous a squeegee can be in the wrong hands.  I find now humor in hurting some, but you have to admit this is really strange.

 

A Conway man was arrested late Tuesday afternoon after allegedly using a gas pump squeegee to bludgeon a man in his mid-60s after an altercation over who was first in line for gas.

According to a Conway Police Department incident report, the victim reported that he had been waiting in line at a gas pump at the Murphy USA fuel station at 2164 Harkrider St. when a man identified in the report as 21-year-old Hector Chavez of 475 East Robins St. “cut in front of him.”

An officer working off-duty security at the nearby Walmart store was the first to arrive, finding Chavez pointing to the man and saying “he hit me!” and that he didn’t know why, according to this officer’s account. This officer then spoke to the man, who said that after Chavez “whipped into the space” he had been waiting on, the man “got out of his vehicle and told Chavez that he had been waiting in line … and that Chavez should move.”

The man told the officer that Chavez began to yell and curse, and at one point pushed him and continued to walk towards him, at which point the man grabbed the squeegee “and swung it towards Chavez … not close enough to hit Chavez, but (he) had just wanted him to stay back,” according to the report.

The dangers of window cleaning came full circle when the scaffolding Kyle Redmond was on gave way.

“I’m angry. I’m a little miffed over this,” Kyle Redmond said of his ordeal on the scaffolding. while talking to Wcvb-Tv, Channel 5 Boston.

Two window washers were rescued from the 37th floor of a high-rise at 53 State St. on Aug 5th when rescuers broke the windows of the building and pulled the men inside, according to officials and witnesses at the scene.

The story Window washers rescued from 37th floor of Boston high-rise 

One of the cables holding a window-washing platform 37 stories above a downtown street Wednesday morning may have wedged into one of the platform’s engines, causing the engine to let go and the platform to plunge with two workers aboard, according to one official who was briefed on the initial investigation into the accident.

The official, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the investigation, said officials are looking away from human error. “It was just a freak thing that happened,’’ the official said.

That scenerio is a frightening and all-too-common occurrence with the type of permanent scaffolding that was housed at the Exchange Place building in the Financial District, said one specialist in scaffolding safety.

“They [federal authorities] have a whole code specific to powered maintenance, and it talks about these buildings, specifically,’’ said Stefan Bright, the safety director of the International Window Cleaning Association, an industry group, and the founder of a national company that consults on rigging from buildings.

“My guess is, it’s not being enforced,’’ he said, “And that comes to light typically when an accident occurs.’’

However, Massachusetts does not regulate window-washing scaffolding.

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Impostors posing as window cleaners raid home in the UK

This happens a lot in the UK, but today the Islington Gazette News is reporting about “Bogus window cleaners raiding homes”

POLICE are warning residents of burglars posing as window cleaners after a recent spate of thefts.

The latest burglary took place on June 10 in Wallace Road, Canonbury, where three men masquerading as window cleaners approached a 35-year-old woman at her door at around 5.35pm.

They claimed to have just finished cleaning her neighbours’ windows and offered to give her a quote to clean hers.

The woman let them into the house to see the rear windows, they agreed on a price and then one man went to the kitchen to fill his bucket.

The victim sat down in the living room and realised that the three men had left and her purse containing £130 cash and various bank cards had been taken.