Window cleaning

archangel

archangel

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I live in an apartment complex and we all contribute to the up keep and repair of the communal areas, including window washing....we received a letter stating that the last cleaners have gone walkabout and a new company have been hired....the letter went on to mention costs involved and to my surprise they are charging an average of £3 per window....and the Windows are not large.....that is a whopping £30 per month for my Windows.....is this the average?

I am off to buy some ladders and a squeegee...[emoji12]
 
£30?? Wow that's a lot!
I used to live in a very old 3 story house with stupid amounts of windows and even then I was only charged £22
 
archangel said:
I live in an apartment complex and we all contribute to the up keep and repair of the communal areas, including window washing....we received a letter stating that the last cleaners have gone walkabout and a new company have been hired....the letter went on to mention costs involved and to my surprise they are charging an average of £3 per window....and the Windows are not large.....that is a whopping £30 per month for my Windows.....is this the average?

I am off to buy some ladders and a squeegee...[emoji12]
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How many times a month will they be cleaned?
 
That is a lot.
Tell them to do one.
I understand that these places have service charges, but any significant rise in the cost of a service should be put to residents before being implemented.
£20 a month here for a 3 bed detached, including the conservatory!
 
Eight windows and a conservatory ( ten glass panels) £12.
 
£5 for the normal clean (3 bed semi) and a tenner if the conservatory is included.

£30/month sounds very over priced - although I guess if you're more than 2 floors they need special equipment?
 
In Maidenhead - not a cheap part of the world for labour - we pay £8 for a 4-bedroom house: 10 windows (2 of which are floor-to-ceiling), plus a set of sliding patio doors, plus a glass door. The total glass area is about 26 sq m. Our 'typical' windows are 1.8m x 1.2m, so we're paying about 66p each for them. If your 'typical' windows are the same sort of size, you're being asked to pay 350% more than we are.
 
I have just challenged the management company who organise stuff like this.....their reply simply astonished me...."it is the going rate!"....so I price another company myself to do my Windows £12 per month or £20 per month (biweekly)....
 
Do the management company own the cleaning business? (if not, they may well be on commission )
 
archangel said:
I have just challenged the management company who organise stuff like this.....their reply simply astonished me...."it is the going rate!"....
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What's the scope for the residents to change the management company?

In any case, require them to provide residents with copies of the quotes they got for the job ...
 
Our management company send round ballot papers so we can vote on who gets the contract once they have submitted prices.
 
Gremlin said:
Our management company send round ballot papers so we can vote on who gets the contract once they have submitted prices.
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That's definitely more like it! :-)
 
I have started a mutiny....we have called an extraordinary meeting.....
 
archangel said:
I have started a mutiny....we have called an extraordinary meeting.....
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FWIW we used to live in a block of flats in which each resident held a share of the freehold. It was run by a committee chaired by an old boy who farmed out most of the running to a management company. The service charge was very low, apparently because the residents wouldn't pay any more.

Long story short but he was maneuvered into quitting and muggins here was voted into his place. Within a week I'd discovered that there was no sinking fund, the management company was a one man band which was getting paid 45% of the service charge for doing next to b****r all, and the reason why the charge was so low was simply that the chairman considered it to be his duty to keep it as low as possible. And so on.

I called an EGM, and explained everything to the residents. I proposed an immediate 50% increase in the service charge to start building up a sinking fund, that we dispense with the management company forthwith, and so on. Even that we stop buying Christmas presents for the window cleaner and the bloke who cut the grass.

Residents voted in favour of all proposals, and by the time we left three years later, it was a different place with a completely different feel.

Power to the people! :cool:

PS It didn't take long at all to realise that it actually takes very little time and effort to run a block of flats.
 
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Serendipitous Sid said:
FWIW we used to live in a block of flats in which each resident held a share of the freehold. It was run by a committee chaired by an old boy who farmed out most of the running to a management company. The service charge was very low, apparently because the residents wouldn't pay any more.

Long story short but he was maneuvered into quitting and muggins here was voted into his place. Within a week I'd discovered that there was no sinking fund, the management company was a one man band which was getting paid 45% of the service charge for doing next to b****r all, and the reason why the charge was so low was simply that the chairman considered it to be his duty to keep it as low as possible. And so on.

I called an EGM, and explained everything to the residents. I proposed an immediate 50% increase in the service charge to start building up a sinking fund, that we dispense with the management company forthwith, and so on. Even that we stop buying Christmas presents for the window cleaner and the bloke who cut the grass.

Residents voted in favour of all proposals, and by the time we left three years later, it was a different place with a completely different feel.

Power to the people! :cool:

PS It didn't take long at all to realise that it actually takes very little time and effort to run a block of flats.
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Almost exactly my experience. If you employ the management company, sack them and do it yourself or at the very least threaten to do so.
 
About to start the meeting.....management company have declined to attend due to short notice....but I will be bringing a motion to dismiss the company and to set up a new company.....
 
One of the things we used to do a lot of at my dads old company was cleaning of communal areas and windows etc for housing associations, and I can say with complete confidence we would have never quoted £3 per clean of a window, for a start most of our window cleaning at housing association properties was bi monthly rather than every month and secondly there was no way we could have got away with charging that much, for a small complex of about 200 windows from memory the price would have come in at about £100-120 unless there was some particular difficulties with a site..

Hell I remember doing a quote for an annual window clean at my old secondry school that was about £3000.00 but that was for over 12,000 windows and would have easily been a weeks work for a team of window cleaners
 
archangel said:
About to start the meeting.....management company have declined to attend due to short notice....but I will be bringing a motion to dismiss the company and to set up a new company.....
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It won't be only window cleaning you are overpaying for! One thing you should check is how much you are paying for your various insurances and get some quotes.
 
Meeting update: we have decided to sack the current management.....legal instruction will be required in the morning....all hail the mighty archangel!! Slayer of p*** takers
 
I'd wait until Monday morning - it'll be cheaper than getting a shark in on a Saturday!
 
Nod said:
I'd wait until Monday morning - it'll be cheaper than getting a shark in on a Saturday!
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Bank holiday on Monday..............wait until Tuesday. :D
 
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Update: letter of notice served to the management company as per their terms of contact. Limited company now formed with residents as directors....
 
Front and back of my 3 bed semi 7 a month bargain
 
archangel said:
Update: letter of notice served to the management company as per their terms of contact. Limited company now formed with residents as directors....
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I remember a thread from not too long ago, about finding something to do with free time, be it volunteering etc...... :D
Seems like you've found your `calling`. (y) :cool:
 
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