Ever wonder how the windows on a skyscraper stay clean at such incredible heights? You can thank window washers for that. Window washing is one of those rare jobs in modern times that still relies more on human labor than technology. It is a craft in itself and those who specialize in it risk their lives every day to make sure every skyscraper window in the city is spotless.
Despite the strenuous nature of the job, window washers never have a dull moment. Often times, they clean windows during regular work days, so they end up seeing a lot of what goes on inside the little offices on each floor. A few window washers from around the world took to the internet to share the strangest things they've seen on the other side of the glass, and trust me, these stories do not disappoint.
Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
#32 I Ain't No Snitch
I was washing the windows to some office's break room. After some time, some guy walked in, not noticing that I was there. I walked promptly to the fridge, opened it, then took a lunch bag out. I assumed it was his lunch.
But it wasn't. A few minutes later, someone else walked in, also not noticing I was there. She threw a mini fit after discovering her lunch had been stolen. She looked around and made eye contact with me. I just shrugged my shoulders as if to say I had no idea what happened to her lunch.
I ain't no snitch.
#31 Dancing Queens?
I was on the 54th floor of an office building, just cleaning away when I saw a bunch of employees inside dancing. Like, they were really going at it. It seemed like they were performing the choreography to a routine that they memorized to the T. They were so in sync. What made it even funnier was that they were in office attire—suits, pencil skirts, etc.
They immediately stopped when they saw me, and we all laughed. I'm glad they had a sense of humor.
#30 Money Buys Happiness... Right?
I once cleaned the windows of a giant mansion. There was a man, his wife, their two kids, and the in-house staff who lived there. I wasn't allowed inside, but I often noticed the wife through the glass. She was always surrounded by the serving staff, but she never talked to any of them, and they never talked to her. She seemed really sad and lonely.
#29 Front Row Seat
I don't know if this counts, but I was washing the windows at the store where I worked at when I was younger, and I watched a naked man running down the street get tackled by the police.
#28 "The Cleaning Boy"
I was washing skylights at a house once and the daughter walked into the bathroom naked. She started checking herself out. She was the same age as me; around 20 years old at the time. At one point, she noticed I was by the window and I didn't know what to do, so I apologized through the glass.
Her parents heard and made fun of her the rest of the day. I've never seen someone turn so red. Her dad teased her, saying: "So, you were giving the cleaning boy a show?"
They were getting ready to sell the house and I was there for another eight hours cleaning.
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#27 Twinning
I washed windows for a bit when I was in high school. One time, I thought was looking into a mirror until I realized it was a middle-aged African American woman on the other side of the glass. She had been washing the same window from the inside. We smiled at each other, waved, and moved on. God, I miss her.
#26 'Twas Love At First Glass
My maternal grandfather was a window washer in the 1930s. He saw my grandmother for the first time on the other side of the glass during one of his shifts.
#25 Accommodating In Every Sense Of The Word
I used to wash the windows of a house that turned out to be a brothel.
I should've known; all the signs were there.
There were always different men answering the door, all beds were king size with silky sheets, there were showers in every room, etc.
#24 The Sting Of Karma
I was volunteering for the first time in a small place while I was in high school. They gave me a simple job: wipe down the windows.
So I did, obediently. Through the window, I could see across the road. There were a couple of trees lining the sidewalk and on one of them, I could see a lump dangling on a branch. I immediately recognized it as a wasp nest because my neighborhood had a lot of them. I remember thinking to myself, “Man I feel bad for whoever has to take care of that.”
A few minutes later, a white middle-aged woman, kinda chubby and probably in her 50s, noticed the wasp nest. She went into her apartment and came back out with a metal baseball bat. I stopped wiping the windows and watched her with horror. I started heading towards the door to warn her, but I wasn’t quick enough.
She ran up to the nest and took a good hit at it. I guess she tried to run away from the nest, but she couldn't get away fast enough. Yikes. She got stung and she kinda fell on the ground in the process.
Wasp stings hurt! I told the store manager what happened and she called an ambulance. She got whisked off, and that’s the end of the story.
#23 It Looks WAY Less Real On TV!
I washed windows for a hospital and some operating rooms had windows. The surgeons inside waved at me in the middle of one of their operations. I could literally see the person's midsection cut open on the table. I almost threw up down the side of the building.
#22 Not Quite A Two-Way Mirror
Was cleaning a home for a couple who was in their mid-'60s. The house was two stories high and in a rural area. While cleaning their bathroom window, the wife decided to take a shower. It was obvious that she wasn’t intentionally trying to show off or be inappropriate but, for some reason, she didn’t think I could see her even though I was on the other side of the glass.
I quickly got off my ladder and started working somewhere else until I was sure she was done with her shower. Very awkward.
#21 Babe, The Business Pig
I saw a piglet sitting in a desk.
I have no idea why he had an office on the tenth floor.
#20 Improvise, Adapt, Overcome
My boyfriend has done a lot of high-rise window washing. One time while he was doing his thing, a man walked into the office, unzipped his pants, peed into a potted plant, and walked back out. The man was never aware that he had an audience.
#19 Had To Run After Having The Runs
I was on the unfortunate side of the incident. I went to go #2 and there was a small window right behind the toilet. I turned back to see a guy looming over me through thinly veiled curtains. I immediately flushed and ran out of there. I’m sure he will never forget that.
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#18 Never Truly Alone In A Cemetary
I washed windows at a cemetery during college and this still baffles me. Let me preface by saying I am a firm atheist. It was Sunday and the entire building was closed and locked. I was just washing the outside, and there wasn't a single car in the entire parking lot.
Out of nowhere, I saw a priest walk past a doorway and I thought, "Hmm, that's strange."
I thought my mind was just playing tricks on me, but five minutes later, I saw him appear again. I checked all the doors and parking lots again and there was nothing. It was one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. I assume there was some logical explanation, but it still gives me chills.
#17 Things Can Get Hairy In Class
I was the person on the other side of the glass. I was in my university classroom and the window washers decided to wash our classroom window, which was on the fourth floor. One of the guys' shirts went up and his hairy belly kept rubbing around to the beat of the music in his headphones. I highly doubt he realized that there were people in the classroom.
#16 The Occasional Celeb
I saw Bill Burr through the window. He looked like he was pitching a show idea or something to some suits.
I was working on the windows of a strange house with two attractive Hungarian girls. Halfway through the job, I climbed up to a bathroom window and, as soon as I looked through the glass, I saw a Hungarian man's bare bottom.
We made eye contact immediately (he was staring at the mirror in front of him) and I dipped back down the ladder like lightning. About five minutes later, one of the women came out and awkwardly said: “That’ll be enough, thank you.”
I took the check and got out. From that moment on, I learned to always knock loudly when approaching bathroom windows from the outside.
#14 Mother Nature Plays No Games
During an intense rainstorm, I was washing the interior windows of a skyscraper in Downtown Minneapolis that faced the Mississippi. Out of nowhere, a lightning bolt hit a piece of equipment on the roof of a building across the river. The thing exploded in a green ball of light. It was freaking awesome.
#13 All The Creepy Stuff Resides In The Basement
When I was in college, I worked at a window washing company that also did doors and window frames. We were at a large mansion and one of my colleagues needed to go inside. He came back out and asked me to come in and help him. There was a reason he didn’t want to go alone.
Apparently, he opened the wrong door (to the basement) and there was an altar with some weird stuff and a small skull on it. My boss later told me the house belonged to a group of Masons who would often gather and have meetings there.
Washing the mansion got a bit weird after that.
#12 Ghost Patterns
When you wash windows, you often come across a distinguishable silhouette of feathers that a bird leaves behind on the glass after it flies into the window at full speed. We call that a ghost.
#11 Manne-can't
When I was a teenager, I worked for a small town window washing company. I mostly worked at old folks' homes and apartments that couldn't keep up with their housework. One house I worked at was owned by an elderly single woman who kept all sorts of mannequins around. Some were in weird places like in bedrooms, silhouetted by windows or behind large houseplants. I think she was just lonely... Or crazy.
#10 Witness To A Submission
Just a regular window cleaner here. I was once going up my ladders to clean a bedroom window on the second floor at around 8 a.m. As soon as I got to the top of the ladder, I came across with a couple going at it, if you know what I mean.
Window cleaners see people naked all the time, but this dude, for some reason, at 8 a.m., was wearing a pair of socks and dress shoes.
Now I can only assume that they were too deeply engrossed to have heard the clatter of my ladders against the window sill, but I got done with that window real quick and just about slid down the ladder.
#9 Talk About Seizing The Opportunity
Window replacer here. A woman in her mid-20s walked into the room like she had a thousand times before and took her clothes off faster than I could say, "Excuse me, ma'am, allow me to avert my gaze."
When I did get words out, she screamed and ran out of the room. A little while later, her mother came out and asked for a discount.
#8 Animal Lover
High-rise window cleaner here. The most bizarre thing I saw was a taxidermy alligator with bird wings sprouting out of its back, chained to the ceiling.
#7 A Cup Of Joe For The Hardworking Window Washer
I'm a window cleaner based in Fort Worth, TX. One time, I had someone open the window and offer me coffee while I was in mid-air. It was quite refreshing.
#6 Gold Everything
I had a friend who was a cleaner for a hotel. He never really saw anything interesting, but one time he went past a photographer with studio lights shooting three naked women covered entirely in gold body paint. I always wondered where those photos ended up...
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#5 Pants Around The Ankles
I was rappeling down a high-rise residential building in LA. I reached one apartment and, as I assessed the state of the window, my eyes met with those of a very shocked gentleman sitting on the toilet at the other end of the room. He jumped up, waddled towards me and pulled the blinds down.
#4 Still Have Time To Be A Person
My uncle was a window washer. He told me that one time, while he wiping down windows at a hospital at ten stories high, he saw Peyton Manning meeting with a patient, just talking to her. Such a nice guy.
I did high-rise window cleaning one summer. I never really saw anything out of the ordinary looking through windows (to be honest, I was too busy to bother staring in at people's lives), but I was very closely buzzed by some inquisitive hawks about 20 stories up the side of a building. There wasn't a whole lot I could have done if they decided to attack me.
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#2 You Are NOT The Father!
One time, we were washing the interior of a house and the woman who was home was very nice. About halfway through, the husband came home and they kissed each other a bunch. Then, they started talking in very hushed tones. They just kept whispering and whispering as we moved into the bedrooms, and it started getting weird.
Well, we got to the master bedroom and started moving family pictures off of a dresser to clean the window behind it and I can assure you that the man who arrived was not the husband or the father to the woman's two blonde children. I got a very icky feeling and finished the house quickly. Needless to say, she left us a very generous tip.
#1 Dude, There's A Flying Man Outside My Window
Noting too strange, but there was a guy doing some illegal substances by the window. He seemed genuinely amazed at me as I rappeled down to his window.
