Adventures of a high-rise window cleaner

After cycling from Toronto to the West Coast and back, then sailing from Scarborough to Iceland, K.C. Maple was having trouble adjusting to the confined life within the tall towers of Toronto.

That was until he found a job that let him climb to the top and dangle off of them.

For the past two and a half years, the 24-year-old with long, blond hair pulled back in a ponytail has washed the windows of Toronto’s highrise buildings. It was on the way to a native sun dance ceremony that the part-Swede, part-aboriginal met a man who cleaned windows for a living.

“That was the pivotal point that brought me into the joy of this business,” he says. He is sometimes afraid, but mostly he enjoys the thrill of being up so high. And the money is good. He tells me a beginner who works fast can usually make around $50,000 a year.

“It’s great to be paid to go out there, have a little danger and have some fun,” he says. “I’ve always wanted adventure, excitement, physical danger.”

Maple spends his days speeding up elevators with 250 feet of ropes draped over his shoulders, then lowering the rope down the side of buildings and repelling on a small plywood seat, holding a couple of squeegees, a suction cup to help him keep close to the windows and a five-gallon bucket filled with water and dish soap.

It’s great exercise, especially pulling the ropes up at the end of the day — “From a fitness standpoint, you’ve got a lot of reps,” he explains.

Instead of feeling trapped within the walls of a crowded city, he feels liberated in scaling them.

“I love the peace out there — on the outside of the building. You’re not inside the fishbowl.”

And what he finds on the highrise windows, besides layers of dust, bird feces and grease from unburned fuel, is an urban ecosystem. There are spiders, birds of all types and far too many midges for his liking — a midge can leave a long streak on a window if it gets caught between the squeegee and the glass.

Even the peregrine falcon at Yonge and Eglinton has warmed up to him. “He used to scream when I’d come up,” he says. “But over the last year and a half he doesn’t make noise.”

Then, of course, there’s the life on the other side of the glass. Maple tells me that despite what people might imagine, he isn’t usually looking through the glass, but at it. Sometimes, though, he will be distracted by a stunning condo interior, or a cluttered one. Other times, people will wave to get his attention.

“I have people showing me their babies a lot,” he says. But really, he admits, they’re probably showing their babies the window cleaner.

I ask him how long he thinks he will do this job.

“Until I can come down,” he says, referring to his passion for the work. “I can’t see myself doing anything else.”

Source: http://www.durhamcentral.com/adventures-of-a-high-rise-window-cleaner/