Day 53: Ambushed by window cleaners

When I stepped out my front door at lunchtime today I was ambushed by a burly, sunshiney window cleaner who was cleaning our next door neighbours' windows. He offered to do our windows (front and back for €25). Mehdi was pleased, shrugged and said yes. Which was a bit annoying, as I wanted to haggle on price.

But now that the windows are clean I'm super pleased at just how much brighter the light is inside the house (they really were filthy...). The downside is that I can now see all the dirt on the inside windows. Last time I tried cleaning them, I ran out of clean cloths doing a half-hearted wipe of just 3 bottom panes:

When the window cleaner came to the door to ask for access down the side return for the rear windows, he mentioned to me that they are contractors, and that they can also clean and paint our wooden window and door frames (he'd clearly noticed their condition when window cleaning). I said that yes, we certainly had that job on our to-do list. Then he glanced over my shoulder down the hallway and said 'we also do painting and spray painting and plastering and all woodwork, very fine woodwork'. I listened to his sales pitch and thanked him - saying we'd follow up on the window painting as we are doing things very slowly, as and when we find the funds.

He wasn't at all pushy about the 'additional services' he was offering, which was good. Normally I'd not think about hiring a random bloke with a van who knocks on the door and offering to do a 'job'. But in this case I wonder if asking the window cleaner to clean and paint our window frames means he'll do a good job? He can't exactly do a terrible job and then face me - and the rest of the street - once a month for the foreseeable future (or can he?). Guess I need to ask around the neighbours to see if anyone else has used his other services.