Da Doo Rung Rung

It sound quite illogical and a little bit weird but I get very envious when I see a car roof rack with ladders on it. 

I am not really sure why. 

It could be that it looks interesting and a little bit intriguing. 

Equally that image of shiny functional equipment stirs something deep down in me. 

I have noticed quite an increase in the numbers of such externally transported ladders in the last decade. 

This could be attributed to potential profitability of a window cleaning round especially in new territory such as amongst the vast acres of new build housing on the periphery of many city and urban areas. 

The demand for satellite dishes and TV aerials in our relentless quest for the next best and better tech and access to multiple broadcast channels may explain the sight of a fairly ordinary motor car bristling with different lengths and strengths of aluminium ladders and associated accessories to assist in reaching a suitable mounting position be it on the good old chimney stack or the face of the upper part of a house wall. 

At one time the fitting of an analogue aerial would be a plum job for the man of the house. 

Everyone in bygone days had their own set of ladders in their garage, garden shed or hanging up in the covered passage and big ones at that to deal with every conceivable household task.

These included high level maintenance to previously mentioned chimneys and pots, loose or vegetation clogged gutters, fascias and soffits (those lengths of painted timber behind and below the rainwater fittings), casual repointing of brickwork, repairing wooden window frames and for climbing onto a flat or lower roof surface for many purposes including retrieving a lost football or a stranded domestic pet. 

It was always prudent to have ladders of sufficient reach in the event of an emergency such as a fire and this would be a service available to anyone in the street if such a hazardous situation arose. 

With smaller houses and often the absence of a garage, shed or that great feature of older terraces, the back passage there is just nowhere for a ladder to be kept even with an overriding desire to possess one. 

In my work I use ladders on multiple occasions daily. However, in order to fit in with my Professional persona as a Chartered Surveyor it would be frowned upon if I turned up for a job with my access equipment showing. My particular set, I have always wondered at that term as my ones are a single folding unit and not as set suggests a series of interconnecting sections, have been in use for twenty years and have not let me down in all of that time. 

That is in spite of my sometimes reckless abandonment of sensible rules of use such as getting a good level footing and a solid and flat resting position for the top rung. I am guilty of squashing hundred and thousands of gutters, leaving scuff and scar marks on woodwork and grubby stains on internal wall finishes which must in some circumstances where there have been no witnesses be mightily mystifying to the home owners as to how they got there. 

My trusty set nestle nicely in the boot of my car and are easily portable in and out of properties and up and down flights of stairs. When opened out with a stout 15 foot high reach I can often hear amazed and admiring comments from homeowners and occupants which I just absorb with all the modesty that I can manage. These emotions are repeated as, after use, I manhandle the sections back into the very neat and tight cluster in which they arrived. 

Other Surveyors laugh at my conventional and traditional folding ladders. 

Theirs are invariably of an even more portable and lightweight type with a concertina operation so that they just fit under the armpit whereas mine require a bit more physical manouevring along the length of a leg. 

My envy of others' ladders does not extend to this high tech type as I would not trust them if pulled out to their full extent over a stairwell in an old Victorian House.

When  I retire and put my folding ladders away for good I can see myself taking some time in browsing brochures for car roof racks and big fixed ladders in readiness for spending my new leisure time driving around seeking out opportunities to use them. Anything considered...................................