The Word’s Fastest Window Cleaner

Great Big Story visited Terry “Turbo” Burrows, the man who set the Guinness World Record as the fastest window cleaner. Burrows explained that he started his career cleaning windows with his uncle. He noticed that there was a better way to wash the windows and has been using this method ever since.

When I first started out my uncle Alfie taught me how to use the squeegee an applicator and they would start wetting up with the right end with the applicator and then switch it over and squeezing it off and I thought why not just wet it up?

With his bespoke washing method in hand, Burrows went on to win local contests before setting the record, first in 1995 and then continuing to beat his own record through 2009.

He started cleaning windows when he was just 21 and went on to set a Guinness World Record speed in 1995. Since then he’s gone on to break his own record a further 9 times.

Burrows keeps himself in shape by practicing daily with a window attached to his shed wall. He knows it might look odd to the neighbors.

I got myself a window and fixed it on the back of the garden shed and I was practicing away.  What was hilarious about all this, that the neighbor was mowing the lawn and looking at me thinking “why is he cleaning that window over and over again but the window don’t go through anywhere it doesn’t see anything. What is he doing?”