When god closes a door and forgets to tell you how to open the window

May 15, 2006 2:20 PM

How do i open the top of really tall windows?

I live in an apartment in a converted school house, the ceilings are 18ft & most of the windows are just as high. Since my future wife moved in with her cats, I have been forbidden from opening the bottom of the windows, since the screens are shakey and we don't want the pudgy one or the crazy one to fall to an untimely end. So I need to find a way we can open the tops of the windows. When I was in catholic grade school I remember they had long hooked poles to put the windows up and down, but I can't find a place that sells them or the fixtures I'd have to put onto the window for the poll to work.

Has anyone come across something like this or a creative alternative?

posted by jeffe to Home & Garden (10 answers total)

Being a window opener was a very responsible job when I was a kid in Catholic school. I was a window opener. How about a telescoping extension pole used for painting? The 'fixtures' were just brass pockets for a hook on the end on the pole to grab on to.
posted by fixedgear at 2:31 PM on May 15, 2006

You can almost certainly find a threaded hook and a broom handle at a hardware store. Done! Also, you can menace your cats with it.
posted by Skot at 2:32 PM on May 15, 2006

The pole I remember looked an awful lot like a boat hook. Maybe a marine supply store would have the right end?
For what it's worth, we called them "window poles"

Another thought would be to head over to the maintenance/janitorial office of your local school district and look through their school supply catalogs.
You're almost certain to find one there.
posted by madajb at 2:36 PM on May 15, 2006

Response by poster: yeah, "pole", that's how you spell it. (I thought I might get "you suck at the internet" with this one, but I guess I deserve a "you suck at english") Thanks.
posted by jeffe at 2:49 PM on May 15, 2006

Sorry, I actually didn't notice you spelt it wrong, I was only trying to give you a term to search for.
posted by madajb at 4:10 PM on May 15, 2006

Could you just beef up the screens to pudgy (& crazy) resistant strength?

I second everybody else's opinion, it's just a pole with a hook. The windows I remember were hinged at the bottom, so the magic pole would pull them down to open &etc by the hook at the top of them. If said hook is missing, you can always screw in an eyebolt or hook, and run a big bolt through the end of a broom handle. (Or screw on a coathook to the end of the broom handle. Or a big spiky nail, or umm.. yeah you get the picture)
posted by defcom1 at 4:54 PM on May 15, 2006

I would presume your windows, since they are tall already have sockets. I haven't been able to find poles online, maybe the linked to company could give info. As I recall, the poles had a brass head that had maybe a 2" sideways extension that fit into the socket.

The problem with letting kids open the windows is that it was easy to break a window with a metal tipped pole.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 6:11 PM on May 15, 2006

found a pole.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 6:20 PM on May 15, 2006

If MSN's (heh) pole is too fancy (or if you can't figure out where you actually buy anything on that site) I just bought one of these pole hooks from Kilian Hardware (Yahoo store) for my windows, then bought a mop handle and screwed the pole hook on the end (it fit perfectly over the threaded end).
posted by misterbrandt at 8:51 PM on May 15, 2006

What is it with these ungrateful posters. No thanks, no marking best answers, mispelled keywords ("polls"), no corrections.

Let's ban them. But I yet want to get MeTa.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 7:52 PM on May 16, 2006