Two and a half years ago a friend of mine was laid off from his current job. I'd known this guy since we were both at the scuffed kneed, jumpers for goalposts, frogs in pockets age and he was one of my closest friends.

Anyway at the time I was working on my own, as a window cleaner, and quite happy plodding along but I thought I probably had a enough work that I could offer a friend in need a few hours. So I asked my friend if he wanted to come out with me until he got himself back on his feet and into a job he enjoyed. Well it turned out that the job he enjoyed was window cleaning! So after a couple of months he moved from £6 an hour to 65% worth of work done. In return for the % he paid me he didn't have any paper work and didn't have to worry about debts or collecting money. A fair deal I thought and so, it seemed, did he!

So on we went for two and a half years building the business up, some through word of mouth some from advert drops. All looked rosey...

Last week my 'friend', who lest we forget I have known for over 20 years, sends me an email telling me he intends to set up a rival business and that he is going to take customers off my database. In fact he had already gone around to some 70 of my customers to tell them he was now going to be their cleaner and that they would no longer be having me!

I'm not overly worried about loss of jobs, in fact I went out yesterday and spoke to a number of the people he said he had spoke to and they are back with me. Turned out he had told them that I could not cope and that if they didn't have him then no window cleaner would show up to clean their windows. I think I will probably get most of these jobs back.

But how morally vacant, utterly without scruples, money grabbing, untrustworthy and disloyal is my 'friend'? In other words what a c**t!

screw him up if his done that to u just take his cus under price him on his new work even if you have a couple of days a month working for  peanuts just to p##s him of cant be worse of than if he nicked all your work ?

to true

nor family either ie brothers uncles etc never ever ever ever works

first things first you need to give all your customers a letter saying that you had to sack him for thief by that i mean that he was doing his own work in your time (untrustworthy and disloyal ) or that you had loads of complants about his work that way the customer can make up her own mind ether have you or your ex friend  .but i would try to see as many as i could  telling them you had helped him out when his luck was down & now he has found his feet  he is trying to steal your work if you tell one person they will tell ten and in no time he has a bad name

Signs of disgruntlement? Well not in a direct way, however, I had noticed that over the last 4-5 months he had become obsessed with money. How much things were worth, how much you could sell things for on ebay, how much he had got for things on ebay etc. About a month ago we were driving through town and he kept pointing out number plates that he thought were worth money which I found a little odd! In the past he had money problems but had sorted himself out and I did ask him if he was back into debt problems but he just said 'no just the usual bills and stuff'.

The thing is if he offered to buy part of the business off me I would have sold him some work, probably even have let him pay for it slowly over time, but he didn't. If he had said he wanted to go alone I would have understood. I have another friend who started window cleaning about 2 years after I did because he saw that I enjoyed the job. Hes a competitor but we get on great. I can understand that some people always feel the need for more money.

People say I am actually too nice a guy, so laid back i'm horizontal so I should imagine I am quite approachable

As you have correctly surmised its not the loss of any work its the feeling of betrayal that has upset me.

Oh well a lesson learnt I suppose

funnily enough i've just started a good friend whose life was spiraling out of control, and i've thrown him a lifeline and give him a home as he'd done window cleaning before and i've known him over 25 years. From what you are all saying it looks like i could of made a big mistake :-/. or are there more positive stories than negatives, just that they aren't being mentioned!

Well said Taff, in my house though I come after the washing, ironing and cat feeding  ......

sounds like hes lost his way a bit. people who isolate themselves from freinds often seek more for themselves.

if that makes sense?