There’s a new service in our neighborhood dedicated to decluttering the sky. It is called WireFreeSky. Wire Free Sky removes ugly, unneeded overhead wires and Satellite dishes from your homes, with the goal of helping to restore a wire free sky for all of us to enjoy.
Next time you are out walking in the neighborhood, take a moment and look up at the sky. Your gaze will likely be obstructed by a snarl of ugly, black, overhead wires. Most of us just assume that all these wires, while not pretty, are actively being used. Unfortunately, this is not true.
Half of the telecommunication wires suspended from our homes have been out of service for years, even decades. In fact, most of our homes have 1 to 5 overhead wires, strung to a nearby telephone pole, that have not been in service for years.
By contacting Wire Free Sky to remove unneeded overhead wires, as well as defunct Satellite dishes from your home, you can enjoy uncluttered views, make your home more attractive, make it much easier (and less expensive) to paint your home or perform other needed maintenance and landscaping.
Wire Free Sky is a two month-old business, yet they have already removed over 9000 feet of defunct overhead telephone, Internet, and cable TV wires from homes in Phinney Ridge, Wallingford, and Queen Anne neighborhoods. They have removed many unneeded Satellite dishes as well. Check out photos of happy customers (below), thrilled to have unburdened their homes of all those ugly wires. In the process of improving their own homes, these people are helping to reduce overhead wire pollution in their neighborhoods.
Long-time Wallingford resident Reyn Vayda and owner of Wire Free Sky, says his company regularly removes wires that have not been in service for over 50 years. Last week WireFreeSky removed 4 phone lines from a view porch in Phinney Ridge where the homeowner hadn’t used a land line in over a decade.
It’s not just phone lines. Many of the unneeded wires are for Internet and cable TV. Whenever you, or a previous homeowner, contracts for new Internet or cable TV service, the serviceperson hangs a new wire. However, they almost never remove no-longer-in-use wire(s). The same is true of Satellite TV dishes. Once installed, the Satellite dish companies will not remove them after the the service contract is terminated. Amazingly, the roofs of some houses are littered with three, even four satellite dishes. These might be called “legacy” satellite dishes, or “inherited satellite dishes”. By whatever name, these are not very pleasant for all of the neighbors to have to look at, particularly if your home is in a view neighborhood.
Now, back to wires for a minute. Let’s suppose that every home on your block had just 2 extra wires, this means that there are between 40 and 60 dead overhead wires on your block. That’s probably about half the total wires on your block. All those wires create what we might call “Wire Pollution”. Such excess wires mar our views of Green Lake, the Olympic Mountains, the city skyline, our own block, and even of our own home.
Reyn Vayda explains the origin of his new business this way: “I was not looking at wires. In fact, I am not remotely interested in wires. I am a designer/builder and garden design enthusiast. I love that our Seattle neighborhoods are a pageant of exquisite garden scapes. These are a gift to the entire community, for which I am ever grateful.
However, as I have trekked the hills of my favorite in-city neighborhoods, I have become aware of an oppressive weight of overhead wire pollution that detracts greatly from the beauty and health of our neighborhoods. Just like many of you, I have been walking these neighborhoods for years without really noticing all the overhead wires. However, once I became aware, I couldn’t “un-notice” them. A little investigation made me realize that most of the wires that I was looking at were dead, just abandoned Telecom industry waste.
The Telecom industry has been hanging wires between telephone poles and our homes for over 120 years. Yet they have never systematically removed wires when they are no longer needed. They just string up another wire. No wonder the overhead landscape of our beautiful neighborhoods are beginning to look as if they belonged in the third world.
Fortunately, we are not helpless. Contact Wire Free Sky to remove overhead wire pollution attached to your own home. Learn more at wirefreesky.com. Please join in the movement to Declutter the Sky!
