Waste? Want Not
Lovers of irony will have found the odd nugget to enjoy while reading this blog. Here's another to stimulate your amusement centres. Be warned, though, it's not for the weak of stomach - bodily functions and their by-products feature prominently.
There was much rejoicing on Saturday when my son finally cracked toilet training. At last I would be free from changing his nappies. No more handling of poo that, on occasion, required asbestos gloves and lead shielding to dispose of. Hurrah!
Spin forward 24 hours, and our sink backed up. As did the sink in the bathroom. And then the toilets. Both of them.
Being a Sunday, there was no chance of getting hold of our landlord to fix things up, and we didn't have the money to get our own plumber in, so it was down to me, the man who does for DIY what Bob the Builder does for nude skydiving.
Off to the hardware shop then, to return with several treatments of draino, a plunger, and 25 foot of flexible metal cable with a rotating corkscrew on the end (no, really).
Result? Nothing.
Now here comes the good bit (look away now, ye sensitive types).
While I was emptying stagnant water from the sink into the back garden, I found that the contents of both toilets have been hitting the blockage and making their way to the nearest other exit ...
... a drain in the garden, under the bathroom window.
We haven't had any really hot days recently, or I'd have found out about the watery-but-worryingly-lumpy sewage much sooner. As it is, at least, it located the blockage for me. And that left one, draw-the-short-straw task.
Two hours of thrusting my arm up to the elbow in effluent, pumping madly with a plunger, only got me into a (literally) stinking mood. Thankfully, while at university, I worked on a cross-channel ferry cleaning toilets, so I've developed a reasonably strong stomach as regards such matters. Not so my wife, who took the time to throw up in one of the toilets while I was plunging.
And then flushed it.
My son was watching at the time, running around, I noticed, without a nappy on.
There was much rejoicing on Saturday when my son finally cracked toilet training. At last I would be free from changing his nappies. No more handling of poo that, on occasion, required asbestos gloves and lead shielding to dispose of. Hurrah!
Spin forward 24 hours, and our sink backed up. As did the sink in the bathroom. And then the toilets. Both of them.
Being a Sunday, there was no chance of getting hold of our landlord to fix things up, and we didn't have the money to get our own plumber in, so it was down to me, the man who does for DIY what Bob the Builder does for nude skydiving.
Off to the hardware shop then, to return with several treatments of draino, a plunger, and 25 foot of flexible metal cable with a rotating corkscrew on the end (no, really).
Result? Nothing.
Now here comes the good bit (look away now, ye sensitive types).
While I was emptying stagnant water from the sink into the back garden, I found that the contents of both toilets have been hitting the blockage and making their way to the nearest other exit ...
... a drain in the garden, under the bathroom window.
We haven't had any really hot days recently, or I'd have found out about the watery-but-worryingly-lumpy sewage much sooner. As it is, at least, it located the blockage for me. And that left one, draw-the-short-straw task.
Two hours of thrusting my arm up to the elbow in effluent, pumping madly with a plunger, only got me into a (literally) stinking mood. Thankfully, while at university, I worked on a cross-channel ferry cleaning toilets, so I've developed a reasonably strong stomach as regards such matters. Not so my wife, who took the time to throw up in one of the toilets while I was plunging.
And then flushed it.
My son was watching at the time, running around, I noticed, without a nappy on.
posted by Pete Kempshall at 9:06 PM
2 Comments:
excuse me while I am a bit sick in my mouth
Now if my wife had done that it wouldn't have been so much of a problem ...
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