A Serious Sewage Situation

It seems that my blogger was down for most of yesterday but other were not; I suppose its something to do with servers and so on something technical that us mere mortals would not understand.

Anyway I had a wonderful Sunday, yes we had a:

Severe Sunday Seriously Smelly Shitty Sewage Stoppage Situation

Ok enough alliteration, it gets boringly bad after a bit.

It all started with my wife wondering why the water in the toilet wasn’t disappearing when she flushed it. My heart sank as I had been in this situation before. I checked just in case she was hallucinating, it’s a man thing; I blame Doubting Thomas the patron Saint of all Husbands.

Yes she was right, the next thing was to find the manhole cover over the drain and check that out, it wasn’t hard as its right outside the back door, this I did with a sinking heart as I pretty much knew what to expect – yes there was the manhole cover, still outside the back door and yes water was seeping out from under it, which was a definite clue that the drain was blocked.

Of course these things are never easy; the manhole cover had rusted into position. I needed specialist tools. First I tried the piece of aluminium strip that holds the carpet down in a doorway – too flimsy for this type of job, I shudda known. Next it was the ubiquitous screw drivers; how many times do screwdrivers come to the rescue, who invented these things, brilliant! I had three of them all in different sizes. This seemed to work. I removed the lid after a few minutes struggling and swearing by jamming the screwdriver under the lid and heaving.

Reader if you are of a nervous disposition please surf away now – I cannot be held responsible for any psychological damage reading onwards might cause – you have been warned.

The first thing I saw was a – Toad. No this isn’t a spelling mistake but a real life toad (Mike Da Hat, eminent biologist and bird scarer O and rock-n-roller) please explain why a toad was in my sewer) was sitting on the concrete inches above the murky water that filled the drain. O there were plenty of turds too as this is a shared drain.

Now I don’t know about you, but when dealing with drains and sewers, my family’s turds are acceptable, but man you just don’t want to be dealing with other peoples, that’s just so gross.

Anyway I was lucky my wife was acting as foreman, I say acting as she had little idea of what to do and was hiding behind the door peeping out of the net curtain, I don’t know what she was more scared of the toad or the turds and she gave me loads of useless advice I didn’t need just at that moment when contemplating the shitty mess before me.

I tried poking around with the aluminium door rod but that just seem to mix it up a bit more, then I noticed that as I watched the water level was dropping a little, then it rose again, then dropped, what was going on?. O, the guy upstairs had gone out and left his washing maching on, and it was now on the empty cycle so more water was gushing into the blocked drain. Then my wife helpfully flushed the toilet again!! Why, I don’t even know, she says she thought it would be helpful.

More specialist tools were needed, I found a piece of two by two upstairs by the neighbours door (he’s renovating) it was a good 5 feet long, so would keep me well away from that augean pool (see Hercules’ fifth labour). With this I managed to fish out something that looked suspiciously like kitchen roll. Ah ha! A clue, we are not so poor or as uncouth as to use kitchen roll in the loo, no we pamper our bottoms with the softest, quiltiest, puppy freshest toilet roll we can afford. So it must be HIM upstairs.

So not only am I having to swirl about amongst his shit, he is the culprit too. But the drains still blocked, I will have to swallow my anger and the contents of my stomach that’s just about reaching my tonsils to deal with this. I capitulate and go for even more specialist tools, as there is no way I am calling out Mr. Rooter or what ever he’s called on a Sunday as well, can you imaging the bill?

I call around friends to borrow their drain rods. A quick poke and its all done. Not with my friends you understand as I am married, but down in the drain with the rods, one quick poke was all it took. See, what am I always saying is, Y’need the proper tools to do a proper job.

When I mentioned this to our friendly neighbour, he flatly denied using kitchen roll down the loo, even after I showed him the sopping evidence. Perhaps he was too embarrassed to admit that he needed the extra absorption of something like Bounty the favoured kitchen roll of all cross dressers.

So yet again I have proved my manly existence, if you remember a while back, I tamed the washing machine and replaced a belt all by myself, bringing the washing machine repairmen of Plymouth to near bankruptcy, as I have now done to the Mr. Rooters of this world. On Saturday, now that the red mist is upon me I am going to replace our bedroom window, yes me, all by myself, ha the window makers of this world will quake before me. Mind you I am taking the car to be MOT’d next week so all the money I have saved above will be in mortal jeopardy.

Pray for me dear reader, pray for me.

No toads were harmed in the unblocking of the sewer or the writing of this blog - this is a toad friendly zone