Our demented pipe
9 Sept 04, 19:49
Discovered that the waterhole pipe behind the loo showed signs of leaking.
The tenant was the one who found out about it. We wanted to fix the problem ourselves rather than do the other dreaded thing..that is to call Mrs.D the landlady. Mrs. D is nice and all but one can't help feeling, when talking to her on the telephone that you are facing the school headmistress or something. She talks in the most thespian of manner even though by the sound of her name, i think that she's polish. She lives in London and has NEVER visited us since we last moved in about a year ago. That suits us extremely well.
About 9 months ago, we did call her about a 'house-crisis'..it was the ceiling. Well, the ceiling was kinda not at its proper place.. it was 'on the floor' rather than 'up there'- in short it collapsed, a huge square piece of the ceiling, and it was not a pretty sight. It started out as a water-stain on the ceiling- then crack - then the whole thing collapsed. The collapsed ceiling was the one directly underneath the bathroom upstairs. We figured that it must started from a leaking pipe or something. The plumbers (two of them came seperately - from difft companies) couldnt figure out the source of the leak. We knew that it was water that cause it because we can see from the hole in the ceiling that there is a sponge, heavy with water, held up by a layer of plastic sheet. After analysing and grasping the 'technical phrases' used by the plumber when he assessed the damaged, we braved ourselves to call Mrs.D. But first, we put our heads together to compose a perfect telephone script..with a starting salutation of
'Hello Mrs.D'..'How are you?'
A script designed to report a distressing condition yet ensuring that the listener will be at ease. Alhamdulillah she was allright with that. But she didnt even come to check the new ceiling. All she wanted to know, was how much. The cheaper the better. But we dare not take any risk this time. This time, she just might come and see the condition of the problem herself. And with the state of the house at this moment, I prefer she stayed away.
The fact is, the house has had its days. I am being rather paranoid about these things but I can't help it. It is really difficult to find a house in this small English town, with the university not helping much on the accomodation even when you're a foreign student.
Anyway, back to the pipe story. The pipe does not gushes off water like the one in the picture up there. It just drips off water once in a while. We decided to just use a sealant to seal off the leakage. So, we bought a bottle of sealant
from town. We squeezed it with all our might, we did, but the glue just wouldnt come out from the tip. When we bought it we thought that it was just like the glue that you used for pasting paper and stuff. We thought..this looks easy..squeeze the bottle and glue comes out. But the bottle is not the squeezable kind, nooo..we found out after 5 mins of squeezing action that we need to push the hole at the bottom of the bottle. Then after a fruitless 20 mins, we only realized that unless you have won the olympic for pushing a glue hole bottle you might just see any semblance of glue. That is when after reading the instruction again...... third paragraph, first line it says..
"Use a standard sealant gun".
Off I went yet once again to town to get the 'gun'. Have no idea how the gun looks like and found that it looks like this...
Took it home, after much struggling to figure out how in the world does this gun is supposed to work, I managed to get a decent dollop of glue from the tip at last. Phewwww... But if I was asked how is the pipe?
..It is still leaking.
Discovered that the waterhole pipe behind the loo showed signs of leaking.
The tenant was the one who found out about it. We wanted to fix the problem ourselves rather than do the other dreaded thing..that is to call Mrs.D the landlady. Mrs. D is nice and all but one can't help feeling, when talking to her on the telephone that you are facing the school headmistress or something. She talks in the most thespian of manner even though by the sound of her name, i think that she's polish. She lives in London and has NEVER visited us since we last moved in about a year ago. That suits us extremely well.
About 9 months ago, we did call her about a 'house-crisis'..it was the ceiling. Well, the ceiling was kinda not at its proper place.. it was 'on the floor' rather than 'up there'- in short it collapsed, a huge square piece of the ceiling, and it was not a pretty sight. It started out as a water-stain on the ceiling- then crack - then the whole thing collapsed. The collapsed ceiling was the one directly underneath the bathroom upstairs. We figured that it must started from a leaking pipe or something. The plumbers (two of them came seperately - from difft companies) couldnt figure out the source of the leak. We knew that it was water that cause it because we can see from the hole in the ceiling that there is a sponge, heavy with water, held up by a layer of plastic sheet. After analysing and grasping the 'technical phrases' used by the plumber when he assessed the damaged, we braved ourselves to call Mrs.D. But first, we put our heads together to compose a perfect telephone script..with a starting salutation of
'Hello Mrs.D'..'How are you?'
A script designed to report a distressing condition yet ensuring that the listener will be at ease. Alhamdulillah she was allright with that. But she didnt even come to check the new ceiling. All she wanted to know, was how much. The cheaper the better. But we dare not take any risk this time. This time, she just might come and see the condition of the problem herself. And with the state of the house at this moment, I prefer she stayed away.
The fact is, the house has had its days. I am being rather paranoid about these things but I can't help it. It is really difficult to find a house in this small English town, with the university not helping much on the accomodation even when you're a foreign student.
Anyway, back to the pipe story. The pipe does not gushes off water like the one in the picture up there. It just drips off water once in a while. We decided to just use a sealant to seal off the leakage. So, we bought a bottle of sealant
from town. We squeezed it with all our might, we did, but the glue just wouldnt come out from the tip. When we bought it we thought that it was just like the glue that you used for pasting paper and stuff. We thought..this looks easy..squeeze the bottle and glue comes out. But the bottle is not the squeezable kind, nooo..we found out after 5 mins of squeezing action that we need to push the hole at the bottom of the bottle. Then after a fruitless 20 mins, we only realized that unless you have won the olympic for pushing a glue hole bottle you might just see any semblance of glue. That is when after reading the instruction again...... third paragraph, first line it says..
"Use a standard sealant gun".
Off I went yet once again to town to get the 'gun'. Have no idea how the gun looks like and found that it looks like this...
Took it home, after much struggling to figure out how in the world does this gun is supposed to work, I managed to get a decent dollop of glue from the tip at last. Phewwww... But if I was asked how is the pipe?
..It is still leaking.
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