Friday 20 May 2011

Find me some plumbing to crawl into.

God, I hate us. At this particular moment in time I think my level of dislike for myself and my little family is probably on a par with our landlord’s.

The plumber has just been. The same plumber who was meant to come about a month ago because I reported that we had no hot water in the shower room. But then when he phoned and said he was on his way, I checked the water again and all of a sudden we had hot water, and I thought I better not waste the landlords money by calling the guy out for nothing so I phoned up and cancelled him.

And then the next day we had no hot water again. Felt a bit of a fool then, but today took it a wee bit further. Given our recent falling out with the letting agent and the landlord, things have been a bit tense, so when they agreed to get the plumber back out to look at the hot water, I made sure I was available as soon as the guy could fit us in.

So he’s just been. I told him about the lack of hot water, and also mentioned that the water pressure was down and then yesterday the washing machine decided to start flashing error codes at me which I “gegoogled” (incidentally, that is one of my favourite German words – it’s the past tense of the verb ‘to Google (something)’. Great, isn’t it?). I found out that it meant that there wasn’t enough water getting into the machine.

So he looked, and he went “uh-hmm” and then he stepped into the shower cubicle and turned this big knob a bit.

Ta-crappy-da! All of a sudden we had oodles of roasty-toasty water flowing out of the tap, and I could hear the water-heating box clicking away (which it does as you turn the tap to get hotter) like there was never a problem. Clickety-clickety click. I felt like a total fool. I summed it up with a good “Ach Manno!”, and a bit of a “I bet that was those pesky kids”, and then I felt a little scared about what the landlord and the letting agent were going to say, and I may have let out a rather large groan.

Stevie had told me to watch out for the plumber and to make sure there were absolutely no drying clothes on the radiators causing havoc to the windows, just in case the plumber was a spy for the landlord and would report back on us. As all the wet washing was stuck in the error-flashing washing machine he didn’t have to worry. (plus I think he was being a little paranoid, and it’s put me off giving him any Stasi books to read).
Anyway, as much as I hate us and our general crappness when it comes to plumbing; I do love our plumber. He said (without me asking) that he would lie on the paperwork. He’s going to say that the pipes were ‘constipated’. I know he was saying ‘blockage’, but it’s the same word in German for constipation (=verstopfung). What a relief. And what a perfect tagline for a constipation remedy too.

1 comment:

  1. Boring plumbing but what a lovely plumber. I like his diversive nature.

    ReplyDelete

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