My bathroom, and I, are gutted

That leaking pipe that has tripped our power for the last six years is the next to go after my medical aid, I decide.

I haven’t used the plugs in my lounge since the day we moved in and I have had it with tripping over extension cords running from the entrance hall just so we can binge on TV.

So Popeye doesn’t get the job: I call my real Plumber’s Crack for a quote – and decide that if I have to fork out R3 000 for new pipes in the guest toilet I may as well go big. How hard can it be?

The tiles are going in any case for the new channels, which means new plaster and tiles again. But who is going to know I paid a couple of grand for a working plug in the adjoining lounge wall?

Definitely not me – and that is, as Elon Musk said, a brain pain: counting out hard cash for something you can’t see.

So I agree to pay a third more, move the toilet and basin, the window becomes a door and I have a little dream come true: an outside shower.

Not just any shower, a shower (and door) so high that the giant my daughter is dating can walk through without getting a crick in his neck.

Within half a day the bathroom is gutted, the rubble piled high and the dust unbearable.

But then it started: the plumber needs the builder to finish this before he can carry on; the builder needs the plumber to move that before he can carry on.

One day it’s sand and cement, the next two days nothing happens while we all stare at grey walls drying.

On day four the rain washes away half of the plaster, on day five a drain is moved and little else, day six and seven the builder does patchwork – and in the new week the plumber and builder are still shaking their heads.

“Your builder needs to still…; your plumber must still…” The words I came to dread.

So I gave them each other’s telephone numbers and sat back watching my wooden floors taking strain under heavy wheelbarrows.

It’s two weeks and another couple of grand later. The pipes are in plastered walls, but the toilet and basin are still standing in the rain.

The Advocate tells me I should’ve endured the brain pain: “At least the plug would’ve worked.”

I’m gutted.

Carine Hartman.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.