I won’t house-sit ever again

Normally, you add 'muti' to the water and switch on the Kreepy. Not this 'meneer'.

A backyard pool with algae making the water green. Picture: iStock

Had a bad dream after returning from Cape Town, where we house-sat for elder brats while they were enjoying the fleshpots of Thailand.

A Kreepy Krauly was chasing me down Memorial Street, with snake-like tongue salivating at my heels. As this cleaning toolturned-snake caught up to me, it reared its ugly head, sucking in my uncut hair.

My shout not only awoke my Heidi, but the neighbour’s cat in turn uttered a cry of its own, probably identifying with a familiar noise indicative of enjoyment coming from our bedroom.

What brought on this nightmare? It’s probably a throwback from my recent days spent in the brats’ pool, trying to rid it of leaves as a result of the Cape Doctor going bossies and the ever-lurking algae. An easy exercise turned into a pain in the A.

Normally, you add muti to the water and switch on the Kreepy. Not this meneer. No sooner had it started sucking, it stopped. Dead.

Then I found by priming the pump, the snake came alive for a while, and while thus mobile, I jumped into the pool and dragged it by hand over the bad spots.

It was a case of jumping out, priming, jumping back and dragging, and because of the excess muti, my legs took on a bright blue hue. To remove this unsightly stain it took two days of scrubbing with “Handige Andries” and a copper wire brush used for cleaning three-legged roasting pots.

This exercise cleanly removed all my bristly leg hairs on the cheap – but I’d advise the ladies to stick to their tried and trusted method of waxing, especially if they’re sensitive to blood or harsh scraping sounds.

I’m still unsure what to do with the hairs above my kneecaps – Heidi suggests I quit wearing shorty shorts. Long shorts would save me from looking like a French poodle back from the parlour.

On their return, the brats informed me they never use the Kreepy, but a special tool that did the job of a vacuum cleaner. With a smirk, my Capetonian sonin-law remarked that had I used this gadget, I wouldn’t have ended up looking like something from Mars.

I was tempted to fling back all the collected leaves into the pool – but he is a very fit Argus biker and an active lifesaver, so prudence was the watchword.

House-sit again? Guess.