Monday, April 17, 2017

I SHARE BECAUSE I CARE




You live in a 100 year old house that previous owners only ever fixed and upgraded on an “as needed” basis, you’re going to have handymen over at a depressing frequency.  On the bright side, I discovered Drain Works after THE GREAT BASEMENT FLOOD of 10 or so years ago.  Best plumbers ever.  I call them about twice a year on average and now, once I say “It’s John Sweet”, there’s laughs and good times all around.


Rick is one of the senior partners/founders.  I think the company’s main phone number is just his cell phone.  Whenever you call, he just answers “Yeah”.  I read an online review of the company once where this approach pissed some guy off so much that he hung up and went with another company.  Fool.


I think they used to have a home base down the road from me, or at least they had a bunch of signs in an empty storefront window.  If you Google them, each site you go to seems to give a different address.


Stephen seems to be the senior man in the field.  He’s usually the one who comes over.  He never ceases to be amazed at some of the archaic plumbing in this house.  I have an ancient sink in the basement that hooks directly into the main outflow pipe from the house, which he says he has only ever seen twice in his career. 

Had some water in the basement earlier this week, the problem was solved, but apparently there still seemed to be a blockage beyond MY pipe, out in the town’s domain.  So, Stephen and his assistant got their pry bar and flipped open the manhole cover down the street from my house.  They found an ocean of human shit.

I always assumed the town’s outflow system was made of pipes, apparently I was wrong.   It’s just very deep culverts with water constantly flowing through them but, apparently, they get backed up sometimes.  Who knew?  Not me.  Stephen called the town water dept., they came and worked their magic, everyone’s happy now, but I will never cross a street again without remembering that I am just walking six feet above a river of shit…..

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