Up through the floorboards

For weeks, probably months, I’ve been bothered by a fugitive stench, hanging in the air at various places, various times, in the kitchen and dining room, not always the same smell. Every mammal knows not to foul its own nest and the sense of outrage at any fouling by others must be etched deep into our genes. As a boy I climbed the sandstone cliffs at Rock-a-Nore, overlooking the sea, to explore the caves; but they stank. They were visited only by passing ruffians

I guess our pleasure at the scent of blossoms and edible fruit comes from evolution, which along the way has taught us what’s wholesome; and to be disgusted by putrefaction In any event, my sense of outrage and revulsion roused me from complacent torpor to seek the cause and eliminate it.

I discovered that the new fridge had been dripping imperceptibly till the carpet underneath started to grow fungal organisms, and rotted. I replaced the carpet and had the fridge repaired. All seemed well but soon the smell came back, a little fainter, from somewhere under the sink. I’d panelled an ugly space where the previous owner had kept a dishwasher, an abomination in our household, so we had turned down his offer of leaving it for our use.

Brooding day and night like Sherlock Holmes, I decided there was no alternative but to dismantle the panelling and take a closer look beneath. There was a drip from the hot pipe going to the bath which was rotting the floorboards and helping grow delicate fronds of fungus which I thought must be dry rot. Dry rot is to a house as cancer is to a human body. One’s heart sinks. A woman from a wood treatment company reassured me that it was merely wet rot. So that’s all right then. Furthermore, she said the offensive smell was drains, not rotten wood.

Thus a new chapter opened in my investigation. The drains company sent a representative, very experienced, about my age, who didn’t look at the drains but allowed me to tell him, with diagrams, the story so far, with theories as to the possible cause and questions as to where the sewer pipes might be and what direction they might be going. In return, he told me he wanted to be honest with me and save me money. I should contact the Water Board, for my house is old, meaning that Section Something of the Public Health Act 19something will probably apply. He then proceeded to tell me anecdotes of his worst (best?) drain dramas. An excellent fellow: we sat round the dining-room table, revelling in sanitary engineering disasters and triumphs.

My next-door neighbour is closely following events because his wife complains of a stench in their kitchen too. He proposes “going halves” on the cost, fearing that concrete paths will be broken up, trenches dug, floors taken up, huge costs accruing, without recompense from house insurance. My own imagination is less extravagant.

Meanwhile I think I may have diagnosed the problem, and who knows? When the rain stops for a bit I might get out there and fix it. But I’m more than a little superstitious, and won’t tell you more till I’ve managed to complete my experiment.

Later: it failed. No point talking about it.

Later still: I sent a letter to the Water Board, having been advised by the excellent fellow that their telephone support staff and the engineers they send out are ignorant; that I might have to wait weeks for a visit; and that they would deny liability for the costs involved.

Even later: the smell is really bad. I ring the Water Board. The excellent fellow was wrong on all counts. They seem intelligent, well-informed; they will send out an engineer tomorrow morning; they accept that they are almost certainly responsible for the costs.

Finally: I reflect that if I were less of an amateur engineer myself, less of a clever-dick in finding consultants to advise me, less philosophical generally, and more of an ordinary panicking ignoramus, I would have rung the Water Board long ago.

Stop press: the Water Board have just rung to say that a neighbour further up the street has reported a blocked drain and they are sending an engineer today and they are hopeful that this might cure the smell we are getting.

PS: the other day I commented in another blog on the topic of non-attachment and the realization of perfect peace. I imagined some enlightened soul, some Buddha-type, sitting in his house, in perfect bliss and faithful acceptance of life’s ups and downs; in a house that stank. I was glad I was me and not him.

Postscript on 7th July 2018: It’s a long while now since the last of the smells. During the intervening years, our neighbour discovered leaks under his kitchen; there were problems with rats, which were dealt with in various ways. We had our kitchen refitted. We acquired new neighbours. We aren’t sure what the problem was and how it was resolved, but simply give thanks.