Two Days In The Merde

How many of you have read the novel, ‘A Year In The Merde’, by the author Stephen Clarke? It’s about an English guy who spends a year living and working in Paris and is a very funny book, especially for ex-pats like us because he portrays the French as we have grown to know and ‘love’ them. The ‘merde’ bit is a reference to the copious amounts of dog poo he steps in during his 12 months in Paris. Merde is ‘shit’. Sorry but there’s no escaping it. Paris is full of it. It’s everywhere. Everbody seems to have a poodle and how such small dogs can crap so much is beyond me, but they do, in bucketloads.

Not a very savoury subject is it and I hope you’re not reading this at breakfast!

I woke up last Friday full of the joys of spring. My hay fever which had virtually kept me housebound had nearly gone, the sun was shining after three days of rain and the kids were going off to their father’s for the weekend. My Alfa had just passed its Controle Technique (MOT) and was legal to drive again and I planned to take J and Kitty to the Midi for lunch (Guy had already left for the weekend). And then it would be Saturday and the FA Cup games on the telly. But the first thing I had to do was to refill next door’s swimming pool which I had stupidly half emptied two weeks previously.

As I walked through the garage to get some tools, I smelled a rather unpleasant stink. It couldn’t be Guy’s dirty clothes basket because his bedroom door was closed. Kitty’s bedroom door was also closed – it couldn’t be her or her pals who sleep over and never seem to shower. Nope – it was coming from the laundry room. I opened the door and there was a flood of biblical proportions with ‘merde’ everywhere.

Several hours and a missed lunch later (how could I have eaten anyway?), J and I had cleaned up the mess. I’d spent a couple of those hours in the claustrophobic, 18 inch space under the house tracing pipes and trying to work out why, when the toilet pipes are separate from the waste water pipes, merde was pouring from the leaking pipe in the laundry.

Having started at 10am on Friday, I had to call it a halt at 6pm, completely knackered and covered in merde. I headed straight for the shower and had a long, hot dousing. Changed into clean clothes and covered in after shave to try and rid myself of the now imaginary stink, I wandered back down to the laundry room just to check and was met by an even bigger flood of merde. I closed the door and headed for the wine box.

I lay awake all night wondering what it could be and eventually came to the conclusion that it was the kitchen waste pipe which had blocked. Next morning I was back under the house with renewed enthusiasm. Drilled a few holes, poked my unblocking tube down them, poured a couple of litres of unblocking fluid down the holes and had lunch. An hour later, we switched on the kitchen taps and within seconds the water, and not much ‘merde’ was pouring out into the laundry room (buanderie in French). Rather than clear up the mess, I tried a few more ‘tricks’ of the (plumbing) trade. I put a tube down the pipe and blew and blew until I was wheezing. Suddenly there was a gurgling sound and then a scream. J just happened to be in the boiler room which had exploded in a sea of ‘merde’. My blowing, and the build up of pressure had sought the weakest point and that was a valve in the small room which houses the boilers and a loo.

I was on the point of cutting my wrists, but never one to shirk a challenge I headed back into the DIY store for the second time that day and noticed that they had some caustic soda.

One litre poured down various points in the pipes and J and I called it a day. The soda could do its worst overnight.

Sunday morning arrived and I tentatively looked down a few holes which I had drilled. No sign of anything horrible. I switched on the kitchen water and waited for the inevitable…..but nothing! I headed for the septic tank to see if any water was coming out and there was – this could be it! I switched the water on full, started the dishwasher and nothing – it was clear at last!

I spent the rest of Sunday morning cleaning up, filling in the various holes I’d drilled (which will always be useful in future) and then started to relax.

I always think that out of adversity comes opportunity and so it proved. I now know the complete layout of the house’s waste pipes. I discovered that the waste water septic tank (as opposed to the other ‘nasty’ one) has a trap which needs emptying occasionally and the flood caused us to clear out the storage area and throw out a whole load of stuff which we didn’t need.

Finally, I’m pleased to say that the ‘merde’ wasn’t actually ‘merde’. It smelled like ‘merde’. It looked like ‘merde’ and even tasted like ‘merde’ but all it was, was rotten vegetable matter from the waste disposal mixed in a horrible cocktail with fat and gunge.