It’s a disaster!

The past 36 hours or so have not been good for me at all. If I had hair I would pull it out. On Wednesday evening while watering my very thirsty plants, the stream began to sputter and choke. I found that strange, since it would mean that my water tank was empty and there was no water on the line. We hardly ever get water problems in my area, so imagine my shock to find no water in my tank or in the main. Even more strange was the fact that all the other neighbours seemed to have a healthy water supply. This was certainly a mystery. I began to wonder if WASA (the water company) had disconnected me, but I dismissed that because my bill was OK and WASA hardly ever disconnects anybody anyway.

The last thing was to check the main lock-off valve that’s at the front of the house. Sure enough, it was closed and I had a sinking feeling. I opened it, and water started spraying all over the property next door.

What do you think happened? The neighbour demolished his house last week to rebuild and the excavator operator, without checking, ripped up everything, including my main line which was also joined to the neighbour’s main. When water started spraying, apparently they turned off the main valve and said not a word. To add insult to injury, the main valve is on my property! I was unaware that this had happened because my plumbing is set up in such a way that water from the main fills the tank from the top and the pump pulls from the bottom. So the tank wasn’t being filled and I was merrily using water all week. So now I am here with no water in my house except for a few containers and I don’t have to describe my position for you. I made a temporary tap off from the mains on Thursday morning, but as luck would have it, Thursday is the day that they shut off the mains. Yes, I live in a banana republic. WASA is in a mess and s an ex employee, I know this first hand a My ex-employee status allowed me to get them to send someone to look at the situation, however, and they agreed that the two connections needed to be separate. SO they’re coming later today to do that (hopefully) so I’ll be connected again. But then there’s the issue of the locked valve. I have to wait until tonight to get water flowing again. In the meantime, I’ve decided to vent my frustrations with the written word.

I think I hear rain coming. I going outside to stand up in my jockey shorts

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