Babes.
The number of times we have to discuss what it means when we avoid the root cause.
When we moved, I had my bathroom redone. The house was a doer-upper, and I found pink tiles and stripey tiles. Cute. Still adore.
We found a plumber who seemed great.
He did the job and honoured the price. But I have to question his plumbing skills.
Less than a year later, water poured through the kitchen ceiling. It shut off the electrics.
I asked him – could it be the bathroom?
“Must be your roof,” he said.
Sure. Because we always avoid facing our own shit and pass it off as something ‘higher than us.’
That's very spiritual by-passy.
Ascension and reaching outside of ourselves have been the constant messages, but it’s not the answer.
A guy was willing to rip us off for over £1k, claiming it was the roof. It was December. Merry Christmas to us.
Another guy came along and said, “It’s not your roof; it’s your plumbing.”
I rang the plumber and demanded he check.
“It’s just raining, and it’s your roof,” he said.
As women, we often have to ask 1,045 times for support and still don’t receive it. We’re fobbed off with drugs, a diet change (useful at times but not the full story), or whatever else masks the issue. Or we’re told it’s in our head.
Like the water shorting out my electrics was in my head.
We had to go to my twins’ nativity, so we left him in the house.
We came back to find he’d angle-grinded my tiles (he did ring me to check).
Black soot from the tile grout was fucking everywhere.
He was looking smug.
“Oh, the water has stopped leaking, finally,” I exclaimed.
“Yeah, because it’s stopped raining,” the plumber replied.
I thought he was joking.
Nope.
He had an actual cup of tea in my actual kitchen, actually claiming that the water leaking was nothing to do with him, his plumbing, or the fact that he’d stopped it while we were out.
My angle-grinded, bodged tiles were pulled off for no reason whatsoever.
Because ofc he didn't create access to his plumbing. To the back of the cistern, the pipes or behind the sink. Wonderful.
He promptly came back round to put the tiles back and sealed it all back in.
So imagine my reaction the other morning, three years on, when Ali exclaims – as I was cracking on with work – that water was pouring through the kitchen in the exact same place as before.
Imagine.
So I said I knew what to do.
I took the tools and chipped off the tiles, piece by piece.
I held it together (because I work hard to regulate my nervous system every damn day).
Ali is also working on his, so together, we cracked on.
I knew where the plumber had angle-grinded from my memory not by anything obvious to look at, and I chipped away. Tiles flew around me.
Wood splintered under my nails.
Bit by bit, I found the previous mess.
From a man.
I found the screws and undid the puzzle.
At first, I had no luck finding my way behind the tiles.
Then, I found access.
I ruined just four tiles in the process (still hoping there are spares in the attic).
And there it fucking was.
A mains pipe to the cistern leaking.
I’d found the root cause.
No one telling me it was in my head.
The relief. The knowing. The tending to this space, knowing I can actually be with the issue.
We got a dear friend on the phone, and together – my husband, the friend (who had just done his own bathroom), and me overseeing the project – we inspected the pipe.
After trying to loosen it and realising that wasn’t an option, we tightened it more.
We wrapped kitchen paper around it to see if it continued to leak.
We placed plastic underneath to catch any water and protect the electrics in future.
We worked out a secondary plan to replace what may need replacing.
And dealt with the root cause once and for all.
We tentatively placed the wood back and popped a nice pot plant in front of it for vibes while we figure out our next steps to fully solve the issue.
And though it’s not completely solved just yet, and though more work will need to be done to replace the pipe...
We understand how and what to do.
We don’t need a guru (shit plumber) to return.
We understand the anatomy (the pipework)
and it feels empowering, tbh.
I just knew he hadn’t done the job properly. I was prepared for this to be an ongoing issue.
But I needed to understand it.
And that’s essentially what my work is about, in the analogy of a plumbing issue.