Health & Safety at work eh, tell me about it…

An engineers lot is less than a happy one at the best of times. What seems (on paper and in the day’s diary) like a straighforward call turns into a raging health hazard for more than one reason or another.

For example:

Two calls this week stand out in my book as a flippin’ health liability for anyone to undertake.

Call 1) Washing machine and tumble dryer in a cellar. The only lightbulb is one of those energy saving jobs. (Dimmer than a TOC H lamp as we old ‘uns refer as being)The machines are stood on what could be described at best as a shelf, at worst rotten wallpaper pasting table….

The machines about 3 feet off the ground to allow the washer to drain out into a ground level pipe that runs into the flowerbed outside. Both machines faulty, both needed getting on the ground to fix. No-one to assist in this delicate task therefore I never attempted to go further and walked away.

Call 2) Another washing machine, on paper a simple blocked pump issue. In reality it was in the downstairs bog, drain hose poked into the WC because the waste pipe behind the machine blocked up years ago and the wall needed taking down in order to access the coupling to the stink pipe.

Not enough space to rotate the machine or tip it backwards to get underneath. In order the machine could be installed there meant the WC had to be removed first. They figured that as the machine was new and had a 5 year warranty it would be no problem to remove the loo to fit it in and god help anyone if in later years in had to be fixed.

Enter Martin into a room smaller than a Fiat 500’s boot, spotted the yellow urine drips around the edge of the bog and the delightful smell of regular useage. I made the obvious and immediate decision…………. :rolls: 👿