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dirtiest conditions you have worked in!

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Discuss dirtiest conditions you have worked in! in the Gaining Plumbing Experience area at Plumbers Forums

K

kay-jay

just wondering what is the single most nastiest thing you have encountered during the course of plumbing work??

for me it has to be the guy (care in the community type) proper 'one flew over the cuckoos nest' who had been wiping his rse on the shower curtain.

a close second is the house that was dirty all over with junk and rubbish stacked everywhere, i'd changed a w/c inlet valve and the connection weeped on refill so i looked around for something to wipe with and found a rag behind the pedestal......wasn't a rag was a pair of knickers with blood on em. obviously been there a while too cos a spider ran out


KJ
 
Got called to a old peoples home one night for a leaking rad, when I got there the warden let me in (a proper horrible cow who I reported to council after the job). Got to the flat to fine a pool of water under a rad. As it was my last job and it was only a couple of miles from home I thought "sod it" and just sat in the water without putting a dust sheet down as I would be getting changed at home soon. I searched all over the rad for a leak but couldn't find anything. Then this smell hit me - I was only sitting a pool of the old fellas urine. Made me wretch straight away, I picked up my tools at walked out and confronted the warden.

It turned out that the old bloke wee'd there as he was to scraed to ask the warden for help to the toilet as she was always horrible. When she saw the "water" on the floor he told her it was from the rad. Hence me being called there.

This warden was from an agency covering to normal night warden as she was on the sick. I know its wasn't the old blokes fault but that is definately the worst I have worked in.
 
blood , sick, ****, urine, druggies needles, durex, tampax,nappies,dead pets, you name it, plumbers, we,ve all been there, makes you wonder why we do it ..
 
I'll start with a bloke who I must admit shouldn't have been in the community ... took him a minute or two to answer the door coz he was arguing with himself as to whether he should or shouldn't open it! I could hear him having a full blown argument with his other self (he lived alone)!!! Anyhoo's I wished he hadn't let us in! Me and a female apprentice! The house was absolutely minging. He had food encrusted on his wooly jumper ..... There was a smooth trail through the livingroom to where the cylinder was and back towards the kitchen ... It was smooth with deffication and/or the brown dribbles that ran down his chin! He walked infront of me, that's how i wondered if it was deffication as i noticed the different damp shading on his trousers!!! *shiver* The lino in his kitchen also had skid marks where he'd been shuffling... Oh yeh! he didn't walk he shuffled!! The smell is still burnt into my memory banks!!!

He had a Potterton h/warmer that had red lighted! I pressed the re-set and thanked God that it sprung into action!!
 
I once knocked on a door and this old bloke answered but didn't open the door fully. He stuck his head round and

I said "hi mate, its the gas for your service"

"I forgot about you, come in" he said.

He then opened the door fully and let me in, it took me a couple of seconds to realise but the bloke only had a tshirt on, no trousers and no pants. I was walking behind him all the way to the boiler. He then left me to it and went and sat in the living room - still with no pants mind. I just did the service and handed him the paperwork (he still had no pants on) and left sharpish.

Oh how I miss social housing!
 
Tom I know what you mean :rofl: There was a well known, amongst the council, middle aged woman who always knew when we were coming. She'd put her best backless dress on and dolled up to the eyeballs with bright red lipstick etc. ... Thing was she wore the dress the wrong way around and the spanniels lugs were on show! :rofl: we would always send the newbie or draw lotts when her house came around for service!! LOL
 
Toilet got blocked and they kept using it till full and then started on the bath, both full to the top when the council evicted them and had to go and sort out the mess!!!

Did have a picture somewhere................... maybe not
 
We did all the plumbing and heating on large victorian house that had been chopped into bedsits. When they were first converted it wasn't too bad, but the tenants just trashed it over the years. Eventually one of them burned it to the ground, the fire service found accellarants in about three communal rooms.

All the tenants were mad. Their rooms all got trashed, you had nutters, prostitutes, just the dregs of society.

I hated working there, but I was the plumber for the guy who owned them all. He had a huge flash house in the country, and the contrast couldn't have been more stark.

In the end I said I wouldn't work at the bedsits anymore, and the landlord was ok about it. He kept me on as his plumber for a long time, but ironically he ended up going skint through a few bad investments and now lives in much more humble surroundings.
 
worked on renovating flats up in the north of glasgow in a place called royston(total ****ehole) flats had been empty for ages graffiti everywhere rats running about, pigeon **** everywhere and the painter liked to kill the pigeons with his paint brush whenever they flew passed. Was a pakistani guy who bought them and was rennovating so no health and safety, no labourers to clean up so it was a complete mess, local young team used to break in and steal the boilers and other stuff at night. Was seriously the worst job I have ever been on, some of the more senior guys in the company point blank refused to work in it, where as the young uns who were on there notice etc were sent there to work, think my old company took it on as a homer as there was no way that job was legit. Someone even reported it to H&E but nothing was even done, the top floor was covered in pigeon **** everywhere, someone asked their doctor if it was a health risk and we were advised to wear respratory masks up on that floor !!!
 
went to light a pilot on a old bcu,house was stinking carpet was sticky,no bulbs in the lounge, battery's dyeing in the torch,lit the pilot craned my head down to look at the flame picture staring back at me was a live rat,give me a shock scared the crap out of the rat as i tried to kill it with my maglight
 
Pretty grim conditions like most that have posted but two spring to mind !!

One was an old lady who had a leak in her council flat, gained access and immediately greeted with a horrific stench of sh*t , and yes ait was all over the wall the floor all over the flat , tissues and paper smeared with it all chucked on the floor . By the time i realised it was human poo it was on my shoes my work trousers managed to get it on my hands was pretty grim . Still stopped the leak as was flooding the downstairs flat and yet the old lady thought nothing of it.

The scond was a flat we were doing a heat pack in , was like a shrine to **** in there cpould hardly move for the amount of mags and vids stashed everywhere . there was also an uncanny amount of tissue all over the floor of the flat which at first nobody twigged untill halfway through the day the tennant was interupted in the front room having a shuffle with himself . We kinds knew what the tissues were for then ,,,,,pretty grim that one !!
 
i clean out drains and toilets now and then and i guess that would have to be the worst, but most the time i doesnt get onto my clothes, only twice its happened, one a saniflow, it sprays all over me and another is when i lifted a drain and the pressure sprayed it all the way up to my head.. drains when then kick back too.. its nasty..

ive worked in nasty houses but im thankfully i havent been doing a whole lot their, just cp12s
 
cancel home in SE London (Lewisham ) there was about 1 000 000 of this

Cockroach - Google Search was to fit a gas hob and did burn the little ****ers with my supper fire ,I did walk on them and when finished work burn the bottom of my trainers to kill the eggs ... that house had that smell will never forget it
 
When I worked in Building Services we used to look after sewage pits in one particular site, I remember lifting the covers on one which was 45ft deep as there was an active alarm showing, there was a layer of dried rancid sewage almost level with the top covers. Both pumps had failed and the level just kept rising. Oh what a fun day that was!!

There was another time I was dealing with a drainage problem at Bonnybridge offices of Scottish power, I'd not long started a contract with an FM firm so I was eager to impress. I pushed my rods down until i had about 6 of em joined together and was merrily pushing and pulling away to dislodge it when on the "pull" stroke something gave way and I ended up getting a faceful of urine and brown lumps.. only managed to eat one of my bacon rolls that morning.. Funny I don't do drains now! lol
 
Just remembered, last week I sorted out blocked urinals at a local pub. They were filled will raw urine, backed up to the basin and all over the floor. Sucked what I could out with the wet vac, cut the pipe where I figured the blockage was and whoosh. Hoover coped, but it was bloody awful work.

I only charged em £50. I still don't know why....possibly it was the couple of beers I had afterwards mellowed me out.

I'm happy to do most things. I've had my camera up a crappy soil pipe today, inspecting a run on the property we're working on. Its all cracked and broken. So we'll be digging it up and replacing it. Mmmmmmm poo.
 
I heard a story that made me laugh about a joiner who was helping a plumber move a soil stack in a 4 storey townhouse in Edinburgh. The joiner was holding the weight on the bottom end whilst the plumber was measuring up for the re-routing. He had his hands above his head with his body directly under it bracing himself. He was basically in a position where he couldnt move or it would all come crashing down when he heard a familiar whoosing sound from 3 floors up. They had forgotten to tell the labourer on the site who had just had breakfast. The look on the Joiners face was a pure scream moment apparently.
 
had that before, cleaning traps on urinals on a site toilet !! the urine had crystalised it was there for that long, was one of my first jobs as an apprentice the thought of wrapping it all in was fresh in my mind
 
Ha! Me too. I never do either. Though I do carry a bottle of cleaning solution in the van for my hands. The stuff that they use in hospitals, made from alcohol. Just rub it in after, no water required. Only use it, if its really bad.

My mother in law who's an ex NHS nurse has said I should get a lot of vacinations, like Hepititas 2. She probably has a point. Though in fairness the bread and butter of my work is heating installs and not turd work!

I must say, I'm not in the least bit squeemish about a bit of sludge. So I probably missed my vocation. I like to mix it up a bit as too much of any one thing and it gets boring. This soil run we need to replace means I get to play with a 3 ton digger. Always fun for a sad git like me.
 
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