Arthur put on his ear muffs and tapped the downpipe. It sounded solid. Too solid. He removed the top strainer (a rusted metal flower that hadn’t stopped a leaf since 1987). He peered inside. It was not a pipe anymore. It was a time capsule of decay: a sludge-smoothie of moss, roof grit, and one extremely suicidal tennis ball.
The wall stopped weeping. The marrows were saved. And Arthur never looked at a coat hanger the same way again.
Arthur did. As the hot water hit the cold sludge, Gladys gave three sharp, angry pumps with the plunger. POP. how to clear blocked downpipes
Arthur bought Gladys a bottle of whisky. He cleaned his mother-in-law’s knitting needle. And he learned the true moral of the story: Don’t push the problem down. Clear it from the bottom. And if all else fails, find an old lady who knows where the real blockage is.
She didn't use a hose. She didn't use a coat hanger. She put her ear to the pipe, then went to the bottom where the pipe turned into the underground drain. Arthur put on his ear muffs and tapped the downpipe
A sound like a champagne cork made of mud. The entire contents of the pipe—two years of roof debris, the tennis ball, and what looked like a fossilised squirrel—shot out of the bottom into Gladys’s waiting bucket.
He stood there, dripping, tasting the flavour of 2019’s autumn. He had not cleared the pipe. He had simply taught it to spit. He removed the top strainer (a rusted metal
He straightened the coat hanger and shoved it up the pipe. Scrape. Thud. Something shifted. He pulled it out. On the end was a black, tar-like slug the size of a gerbil. He flicked it into the bucket. It landed with the sound of a wet sponge hitting concrete.