On the 4th December, I got up to get William ready for school and found that the toaster wasn't working. I thought the fuse had blown but when I tried it in a different plug, it was fine so I figured that it was something to do with the powerboard it was plugged into. We got through breakfast but when we tried to open the electric gates to walk round to school, they wouldn't work. At this point I just thought "Nooooooo" and had that sinking feeling it was going to turn into something bigger that I would be able to deal with.
I got home and realised that the lamp in the living room wasn't working; nor the tv; and none of the lights in the garage. The fuse box had tripped out and every time I tried to reset it, it would trip again. Clearly, something amiss. I called the rental agency and finally an electrician came out, had a quick look at things and in broken french informed me that the whole electrics were cheap and poorly installed and whatever was going on, it was way above him and he needed his boss to look at it. Christ, I thought, here we go. And all of this on top of them trying to get the chimney fixed. In the meantime, we ran an extension cable the length of the house from the utility room in order to get power to the tv. Mental.
The following day, Florent's mother arrived at the house with the family electrician. He had a quick look around and I ushered him to the rather dodgy looking plug socket in the living room. He took the fascia off and inside was wet to touch with mushrooms growing out of it. Everyone looked on in disbelief. I thought, right, here we go, but amazingly, he just isolated the socket and put a plastic cover over it saying, "C'est ça!"
Our electricity was back working in the living room again so we just ploughed on with Christmas preparations; decorating the house, putting the tree up, buying presents and gradually getting into the booze and rich food. But, on the 19th December, things moved to another level. I noticed what I thought were scuff marks on the wall of the wardrobe in the master bedroom. Taking a mental note not to throw my shoes in with such force in the future, I moved some shoes and pulled clothes back to discover it was actually mould growing on the wall. Further investigation found more growing behind the clothes that were on the shelf above. In the first instance, it meant we couldn't use the wardrobe as it was ruining my clothes, but we were now starting to consider the health implications of a damp home. That morning, I also took more photos of the skirting boards in the living room, where more fungus was now growing out of the plastic cover. Things were getting ridiculous.
Our electricity was back working in the living room again so we just ploughed on with Christmas preparations; decorating the house, putting the tree up, buying presents and gradually getting into the booze and rich food. But, on the 19th December, things moved to another level. I noticed what I thought were scuff marks on the wall of the wardrobe in the master bedroom. Taking a mental note not to throw my shoes in with such force in the future, I moved some shoes and pulled clothes back to discover it was actually mould growing on the wall. Further investigation found more growing behind the clothes that were on the shelf above. In the first instance, it meant we couldn't use the wardrobe as it was ruining my clothes, but we were now starting to consider the health implications of a damp home. That morning, I also took more photos of the skirting boards in the living room, where more fungus was now growing out of the plastic cover. Things were getting ridiculous.
As per the request of our landlord, we cleaned the spores off with vinegar then places a dehumidifier in the wardrobe. A drop in the ocean of the work required, methinks. We were also starting to wonder whether the work on the damp was going to be so big, that the chimney works would be out of the equation.
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