An hour later, sweating and swearing, he had achieved nothing except a wet kitchen floor and a profound hatred for whoever invented modern plumbing. The water from the sink, when he ran the tap, now came back up after a ten-second delay, brown and flecked with… something . He called the emergency line for Yorkshire Water.
But ‘sorting it’ required access. And the access point was three doors down, outside the chippy. Frank’s Famous Fish & Chips, which had been pouring its used oil down the drain for forty years because the grease trap was ‘too much hassle’. The next forty-eight hours were a masterclass in Yorkshire bureaucracy. Frank denied everything. “My grease trap’s empty every Tuesday!” he lied, his face the colour of haddock. The council got involved because the pavement was now a biohazard. A lone environmental health officer, a woman named Priya with the patience of a saint and the eyes of a hawk, took one look at the bubbling manhole and declared an “imminent public health risk.” yorkshire water blocked drain
“We’ve pulled out three tonnes of solid waste,” Kev said quietly. “This wasn’t a blockage. This was a geological formation.” An hour later, sweating and swearing, he had
“I’m not flooded,” Arthur growled into the receiver at 1 AM. “I’m drowning in my own kitchen.” But ‘sorting it’ required access