One of the things I love "am amused by" about living on this side of the world is the lack of concern for rules or safety. If something needs to be done--just do it. My neighbor once drilled a hole in the curb in front of his house to access the drainage system under the sidewalk. His street was flooding, so he fixed it. He didn't call the city planning commission, notify a zoning board or get any kind of permit. He just drilled a hole. In the States, my dad once got hit with a fine for tearing down an old shed on his own property.
Driving down the road, you might see a hole big enough to swallow a bus. Someone will put tape around it until the city gets around to fixing it. No signage is placed to warn of the upcoming hazard. The tape is sufficient.
In the States, we need a heads-up two miles ahead of time for a lane merge in the highway. Here, they just have the crazy expectation that drivers should be paying attention. It's the same reason there are virtually no traffic lights anywhere despite the amount of traffic.
Power lines sag low enough you could grab them, but people don't. And there is a reason for that. You know what they are, stay clear. If you happen to die, well…you must not have been very smart.
These lack of regulations apply to household products as well. A product I have used here many times is a drain cleaner. This is some serious stuff. If your shower stops draining, you buy a bottle of this stuff to pour in the drain. It is instantaneous. The moment you break the seal on the bottle, you can feel your lungs beginning to collapse and burn. I have a method for using this stuff.
I have learned to be standing directly over the drain, hold my breath and break the seal. Empty the contents quickly and exit the bathroom before you run out of breath. Go back in a few days to dispose of the empty bottle.
The water starts to drain almost before you even pour anything in. The fumes are that strong. The moment that stuff hits the drain, the excess water is sucked out of the house. That bottle essentially contains concentrated molten acid. I'm not even sure the water exists anymore.
So, when my kitchen sink failed to drain one day, I grabbed my lucky bottle of liquid hell and dumped it in. It took less than a second for the sink to drain and flooded my kitchen with very "bitey" dirty water. Apparently, the pipes in the kitchen are not lava-proof like the bathroom pipes are.
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| The inside of the pipes are now spotless |
The pipe was obliterated as well as everything that was stored under the sink. All of our cleaning products leaked everywhere when the bottles they were stored in disintegrated. The brushes and scrubbing implements no longer exist and the various mops we used very carefully to clean up our acid eco-disaster had to be blessed and ritually destroyed by a priest.
Luckily, we have marble floors. It did not eat through the marble, but it did go right through the grouting between the tiles and stained every marble surface into a unrecognizable color.
I managed to get it all cleaned up and only lost two and a half toes in the process. I now wonder if the pipes under the bathroom are more sturdy or just underground so I don't know what damage I have done. I do know there can't possibly be any ants or rats under our house.
