How To Clear Blocked Downpipes |link| -

He stood there, dripping, tasting the flavour of 2019’s autumn. He had not cleared the pipe. He had simply taught it to spit.

Defeated, Arthur went inside and called his neighbour, Gladys, a 78-year-old former plumber who used to fix boilers during the miners' strike. She arrived in slippers and a raincoat. how to clear blocked downpipes

The downpipe began to sing. A clean, clear glug-glug-glug . He stood there, dripping, tasting the flavour of

Arthur remembered a YouTube video. "Use a garden hose," the man with too many teeth had said. "Ram it up there." Arthur rammed. He turned the tap to full. For ten glorious seconds, nothing happened. Then the pipe shuddered, made a noise like a bear giving birth, and a geyser of black, leaf-infused water shot out of the top of the pipe, directly into his face. Defeated, Arthur went inside and called his neighbour,

Arthur did. As the hot water hit the cold sludge, Gladys gave three sharp, angry pumps with the plunger. POP.

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 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.