Stupid pipes

What kind of moron lays a kitchen sewer pipe only centimetres below the ground under a garden bed? The kind of moron that built my townhouse, is who.

After attending external orientation school for my latest external degree (a complete and utter waste of time, let me tell you - 16 hours to go through the study guide, explain assessment and explain how to use a website? huh? What sort of idiots do they think we are that we can't read that stuff at home, like I already had?), I came home today and thought, "bugger doing any more studying, I might plant my herb garden now that I've got some time."

I picked a bare spot near the kitchen window, and set about with my pick digging up the garden bed, so that I could fertilise and what not before I replanted my herbs (which are currently still in pots from the last place).

I dug up some rotten tree roots, and when I hit something unyielding towards the back of the bed, I thought it must have been another tree root. I got the pick out and moved towards the front. I hit what I thought was yet another tree root, but this time I wasn't going to let it get the better of me. I pulled the pick out and plunged it in again. As I rocked it back, I heard an odd snapping sound. It didn't sound like a tree branch.

I got my little hand shovel and dug around where I'd been using the pick. And came across a pvc pipe with a rather large hole in it. Oh crap. I ran inside and turned on the kitchen tap (and in my haste left the door open, which resulted in my kitten getting out and me having to chase him around the garden to get him back inside before he got splatted on the road). I watched the hole in the pipe, and sure enough, there was water running through it. I'd just put a great big hole in the kitchen sewer pipe.

I dug further along the pipe to see if I'd hit it anywhere else, of course, the tree root I thought I'd hit earlier was also the pipe. I wondered how I could fix it, or whether it was even possible. I cut a plastic water bottle in half and put it over the hole and duct taped it in place, and did the same with the other hole. It looked like it might have worked, but then I decided I'm going to be here for a year, and I don't want to deal with sewage backing up through the sink, or whatever other problems might arise in future, and it was best to just get it fixed while it was exposed.

24 hour plumbers are very expensive on Sundays.

But even they said there is no way it should be so shallow under the ground. It is literally only about 2cm under the ground. Ridiculous. So now I'm going to put pavers over the top of it and make a little path, so that no one else ends up putting their pick or shovel through it. To make me feel better, the plumber pointed out that someone else had done it before, because there was a joiner on the piece of pipe he took out. So at least I'm not the only fool who's decided to plant a garden there and come unstuck.