Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

Crime and nourishment

Melissa Kite discusses the Real Life

issue 02 February 2008

Despite efforts not to be superstitious, I am much obsessed by the idea of disaster seepage. That is to say, when one thing goes wrong, a hundred others usually follow.

So it was that a leaking roof segued seamlessly last week into blocked drains, a broken catflap and a stolen mobile phone.

Have you noticed how we don’t have rain any more? Hence Britain was in the grip of seasonal flash flooding — much more terrifying — when my living-room ceiling emitted the first ‘plip’. It wasn’t long before the plip turned to a plop then a splat, then an ‘oh my god the roof’s coming in I’ll be homeless by the morning is the building even insured where did I put that renewal letter?’

Tony the odd-job man confirmed my worst fears: ‘You’ve definitely got some sort of leak.’

I knocked on the door of the upstairs flat and asked my twentysomething neighbour if she had experienced any unusual water occurrences.

Incredible as it may seem, she uttered the words, ‘How will I tell if I’ve got a leak?’ At which point I may have said, ‘Stand aside, I’m coming in.

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