Toilet Troubles

This home has a strange address. It is on one street, but its address is another street. I think that the road planning department of the city changed the route of the road at the last minute, but this lot had already been designated a street address. I was forewarned, but had I not been, I would never have found it. Good thing I did because we did, over several years, completely re-decorate this house, several parts of it several times. When we were all done, they went on a short vacation and when they returned, they found their house flooded. Apparently a toilet had broken, one of those old Crane* toilets, and the house was flooded on one end. With the insurance paying the tab, we did it all over again. Then, a year later, another toilet gave way, this time on the other end of the house. Again, insurance covered it. Each time, we enjoyed the company of these people very much. She was into home made soups and we had lunch with them almost every day. He was a retired reporter for the Vancouver Province and was an interesting fellow to talk to. Years later they retired to an upscale townhouse and we went there for a consultation, but due to health problems that she developed, we never did work for them again.

* Crane, the famous maker of toilets, had a disgruntled chemist who was the only one who knew the secret formula for the clay mixture that comprised the bowl and water closet of their toilets. He was let go and took his formula with him. Crane continued to produce toilets with what they thought was the right formula. As it turned out, when these water closets (the tank on the back of a toilet) were exposed to the right conditions, the clay composition, even thought it has been baked, 'torqued' and would either explode apart, or crack badly enough to spew water in all directions. There were many law suits and much damage paid by Crane before all those defective toilets were finally tracked down and replaced. I know that it provided us with a lot of work for a few years.