Refuge from Deluge

At midnight on 23rd May my half-asleep-husband drove to Manchester airport to collect my 82 year-old Nan. Although sadly tinged by the death of a friend, which she wisely said "is just something that keeps happening", her stay in Spain had been very relaxing.

Back home, as they stepped through the front door they were met by a terrible smell, described by my husband as "like something had died in there". With no evidence as to what had died or where the smell was coming from, my very tired Nan was left alone and got ready for sleep. When she got into bed, the mattress felt wet. Assuming there had been a leak (remember this was 2am) she made a bed on the lounge floor and, exhausted, slept until she woke in the early hours of morning feeling damp. When she stood up and her feet squelched on the carpet, she realised that there had not been a leak but a flood.

That morning we telephoned the housing association, plumber and insurance company. Then began a web of denial and mindless dodging by every official 'partner'. The plumber blamed the drains, the water company blamed the roof, the housing association blamed anyone who breathed and neighbours suggested the freezer had leaked. My Nan insisted that the water had come from inefficient drains in the street above, over the damp course and through the house.

Eventually the housing association lamely decided the water had come through the front door and a man from 200 miles away was dispatched to replace the seal. Another man from the opposite side of the country repainted her bedroom. The house still stunk and all parties retired to their respective corners to faff around and blame each other.

The faffing continued, insurance money was paid to replace the carpets, the housing association offered no help at all except denial, a door seal and paint. We waited for a carpet fitter and Nan tried to get on with life.

On 15th July my Nan's eldest brother died. This "is just something that keeps happening". Even though Nan was still living without carpets in a house which stunk like a rotting toilet, her mind was now on bigger things, losing a brother, her big caring brother, was awful. We spent a really happy morning shopping for the most elegant suit to wear to the funeral and the next week passed quickly. She seemed to be managing really well and left in stoic mind on 19th July for the funeral.

On 20th July, the day of the funeral, my husband and I were summoned to my Nan's house to check the damage caused by yet another flood.

When we got there the water had receded but the house was still very wet, this time, unlike last, water was still inside and it was obvious it had gone right through all the rooms. Not really knowing what to do first we raised as much furniture as possible and commandeered plastic boxes from everywhere, filling them with anything which could be damaged by the damp. After an exhausting day we went home and scrubbed ourselves until we shone, the smell pervaded every bit of our skin and clothes.

The next day at 10am an elderly friend of my Nan called to say 'it' had happened yet again. We shrugged our weary shoulders, pulled on wellies and laughed about how 'it' couldn't possibly have happened again and how this particularly lovely man seems to exaggerate every situation to maximum effect.

Driving the 10-minute journey to my Nan's house we laughed about how we were taking cameras and buckets to witness a puddle.

Nothing could have been farther from the truth, when we got there I was forced to misquotedly point out that John Donne was wrong when he said 'no bungalow is an island'. The bungalow was in fact, along with its attached neighbour, an island. Water lapped over the doors, plants floated by, and the bird table sat sadly in the centre of the newly-created mere. Knowing where paths lay, we managed to tiptoe past the half-submerged shed to the front door without the water getting into our boots. As I pushed the door open a teabag floated down the hall toward the kitchen.

In these situations a kind of odd fascination comes over me, I took loads of photos which have proved valuable to insurers and those 'partners' in denial about what happened.

On that day my Nan, in fact, the rest of my whole family were travelling 200 miles westwards back from the funeral. I had been left behind to look after family dogs and so found myself in sole charge of the soggy mess.

After pondering for a couple of hours, lifting up precious antique furniture, rescuing clothes, reeling from the smell and getting cross with the estate manager who still insisted the water had come through the door, I decided to call in the fire brigade; I had only not done this earlier because a neighbour had said 'they won't come unless it's two feet high...' After the initial shock and able to emotionally detach myself a little, I realised that I should call the fire service and find out the real answer. Within fifteen minutes they appeared with waders, pumps and offers of practical help.

As the pumps were being set up, a posse of elderly neighbours gathered to disagree the cause and look in wonder at the spectacle. A call came on my mobile from Nan she was on her way, how was the house? I come from the school of not making people suffer by telling them things they can do nothing about, so at this point she had not been told that there had been a third repeat performance. I did say that there had been more flooding but that it was under control - sitting in a car floating in 'what ifs' does no one any good.

After a worried night at my mums, she was in the car, ten minutes away. You must imagine the scene, around twenty pensioners, ten fireman, water company officials and various 'partners' were all gathered outside watching the latest episode of 'You've been Flooded'. My job was to politely get rid of all the bystanders, it felt very rude to be saying 'I know it's interesting but can you just go inside so that when Nan arrives you are not all gathered around, I think it will make it much more upsetting'. Apart from when the mobility scooters have been turned up to number eleven I have never seen those lovely older people move so fast.

The uniting family emotion between the five of us (my mum and aunt, myself and my husband and nan) that day was disbelief. Every new bag of photos we found stuck together and every small wet thing which had been carefully stowed in a safe place brought another sad sigh. We spent hours baling out water in dustpans and buckets, mops and brooms, as we baled out it seemed to come back in under skirting boards and up through the floor. Outside was still 8 inches deep and the fire service had confirmed that the water contained sewage.

That first mega-flood day went past in a blur. It is a massive tribute to my Nan that she didn't crumple, remember she had just lost her brother and now on the face of it everything in her home had been damaged or ruined.

The sighing continued for another week as we returned to the house to clear up and meet with surveyors, water officials and loss adjusters. This process was exhausting and aggravating as once again no one could agree not only about who was at fault (if anyone) but who should remedy the problem.

The clearing has gone on now for four weeks and work has begun to re-lay floors. Finally all parties have agreed that the water did indeed rush down from the street above when the inadequate drains could not cope. As the bungalow is on a private estate, we wait and wait to see who will agree to responsibility for the drain repairs. We wait with baited breath and pray for no more heavy rain whilst work continues to put things right inside the house, after all without better drains 'it' will all happen again...

After an initial week of spare-room hopping, this will be my Nan's third week in a hotel which, although warm and reasonably comfortable is not home and only provides breakfast leaving her in a position where she must eat out every day. It sounds luxurious but is creating a very unhappy lady who still has to face eventually returning to her home knowing she has lost so many treasured possessions and is, in effect having to start again. She has transformed from a happy lady with many subjects of conversation to one disillusioned by the lack of help from the officials she felt should care and obsessed by what will happen next and how she will manage.

Miraculously after weeks of no help, when a letter from our local MP was sent and the word 'solicitor' was mentioned, we finally saw things moving a bit faster. If the problem with drains had been dealt with in May when this first happened, if only all officials had not written off the wisdom of a 'silly old woman', it could have cost so much less in time, possessions, emotions and energy.

Our whole family has become embroiled in the problems: we love our mother/grandmother so we are comforters, carers, meal providers, letter writers, emailers, and bashing posts when things do not go well. It sounds mean but it is so hard to deal with so many different officials all of whom pass responsibility to each other and we all feel every single day as if we are encroaching upon the life of a normally independent woman.

A flood sounds so benign and when we see TV images of people happily employing the 'blitz spirit' we see only the surface. The depth of the problems is much more complex. In comparison to those whose houses will never be re-inhabited, this story will eventually have a happy ending, through terrible sadness and the sense of loss it has caused we have learned a lot. We think daily about others who have experienced this and will always understand more about how much a home means and how wise an older person can be.