I nearly forgot to ask "that" question

Trying not to work over the holiday, but when an old customer phones and says things are tripping and the freezer is off, I took pity.

N-E short on shower, N-E short on cooker, L-E short on hall light.

Okay just what have you been doing recently.  Sheepish pause.  "I fixed the squeaking floorboard on the landing"   101 extra screws, 5 of which punctured cables.

wonder how many pipes were hit too?

but if you had asked at the start, they would have said nothing anyway, only suddenly remembering what theyve done after youve pointed to the screw in the cable

Its scary ... I wouldn't want to put a screw in any board without either great care or lifting it to have a peek.  

We were rewiring a flat once ,  been there just long enough to open the tool boxes  , set the depth on the new saw to take out the tongue  & groove ,  owner brought two cuppas  before leaving for work ,  after cutting 2 ft  ,   straight through a heating pipe  which was jammed against the underside of the boards.   

Long story short

My mates a carpet fitter

went to finish off a job on the Monday 

been there on friday

nailing down thresholds

owner screams "turn water off its flooding"

went downstairs

water everywhere but not near where he was working

starts taking floor up

owners wife returns

'whats happening?"

my mate explains

woman goes crazy mental

shouts her husband and withdraws his bonking rights for the rest of his life , which at this stage it was looking to be quite short!!!

he had nailed a loose board at weekend, hit a pipe, turned water off. Turned it back on when he heard my mate hammering and tried to blame him

,mate demanded full,payment in cash immediately.....then walked

carpets not finished, floors up, water everywhere 

A mate rang me late one night, could he borrow my plumbing stuff? Short answer, no, he couldn't, it turned out his sisters boyfriend was helping out at the parents house, he was trying to create a good impression with the future mother-in -law and had been doing jobs around the house for weeks, painting, decorating and so on, all that was left was to lay the new cushionfloor in the bathroom, but, the MIL asked, would he nail down the loose board first, her hubby had never done it and it had been loose since the new boiler was fitted a couple of years ago.

The board was soon secured with the aid of a few nails, and an hour later they were all sat in the kitchen having a well deserved drink, the floor was laid and everybody agred it looked fantastic, then they noticed it was raining! it wouldn't have been bad, but it was raining in the kitchen.

I went round and immediately smelled gas, shut everything down and proceeded to lift the floor, the lad had managed to hit almost everything, ch flow, ch return, cold in, hot out, gas, in fact the only thing he'd missed was the power feed!

If only he'd lifted the loose board first and looked, he'd have saved a lot of hassle.