Fixing a Blocked Drain with The Electric Eel!

I asked Bruno, the plumber, to attend to a blocked drain at a well-known food shop in Bondi as I was on crutches and could not do so myself.

Whilst Bruno was fixing the blocked drain he rang me to say that he couldn’t get the electric eel out of the drain pipe and could I come and help.  My wife (who was 8 months pregnant at the time) drove me to the site and I limped in and found Bruno with the electric eel over an access drain with the eel cables stuck fast!

“What happened” I asked. Bruno said, “The eel cables just kept going in, so I kept on putting them in”.

“How much cable is in that hole”? I asked. “About 45 feet” (15 metres) he replied!

“How far to the blocked toilet”? I asked”  “About 10 feet” he replied!  I cringed!

I held on to my crutches and tried to help Bruno drag that electric eel out of that pipe. It wouldn’t budge!

Fortunately for us, the house behind the shop was vacant …. except for the “beast” that had been unleashed in the bathroom. The extra 35 feet of eel had come out through the back of the toilet, done a complete circuit of the small bathroom, then out the door and down the hallway towards the kitchen. The spinning action of the eel had allowed it to grab the old carpet hall runner in a “death roll”. When we had tried to wrestle the eel from the pipe, the old carpet had got stuck fast!

We were of course able to salvage the situation, had the carpet cleaned, replaced the loo and successfully cleared the blockage.

Some 12 years later when I have a coffee with Bruno (who now has his own very successful plumbing business) and we laugh about our daily plumbing lives, telling those gathered about the dangers of the electric eel, Bruno still blushes and says “David, it’s just The Nature of The Beast“!

Plumbing Tip: Don’t keep putting your resources into a black hole!

https://www.thelonedrainerandpronto.com.au/plumbing_services.php


Comments are closed.