Don't Question the Experts.

I used to have a problem in this house. Every time there was rain driven on a southerly wind, my bedroom wall got wet patches. Sometimes they were so bad that the water would run under the skirting board and wet the carpet. Since it’s a rented house, I called the landlord. He sent the builders in.

They came and looked, and decided some re-pointing work was necessary. The work was done, but the problem persisted. I called the landlord again and he sent the builders back.

They decided that the window frame needed a fresh injection of mastic. They did the work, but the problem still persisted. I called the landlord again, and he sent an architect over.

The architect turned up wearing the uniform of the professional person. (Have you noticed that professional persons are as immediately recognisable as Mormon missionaries?) Anyway, he looked the part, and I was immediately suspicious. He explained to me that the problem wasn’t as simple as it seemed. Such problems have three stages, he said. First there’s the point at which the water gets through the wall, then there’s the route the water takes through the wall, then there’s the type of plaster on the inside which affects the way the wall deals with the water.

All the time he was telling me this he was giving me a quizzical look, suggesting some degree of uncertainty on his part as to whether or not I was being taken in by it. I wasn’t. I suggested that if point number one was taken care of, points numbers two and three would surely have no relevance. He avoided the question. He was the expert and in command of the esoteric wisdom in such matters. I was merely an uninformed peasant who should take his exoteric ramblings as gospel.

A few weeks later he turned up again, with a different builder in tow. They looked knowingly at the wall.

‘Well, that’s got to come down,’ said the builder, pointing to an old TV aerial bolted to a wooden spar that juts out of the eave.

‘Oh, definitely,’ said the architect.

It was patently obvious that the aerial had no bearing whatsoever on the water problem.

‘It’ll need scaffolding,’ continued the builder. ‘We’ll have to re-point the whole wall.’

‘How long will the scaffolding be up?’ I asked.

‘About eight or nine days.’

The architect explained that a special type of mortar was needed. Ordinary stuff just wouldn’t do.

I didn’t fancy being inundated with builders and inconvenienced by scaffolding for eight or nine days, and so I did some investigations of my own. It took me a matter of minutes to discover that the bottom part of my bedroom window frame on the outside was rotten. There was a gap there that would easily let water in. I called the landlord and told him what I’d found. ‘Hold the builder,’ I said. ‘Get a joiner to replace the bottom of the window frame.’ And so he did. No more wet walls. No more experts.