Home DIY

That reminds me of a situation we had in a 6-bed shared flat in Clapton a few years back. The shower room was converted from a corner of one of the bedrooms (they were all huge rooms).

We used to get electric shocks from our non-electric shower - but it was difficult to work out why, and sometimes they wouldn't happen at all. For some reason whoever had the last shower of the morning always got the worst shock - in fact it took a while for us to convince the early riser of the flat that there was anything wrong. Eventually the shocks became more and more frequent and powerful, til they started tripping the circuit breaker. I developed a knack of showering without touching the taps. The landlord sent his hapless handyman round many times but could never work out what the problem was. Eventually the shower started leaking into the living room below, and after having patched it up a number of times the ceiling fell down. At this point we insisted that the landlord get the shower properly sealed rather than just splurging another load of silicon round the edge again.

When the workmen came round to rip out all the tiles I heard a scream from upstairs and all the lights went out. The workmen walked out and refused to return. Evidently when the shower room was created, the shower cubicle had been placed where there had once been a socket. The socket had been removed but the backbox and all the wiring had just been tiled over. As the shower had leaked more and more, the wall became damp and had been conducting electricity back up the wall to the shower taps, which was then giving us all a dose of 240v. The damper the wall was, the worse the shocks got - hence the later showerers getting a nastier shock. anyway the wiring was all ripped out and made good when the new shower was put in.

We could have reported the LL to the council I suppose, but in the end managed to use the incriminating info to keep our rent frozen for 5 years just as Clapton was becoming very expensive.