("Water Cooler" forum indeed!) Early in the century my wife's nephew stayed with us for two years while he attended college nearby. His tuition and related academic expenses were paid by indulgent grandparents, and we provided the room and board gratis (he dropped out ten units shy of graduation). He was much given to marathon showers, which would last for as long as the hot water held out. One afternoon, in the course of a spot of garden maintenance, I detected the sound of splashing water from beneath the walkway that ran beside the house on its long axis. There was a gap between the concrete and the ground, and the sound was coming from this.

Excavation—that is to say, breaking up the walkway outside the kitchen door—disconcertingly revealed that water rendered unpotable by various means was all leaving the house via a soil pipe that, emerging from the structure just above ground, took a ninety-degree bend, plunged beneath the earth's surface...and terminated into a cavern a foot later. We had been operating an unlicensed leach field for four years.

Oddly, it wasn't anything like as foul and disgusting as you might think: there were some kinda vigorous organic transformations going on in that vast, dark pit, and the contents were a material the color and consistency of refried black beans, smelling more like forest soil than like shit, and shot through with what seemed like hundreds of slender pink worms per cubic inch.

Apart from the sanitary issues there were obviously some structural concerns, so the problem had to be addressed. I decided to dig down to the sewer lateral, and spent the entire following day on the attempted excavation. When I was a lad in school, my parents would exhort me to study hard lest I end up a "ditch digger." By the end of that day (having failed to uncover the lateral—I subsequently learned that I hadn't even got particularly close to it) I appreciated their concern.

Ultimately we drew upon the services of professionals ("Call the man," my boss advised me), who determined that the original clay lateral (the house was built in 1908) was shattered and discontiguous for most of its length. It was intact beginning just above where the line from the downstairs unit, my wife's home office, connected, so as we passed the next week with the water turned off on the main floor, we had one working toilet downstairs. Mind you, at the latter stages of the replacement project, a night time visit to the Little Room involved exiting the house via the main door, heading down the long steps, crossing the front of the house, clambering over a yard-high mound of earth and traversing a ledge-like lip of concrete to get to the downstairs entrance. Made me realize that I wouldn't do well in a refugee camp.

The operation, in addition to being rather costly, required a permit from the city, and part of that process involved having a city inspector sign off on the work. This appointment was duly arranged and, the work being finished on time—all over except for filling in the trench—we waited for the inspector. And waited. And waited. After two hours (and having called the city repeatedly, being assured each time that the inspector's arrival was imminent) I contacted my rep on the Oakland City Council; got voicemail; recorded plaintive plea for help. I did not hear back from her, but within half an hour the permit office was calling me. "Is he there yet? Is he there yet?" Ultimately the head of the department showed up, glanced at the work, signed the papers and shined my shoes. God, I miss Councilwoman Nadel!

Anyway, I hope you emerge from the ordeal quickly and without breaking the bank.

cordially,