Our top tip for moving into a newly refurbished home would definitely be to make sure, preferably before you use your new bathroom, that you have remembered to connect it to the sewer!

So it was, 48 hours before we moved in, that we found ourselves at the smallholder’s hovel casually cleaning, snagging and dreaming where our furniture would go. As we gazed around outside the front door I idly remarked that I couldn’t remember when the trench had gone in to connect the new front bathroom to the original sewer running across the front of the property.

We laughed nervously. Obviously no-one could forget such a thing, after all there was a shiny new sewer for the new services around the back of the house, complete with new manholes.

And that was when it hit, that cold sinking feeling of certainty when the seagull’s shit lands firmly on your head, which would not have been inappropriate in the circumstances. Yes, there was no new manhole in the front, we were not connected.

Fortunately the builder was there in the pouring rain on the day we moved in rectifying the problem and within 48 hours we could safely use the front bathroom as well as the rear shower room. And at least we had spotted it before the job had become altogether more messy!