He finished his coffee, grabbed his drain rods and the electric eel—a vicious-looking coiled spring with tungsten-carbide cutting blades—and headed out.
Frank got back in his van. He sat for a moment, looking at the sycamore tree at the end of the street. Its roots were down there right now, blindly, patiently reaching for the next crack. His job wasn’t to win the war. It was to perform a little emergency surgery, buy some time, and move on to the next blocked drain in Wakefield. He started the engine, the van vibrating through the morning drizzle, and headed off toward another address, another weeping pipe, another silent, subterranean invasion.
She handed him a folded check and a custard cream. “Thank you, love. You’re a lifesaver.” drain root cutting wakefield
Frank grunted. Roots. The word was a curse in Wakefield. The city’s old Victorian clay pipes were a labyrinth beneath the streets, and the sycamore and willow trees that lined the avenues had a malicious sense of direction. They could smell the warm, nutrient-rich water leaking through a hairline crack from fifty feet away.
Twenty minutes later, he heard it—the glorious, satisfying gloop of a blockage clearing. Water rushed through the pipe, carrying the last of the debris away. He ran the camera down to inspect. The cut was clean. A circular tunnel now ran through the heart of the root mass, wide enough for waste to pass. But the roots themselves were still there, alive, clinging to the outside of the pipe. They’d be back. They always came back. He finished his coffee, grabbed his drain rods
“All done,” he said. “Flush the loo a couple times. Should be fine for another year, maybe two.”
“Right, Mrs. Hartley,” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “Time to give this drain a haircut.” Its roots were down there right now, blindly,
Frank nodded. He’d heard that story a hundred times. The unsung heroes of Wakefield, the Harolds with their makeshift rods and their stubborn pride, keeping the roots at bay. Now it was his job.
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