And the rain it raineth

I mentioned my dampness problem. Well I now have a trench of at least 50 metres dug in the neighbour’s garden waiting for my plastic drainage pipes to be laid.
There seems to be no town drainage manhole at my property, only a household waste drain pipe and inspection chamber, so my water will splash out onto the pavement. Or rather I should say the rainwater of 5 properties which seems to flow past the back of my house. Hopefully I will be able to get these people to contribute some money towards the works. My foreman has a friend who works in the DDA? Whom he hopes will come and have a look at the situation and advise on what can be done to make them recuperate their own water instead of it all draining my way.
I took a series of videos of the rain that we had last week which shows exactly where the water comes from and where it ends up.
The studio is nearly finished, with just the removal of tools and bags of cement to be done before I do the final cleanup. Of course, the fact that my almost completed garden shed cannot be used as secure storage due to Mr Bricolage’s crap service means that this is now a real problem. I don’t fancy lugging it all upstairs to my flat.
I also had a man from TRYBA (a windows/doors firm with a superior quality product) here and Madame will be getting a new front and back door/window combo sometime in September. The theory is that I should get a 40% rebate on the windows (not the installation) in 2010. I would do the front door too, but this would not be classed as a door/window and would cost almost as much as Madame’s new twin set before the rebate. I think you could say that she is happy about her impending installation.