With under three weeks until I leave Brazil for another 6 months my neighbour dropped a bombshell on me! I have been here over 5 months, but he only tells me this now. My sewage pipes run under his property (they have been there since his father built the house, which I bought from him over 7 years ago) and he is planning to built there so I need to relocate them. Unfortunately there is no way I can re-connect to the main sewage pipe (though this is an untreated system) without crossing his property, so my only option is to build a septic tank somewhere on my land. I am more than a little annoyed as over 2 years ago a worker clearing his garden fractured my pipe, and we discussed it at the time and he assured me it was fine to leave the pipe in place as he would never build where it was located, so I paid for it to be repaired!
After 5 days trying to find someone who would construct a septic tank for me (in under 2 weeks!) yesterday evening I finally succeeded! I had to leap out in front of a motorbike ridden by the man who was supposed to come and see me about it at lunchtime the previous day to achieve this - he brought another man round later who will do the job for me.
He kept saying "o senhor sabe o que queres" - "you know what you want", but I kept saying "no, I don't , that why I need you to tell me what I need", and eventually he told me what I needed (the guy who brought him works for the Water Company so between them they worked it out!), and quoted a price ... to dig the hole! I told him I needed a quote for the complete job, explaining also about the time constraint, and I wanted a completed tank, connected up to my house waste pipes. More discussion between them and a revised price, but this excludes any materials - something I find strange is that when you employ any workman here he just charges you for his labour and expertise (well, you assume he has some of the latter!), but everything else you have to order and pay for separately, when I would have thought that he could work a deal with the Builders' Merchant so he collects the discount as well! I know that they will always quote "Gringo" prices, but if I am happy with the quote I never haggle as it is always a fraction of what you would pay "back home" and a lot of the time is probably too low as Maths is not a strong point here - by agreeing to their original price it is unlikely they will come back and try and renegotiate later (and I had a witness this time too!), and generates some goodwill too. We shook on it and he agreed to come back this morning.
8.30 he appears with a "mate", who is a builder, but no tools, and say they are going to measure up and mark it out and start the following day. I say I will need a list of materials so I can make sure they are delivered in good time and they start by saying I need "half a load" of sand (wonder if that will be collected from our river?) and another "half load" of "xarem" (not sure of the spelling, and have no idea what it might be!) - apparently I won't need that much but they only deliver a "half load", or a "full load"! I ask them if they will order that and I will pay for it on arrival, as I have no idea who to order from anyway! We will need some plastic pipes later, but for now they ask me to order 300 bricks and 3 bags of cement, which I do after they leave.
I show them where I think will be a good place for the tank, but explain that I will rely on their expertise in the matter if this location is unsuitable (I want my kitchen waste to also be connected to this so this does limit the location options too as my property is on a steep slope), but they say I have chosen well. First thing they ask if I have something they can clear the area with, like a mattock, so I fetch that, then they ask if I have a machete, so they can cut a measuring stick, and finally ask for some rope so they can measure a circle. The irony of 2 workmen arriving and having to ask for tools is not lost on me! The builder "mate" finally marks out a circle, and they tell me the original guy will be back tomorrow to start, and he assures me it will all be finished by Sunday, which is 4 days away (though I am taking that with a huge pinch of salt!).
Will update this as it progresses.
Circumstances made me move to Brazil in 2009, and I spent 6 months of the year there, and the remaining time in Peru, until 2020 when the Covid hit, trapping me in Peru for 14 months, before I managed to return to the UK, where I now reside permanently. I see the world through slightly rose-tinted glasses, but maybe because I have been fortunate in not suffering too many hardships along the way, and maintaining an optimistic, but realistic outlook on life.
I realise that I never followed up on this post, but the work was completed on time and I have a functioning septic tank, though I do have concerns that it will "fill up" and then how I get it emptied here, despite their assurances it would last a lifetime!
ReplyDeleteWhat bothers me a good deal more, though, is that the neighbour who insisted I move my sewage pipes from his property as he was going to start building "imminently" has done nothing to that part of his land yet, and it is now 9 months since he pressured me to get the job done "with urgency". I always try and do "the right thing" by everyone, but find I get taken advantage of - a lot - so maybe I need to get tough and start asserting my rights more.