Years ago (before I'd done any DIY!) I lived in a shared house and we had a useless (cheap skate) landlady...
If some one had a shower (over bath) water poured out of the downlighters in the kitchen below...(landlady told us to push old towels up around the lights!!!) - after a couple of attempts by her uncle to sort it out - the downstairs loo and then kitchen ceiling came down (in the middle of the night which woke us up. We thought someone had broken in or something...found out one of my flatmates had a baseball bat under his bed
)
She employed someone to sort it out but midway through she had a massive fight with him - he seemed to think it was a bigger job than she did - a little while later the kitchen ceiling was damp again...
Not wanting to go through any more hassle with her I decided to have a look at it myself ...found the bath was loosely pushed up against the tiles - with a 5 mm+ gap - my dad suggested I could try filling the gap/securing it with expanding foam and then silicone on top ....
Decided the best time to do it was when everyone was away - Christmas. I thought put the foam in on Christmas Eve, silicone Christmas morning - and then head off to my family for a few days...
I was due to work from 6pm to midnight on Christmas Eve - started in the afternoon and realised how difficult it was to remove old silicone...running out of time and without reading the instructions properly on the can I started applying the foam - it went everywhere - the gloves were covered and so I took them off and realised that I had it on my hands and my fingers were sticking together....read the can -nail varnish remover would be very handy -but I didn't have any ...can was sticking to my hand - tried to phone the help line - which had closed at 5pm - and wasn't due to reopen till the new year...phone was sticking to my hands - thought talcum powder might be a good idea but couldn't find any - so covered my hands in flour...(worked - kind of) Spent the next couple of weeks picking huge hard lumps off my hands... and had to work that evening (as a chef) in rubber gloves
BTW It did work - I finished the foam after work, siliconed it christmas morning and while I lived there (another 3 or 4 yrs) never caused a problem ...
Sadly though that isn't the stupidest thing I've done - a wee while later a lump of gloss paint splashed up onto my eyelash - I ignored it until my eye started sticking together - completely panicking I tried to get rid of it - by wiping it with white spirits - at the eye A&E they said that the white spirits was far worse than the paint...
If some one had a shower (over bath) water poured out of the downlighters in the kitchen below...(landlady told us to push old towels up around the lights!!!) - after a couple of attempts by her uncle to sort it out - the downstairs loo and then kitchen ceiling came down (in the middle of the night which woke us up. We thought someone had broken in or something...found out one of my flatmates had a baseball bat under his bed
)She employed someone to sort it out but midway through she had a massive fight with him - he seemed to think it was a bigger job than she did - a little while later the kitchen ceiling was damp again...
Not wanting to go through any more hassle with her I decided to have a look at it myself ...found the bath was loosely pushed up against the tiles - with a 5 mm+ gap - my dad suggested I could try filling the gap/securing it with expanding foam and then silicone on top ....
Decided the best time to do it was when everyone was away - Christmas. I thought put the foam in on Christmas Eve, silicone Christmas morning - and then head off to my family for a few days...
I was due to work from 6pm to midnight on Christmas Eve - started in the afternoon and realised how difficult it was to remove old silicone...running out of time and without reading the instructions properly on the can I started applying the foam - it went everywhere - the gloves were covered and so I took them off and realised that I had it on my hands and my fingers were sticking together....read the can -nail varnish remover would be very handy -but I didn't have any ...can was sticking to my hand - tried to phone the help line - which had closed at 5pm - and wasn't due to reopen till the new year...phone was sticking to my hands - thought talcum powder might be a good idea but couldn't find any - so covered my hands in flour...(worked - kind of) Spent the next couple of weeks picking huge hard lumps off my hands... and had to work that evening (as a chef) in rubber gloves
BTW It did work - I finished the foam after work, siliconed it christmas morning and while I lived there (another 3 or 4 yrs) never caused a problem ...
Sadly though that isn't the stupidest thing I've done - a wee while later a lump of gloss paint splashed up onto my eyelash - I ignored it until my eye started sticking together - completely panicking I tried to get rid of it - by wiping it with white spirits - at the eye A&E they said that the white spirits was far worse than the paint...
