Master that Disaster! Share your home woes + win £200 of John Lewis vouchers

121 thoughts on “Master that Disaster! Share your home woes + win £200 of John Lewis vouchers”

1. My oven microwave and steamer all broke within 2 weeks of each other!! I’ve so far coped with salads noodles from a kettle and good friends inviting me for dinner whilst I’m waiting for the oven to arrive!

   1. How lovely your friend’s sound.

2. Leaking mains water pipe, it was like a fountain spraying everywhere so – put the garden hose on it and pumped water outside until a plumber arrived.

3. I accidentally nailed through a water pipe when laying bedroom carpet!

4. I left the bath filling while I just went to check my emails. Fatal!
   My husband called upstairs and asked the reason why the cat might be having drips landing on his head when he was asleep in his basket!

5. I tried to wallpaper last year for the first time like a fool bought some very expensive wallpaper. I took my time and thought I’d done very well on the first wall until my husband came home from work and told me I had put it on upside down

6. We ordered a new sofa, problem was getting the old one out! I knew the delivery date that the new sofa was due to arrive, so the day before, my husband attempted to get the old one out. – It was quite large and was a nightmare to get in to the house when we moved in.
   It got completely wedged in the doorway and after an hour of failed attempts he decided he needed to give it a bit of a helping hand and broke it a bit!
   He made me take a photo of him on it before he completely chopped it up ……. THEN I double checked the new sofa delivery date and realised I had got it wrong by 2 weeks!!
   He wasn’t very happy with me but we did have a giggle about it later.
   I have just tweeted you using @annnanna1945 my mum’s twitter account with a photo to go along side this story.

7. We have had a few home disasters! One was when we decided to change our bedroom furniture round. This was in the 80’s and a our two wardrobes had been from self-assembly kits. My husband started to move one, it was very heavy, but not very well put together. The sides of the wardrobe started to move to the left so my husband tried to straighten them upright but then they moved to the right and then the whole thing collapsed in a heap on the floor. All the hinges and joints had broken and we ended up having to throw it away. I can laugh about it now but at the time we hadn’t got much money so it was a big deal.

8. Boiler burst and led to gushing water through the ceiling! Blessing in disguise since it fell on to a revolting green carpet that thankfully had to be replaced.

9. We had a new bathroom fitted between Christmas and New Year and on New Years Eve the tap sheared off the bath with spurting water coming from it. We had no option but to turn off the water in the house and wait until the company reopened, this turned out to be a week later as they close for a week at new year 🙁 So we spent the first week of the year living at my Mum and Dads!!!

10. When I first got my own place, I was having trouble with a downstairs toilet not stopping. I decided to turn off the water supply to the toilet until someone could come in. The valve broke off, and water started spraying. Over a room that was oddly carpeted. I had my mother come over to help me turn off the water main, which wasn’t turning off for me. We ended up having my retired plumber grandfather come over, and he couldn’t get it to turn off. So we had to have a plumber make an emergency call, and he had problems because the valve was so old. The joys of an old house.

11. When we moved into our new home, we were advised to get home insurance but as you know moving is a stressful event and completely slipped my mind…..3 days after we moved in, 1 day after out new ‘whole downstairs wooden flooring’ had been laid…..the pipe under the sink which had been ‘botched’ together sprung a leak…..it got under the flooring and we didn’t notice….until the flooring in the hall started to squelch when we walked on it!!! The water had started to really spread throughout!! The only thing to do was take up ALL the flooring as far as the water had spread and clean it up, sort the leak and hope the flooring would dry evenly!! A few pieces ‘warped’ luckily we had bought an extra few boxes as the line was being discontinued and we wanted to have spares as the nearest place to buy anymore was in Spain!! Needless to say my first port of call after that was to get home insurance….that was 4 years 7 months ago and I am pleased to say that I’ve never had to use the insurance….so far!!

12. My biggest home woe was getting burgled whilst on honeymoon in 2014! We went to our hotel room on the third day of our safari and found three missed calls from my parents so I knew something was up. They had got a call from my neighbour saying there was a break in:( We had to fly home and face it! It was awful they had even taken some of my shoes 🙁 but thankfully insurance covered what was stolen and they paid for a new honeymoon which we took last year!

    1. How awful! Have a wonderful second honeymoon x

13. I recently tried to put up a curtain pole in my sons bedroom. Unfortunately we have really odd walls that are filled with an eggbox type of insulation. The screws went into the walls and i thought i had done a great job 🙂 unfortunately 2am the next morning when the curtain pole fell out taking the plaster from the wall with it my son did not agree!!!

14. Putting Christmas decorations in the loft, missed my step and put my foot through the roof, made it worse by trying to plaster the hole myself, lucky my wife found the funny side of it

15. In our shared house at Uni my clueless friend decided to “boil” an egg in the microwave – after a few seconds the microwave door blew open and scrambled egg decorated the kitchen walls!! Not quite an insurance incident but very funny at the time

    1. That made me giggle out loud

16. We came home after a holiday to a loud buzzing sound, we had an infestation of cluster flies around the whole house! We didn’t need to claim on the insurance but they have left black marks on our carpets.

    1. Ewh! Poor you

17. My worst domestic crisis was when I got up in the middle of the night to visit the bathroom. I had to walk through the kitchen to get there and found that I was paddling through water. The way I coped was to shout for my husband who got up and quicklyy realised that the washing machine had sprung a leak. He calmly turned the water off at the mains (I didn’t even know where the stop cock was!) and we spent the next few hours lifting the carpet, putting it outside to dry and sweeping the water out through the black door. Luckily our insurance covered everything but it was quite a challenge to sort everything out. I thanked our lucky stars that it was clean water though, not dirty like the poor people who had to cope with the floods.

    1. That sounds dreadful but sounds like you coped well as a team

18. Been comping now since last year and I haven’t won a thing. Would be nice to have a little shop around.

    1. I’ll keep my fingers and toes crossed.

19. Amazing competition would love to win

20. What a originally thought was damp, requiring a damp course that’s all, turned out to be the chimney stacks needing demolished and a month’s worth of plastering and brick dust and general misery in the home.

21. I gave my brother a hand fixing a leaking central heating rad. and I used the wrong sealing paste – not for compression joints apparently – His and the flats below enjoyed their own waterfalls for an afternoon. He’s never asked for my help since.

22. That’s an easy one to answer-moved into our longed for first home together and after years saving for deposit..within three weeks the roof leaked badly-and Christmas was cancelled! Still saving to get it repaired..!

23. The only one I can think of is I was sat in the lounge when all of a sudden there was a bang followed by a scream for help from the kitchen so I went into the kitchen and I couldn’t believe what she had done, My wife had gone to the fridge and took out a big tub of beans not realizing that the lid wasn’t on properly then it fell to the floor”Wow” how you can get beans from the celling to the back of the kitchen door which was open at the time then I started to clean and I had to wipe every cupboard door,wall, cooker,microwave,washing machine ect , you get the idea it took the two of us over 40mins to get the beans off everything.
    But now she checks the lids every time.the fun things that happen when you’ve been married for 25years:-)

24. I came home from work one Christmas Eve to find that my fridge-freezer had broken down and water was slowly dripping out. The water had seeped under the kitchen floor tiles and then into the living room and soaked the carpet. It was stashed full of all the yummy food I’d bought for the Christmas break. The shops were closed by now and so I couldn’t go out and replace it. We had to just eat what we could – and quickly – and my mother-in-law found room for some of the frozen food in her freezer, but some had to be thrown and I had to go and replace the fridge-freezer (and the food) as soon as the shops were open. It was just really bad timing for something like this to happen 🙁

25. A few years ago the toilet handle appeared to be a bit loose. I took the top of the toilet cistern off to tighten it up. Still don’t quite know what happened but the next thing is a jet of water hitting the ceiling, the cistern kept filling and the ballcock had snapped off. After some mopping up, sore fingers, an elastic band and an emergency plumber phone call we managed to control it. I had a sleepless night but thankfully we had another loo and it stressed the need for isolation valves to me!!

26. We went on holiday for 2 weeks leaving the builder to install a new bathroom. Unfortunately, not only di d he get our return date wrong (thinking we were away for 3 weeks) but when we got home, the bathroom was in the kitchen and we had no kitchen ceiling. A massive flood had occurred whilst he was away(!!!!!!) and he had not had time to clear up the evidence before we returned! Grrrr

27. We moved into our new place to find a huge family of bees had also set up house in the roof of our kitchen!

28. Our home seems to have lots of problems associated with plumbing and water. We have an annual insurance cover which covers emergency call out for plumbing emergencies. It definitely is worth it.
    I came downstairs one morning to find water dripping rapidly through the ceiling straight onto my brand new open laptop. Luckily after spending a few days in the airing cupboard, my laptop was miraculously ok. The leak for fixed by the emergency plumber.

29. The most ‘classic’ disaster was when my mum ‘Thor’ (she loves putting up pictures with a hammer!) decided that she wanted to hang some family portraits during a visit to my house. Hammer happy, she banged a nail into a passage wall and hit a central heating pipe! Plumber called. Hammer banned!!

30. My tip is simple: never, ever despatch a mono-syllabic teenage boy into the loft to get a box for you. I was that mono-syllabic teenage boy, and so unimpressed was I at my mother’s simple request that I stomped across the loft to get it. Unfortunately, half way to the box my stomping missed the main rafter and I half exited the loft via a new, and rather large, hole in the ceiling. Caught up in a web of cables and covered in dust, I took the time to thank God / destiny / karma / anything I pull think of for ensuring that I had landed slightly off centre when I fell astride the rafter. On the plus side, my mother took the opportunity presented by the repairs to get another loft hatch fitted. On reflection, if I win this I should probably give her the voucher…

    1. Ha ha! Your poor mum

31. My son had a shower a short while before we were due to leave on holiday, cue water dripping through the living room ceiling, ran up to him to turn it off, frantic knocking on the bathroom door. Eventually he turned it off, and I grabbed buckets and a screwdriver and punched holes in the ceiling at various points. Then went upstairs to see why it had happened – caulking had come loose around the bath, and water was going in there. Took the side panel off the bath, mopped up upstairs and down – and eventually set off on our holiday knowing that we’d be coming back to some decorating & diy in both rooms, not a very realaxing start – or end, to the holiday!!

32. two problems one was a leeking tap in the bathroom my partner disided to tape up with maskin tape what did tge water do all day?traveled across my bathroom floor in to the bedroom than night i heard dripping and yes it drilped threw the room!!!lookley we tgen turned water of he relised what he had done wrong!emergancy plummer fixed it!im not starting on the boiler!

33. The joys of living in a flat! Owner upstairs decided to fit a new washing machine and leave for the night, water was gushing through my light socket until I went upstairs and turned their water off (handy that it was in a communal place!) Cheeky blighter then even had the nerve to say it wasn’t him even though when I spoke to his new tenant she was still mopping up water from the washer!

34. I had new central heating fitted last November, and it wasn’t sealed properly, we had a leak but at the time didn’t know where it was from as there was a lot of rain fall, after weeks of workers ripping up carpets, floorboards, destroying the loft etc the kitchen ceiling completely fell through a week before Christmas! Luckily my partners best friend sorted it for us so Christmas wasn’t ruined, as we didn’t have insurance!

35. I tend to play it safe when it comes to home décor but a couple of years ago, I decided to be daring and chose a bold colour for the kitchen walls and an even bolder print for the new lino. The pattern on the lino was a kind of 3D effect and it wasn’t until it was laid that I realised I had a major problem walking on it! It totally messed with my perception and I was always tripping on it and walking into the cupboards etc. It lasted less than two weeks before I had to change it!

36. I am always having home disasters, I like to think I’m crafty and can do everything no I’m useless!! Fantastic give away!!

37. When we moved into our house it was a wreak. The whole house needed ripped apart . We actually walked away and werent going to buy .but my dad is a joiner ripped our whole house to bits and 2 months later we had a brand new house and moved in ?

38. Having a spider lay eggs under the bath in the bathroom. I hate spiders with a passion.

39. I drilled a hole in, the wall ‘to erect a doorbell’ all of a sudden there was an almighty bang and flash and the drill stopped working, as did,the lights in all 12 houses in our street. After I picked myself off the floor I noticed there was a plug point directly beneath the point I tried to drill. Not the brightest place to drill a hole!

40. We arrived home from holiday in a February morning when the uk had experienced severe frosts. The pipes in our roof had burst the water cascading down throughout the house, behind plaster under floorboards. The devastation lasted for almost a year. Industrial dehumidifiers were used to dry the house out. Every morning I saved all the water into plastic bottles. I used it for ironing water and it lasted 3 years. Every cloud has a silver lining.

41. When I moved into my house I decided to “tidy up” a few cables & wires in the front garden which didn’t seem to have any use,so I clipped & made them neat & felt very pleased with myself……….until I tried to connect to the Internet inside. Line completely dead! As a result of my tidying we were without a phone or Internet access for weeks.
    Lesson learned! Always call in the pros before tampering

42. The previous owners of our house had a shell design bathroom suite fitted complete with fish tank at the end of the bath. They had boxed in the toilet and what we did not realise is that the overflow pipe had not been connected. One night we noticed a shadow on the sitting room wall which turned out to be the water running down. The wooden flooring in the bathroom (previous owner again) lifted and warped against the tiles that it had been laid on top of. All was not lost though, in fact it might have been a blessing in disguise, the insurance company paid for the wall to be re-plastered, the ceiling sorted and we, like you, made the decision to rip out the bathroom and get a new suite.

43. We had our hall decorated, the decorator left Friday afternoon and the hall looked lovely. My daughter’s room was decorated at the same time and we were having a new carpet fitted on the Monday morning. There was a loose floorboard which my husband wanted to sort out before the carpet layers came the following day. Off he went to the bedroom armed with nails and a hammer. He works out where the pipe runs, and taking that into account puts nails around the pipe, and then FORGETS about it and sticks a nail right through it. The water pours through the newly painted ceiling beneath, and it’s a Sunday. SO, in a panic we had to call an emergency plumber!! The water stops gushing (the ceiling needed repainting!) and we sent the plumber off VERY well paid. It only came to light later in the day, we have a policy that would have sorted the problem out for us!!!!!! OUCH!!!!! Needless to say my husband’s steered clear of DIY jobs since 🙂 x

44. Our big chest freezer died whilst I was at work, when I got home everything was swimming in water… it was 2 days before Christmas and all of my Christmas dinner was drowning so I remembered what my Nan used to do with her food to keep it fresh, I filled 5 of my clothes, under-bed storage boxes with water outside in my garden and put all of the food in them and covered them with their lids, my Nan used buckets! Christmas dinner was lovely as it was so cold outside. Thanks Nan but do wish I’d had home insurance!

45. We had a lovely new shower fitted. The contractor installed the plumbing, finished all the tiling and left for the weekend. When we awoke on Saturday morning there was water running down the wall outside the bathroom and all down the stairs. My husband ran and turned the water off at the stop cock. We called the contractor but no answer. We had to get an emergency plumber in, who smashed through the new tiles to the pipes behind. There was a small leak at one of the joins in the pipes. It then turned out that there were no more tiles left on site to patch up the hole, and worse, we discovered that they had been discontinued. It took us months to find replacement tiles, during which time we had to shower with a large piece of plastic curtain taped over the missing tiles – not exactly the look we were going for. The moral of this story is to make sure that all new pipes are watertight before sealing up the hole in the wall and tiling over it, and that you have a couple of tiles to spare.

46. Oh poor you, we’ve had a few water disasters – one being the water tank is in the loft (for water pressure- previous owners did it) and it rusted and came through bedroom ceiling! Note other things that can leak are washing machines plumbed in at the back and you won’t notice the drips until the floor is almost rotted!

47. Nailing down floorboards and piercing two heating pipes.

48. I came home from work to hear my husband frantically yelling for me to turn off the stop cock, and then water came running down the stairs like a small waterfall!! My husband had his hands over a hole he’d accidentally just made in a water pipe. Then the water started coming through the hall ceiling! Fortunately I knew where the stopcock was, and managed to turn it off, then a local plumber came to mend the pipe. But the carpets were soaked, and the ceiling needed attention – thank goodness for insurance!

49. For some reason everytime my daughter has a bath water leaks through the ceiling, we have had a plumber out, he says he fixed the problem but hey ho she had a bath last night and water poured through the ceiling again. The ceiling now looks awful and she is banned from baths and she hates showers!!

50. I haven’t (touch wood) haven’t had any major disasters but when I lived at home my mam had a new kitchen and bathroom fitted. The pipe under the pipe hadn’t been contacted correctly and when the bath water was let out it just all seeped into the floor which we were oblivious too! We were awoke to a loud bang and smashing of dishes, to our horror the kitchen cupboards had fell off the walls with the water coming down, there was even bottles of maple syrup in the cupboards which was all smashed up making a horrid sticky mess!

51. The guy didnt plumb my brand new washing machine in correctly, so the pipe wasnt affixed. Result: overnight wash flooded the apartment, and caused over £18 1/2Ks worth of damage. All my integrated appliances fused and were ruined, and I was left without electric for 8 days as I needed a brand new rewire but the flat had to dry out first. All the flooring and kitchen units were swollen with water and warped, so had to be replaced. Stomping about in 3 feet of water wasnt fun, although seeing the Firemen who came to help out was a highlight (admittedly, no make up, unbrushed bed hair and a nightle and wellies wasnt the most alluring get up I would have chosen to be wearing, but….!). You couldnt make it up! I have never dared undertake an overnight wash whilst I sleep again! Luckily I had Insurance, but I managed to claim on the Plumber guys insurance. He wouldnt admit liability but the Company he was contracted to claimed on theirs after coming out to check the damage and completed work.

52. Amazing giveaway ♡
    Would love to win x

53. My biggest home disaster was when we had a cowboy builder in…..he left me with my finger in an open water pipe whilst he went to get parts. A bloody hour I sat there confined to the bathroom so that it didn’t flood ?

54. My 10 year old grand-daughter had been given a blue crystal-growing set for a birthday gift from one of her friends. Her mother had asked if we would let her ‘grow’ her crystal at our house as here it’s generally more tranquil and there was less likelihood of it being knocked over. Over the next week we watched the crystal grow, sending her daily photos of the progress and just before her arrival for a weekend visit we balanced the container containing the crystal, still surrounded by deep blue liquid, onto a flat torch knowing she would be entranced by this beautiful crystal with the rays of light shining through.
    Saturday morning she arrived and as we gazed in awe into the kitchen the front door, which she’d left open, slammed shut! The house shook and we watched as the container, full of dye, slowly slide off the torch. tipped over and deposited its contents all over the worktop, down the front of the washing machine, into every crevice and then onto the new kitchen rug staining everything it touched bright blue. I had no idea one jar of dye could spread itself so far! Now, a year later, the washer still spurts out blue dye from the control knobs when it’s on a fast spin!

55. My husband and I have been in our latest house for 13 years and have not had time to decorate. So this would be a good reason to start making our house look nice again. XXX

56. We had a burst pipe in our loft and came home to a waterfall coming down our stairs! Water coming down through the light fittings and ceilings. We were homeless for 8 months as our house wouldn’t dry out and also the insurance contractor were a nightmare company. That was 7 years ago and I still worry when I hear the sound of water

57. We’ve had a couple of disasters one was leaking pipes in the bathroom ruining the kitchen ceiling below and the other was my husband putting a nail through the water pipe in the bedroom floor when he was trying to fix squeaky floorboards! My advice would be don’t panic, know where your stop cock is and make sure you’ve got a good insurance policy.

58. When my daughter was a baby my husband decided to change our bathroom suite. We were managing with no water pretty well….until he unpacked the new suite and found a tap was missing! He jumped in the car to go and sort it out – 25 mile drive to the supplier, only to find them closed as it was Easter weekend! Fortunately my parents took us in….travel cot and all… so we had an unexpected weekend away! The company did sort us out on the Tuesday but unfortunately my husband got back home before he realised the tap they’d given him didn’t match the others in the suite! He just fitted it and we went with it and down the line it just makes me smile when I see it :o)

59. My worst domestic crisis was when one of the roof slates became loose with the wind and so when it rained my clean utility was left wet through ruining all my clothes

60. we had a huge run of home woes when we had building work done – First they accidentally cut through a main electric cable and there was this scary sparking happening that looked like lightening. We moved into in-laws that night until the emergency electric crews came and fixed it. Next was coming home to find they had dropped a hammer through the ceiling onto where my sons NEW bike was stored! So they had to repair that and bought a new seat for the bike. Then there was christmas day when a light socket started buzzing and the electricians had to be called out on christmas day to make it safe. I think keeping calm and getting help as soon as possible is the best tip i can suggest.

61. One day my kitchen started raining. Just a little drizzle in one corner. After some investigation, we discovered that despite the silicone and shower door, there was still a leak coming from the shower. We were fairly new to the house so no idea how long it had been there. Called the insurance, the plumber announced that they may need to remove the adjoining wall (my daughter’s bedroom) due to the damage and the floor. I cried. When he inspected fully, thankfully it turned out to be nowhere near as bad and the damage was sorted without floors and walls completely ripped out, we ended up with a redecorated kitchen and bathroom. Scary times though!

62. We had a hole in our landing ceiling once which resulted in a big flood on our landing when we had a heavy rain storm

63. Our Labrador dog kept scratching at the kitchen floor by the sink. One day he managed to pull up the vinyl – after scolding him we realised we could see right through into the cellar!. Our builder found rampant woodworm – the washer was stood on a joist which looked like a crunchie bar without the chocolate. The whole floor and joists had to be replaced – we couldn’t use any open flames (we had a real fire and a gas cooker and it was winter)I don’t know how we coped but we did and it was so good being back on a firm footing – the bill was horrendous – we lived on beans for months!

64. Recently I was given a bed frame on one the upcycling sites. I was so excited, went and picked it up then got home and dismantled my divan and took that down the stairs and bought the bed frame upstairs and proceeded to attempt to put it all together. 4 hours later I was laying flat out with my back killing me with the bed frame together. Unfortunately they people who had given me the bed hadn’t given me the supporting bar that stops the mattress falling through so it was useless. I had to take it all apart again the drag the divan back upstairs and the next day i took the other frame to the tip. I’m all if 5ft2 and single so did this on my own. I ached for days!

    1. Poor you!

65. Put a screw through a water pip while trying to stop a creaky floor board after my pipe detector didn’t find it. I got the same one as the plumber had after that….

66. Our fridge freezer just suddenly stopped working just before Christmas. Thankfully the fridge was almost empty as we were due to go shopping a couple of days later, but we had to either cook up or throw away any frozen stuff we had (thankfully we hadn’t picked up the turkey crown yet for Christmas as we were getting a fresh one from the butcher for a change!). We tried AO and Argos (who promise next day delivery on their adverts) but because we live in a rural area we couldn’t have one delivered from them until mid-January which was nowhere near soon enough. We ended up getting one from Currys which arrived the following week. Thankfully it was cold so we could keep milk outside for a few days without it going off, otherwise we would’ve been buying milk daily – our 1 year old guzzles the stuff! Thank goodness we kept a credit card for emergencies!

67. Our worst accident in the home was when water came pouring through our ceiling, we were having our water boiler moved and things didn’t go quite as well as hoped. Easily sorted though just was devastating at the time though.

68. I had to get up early a few weeks ago and stumbled, still half asleep in to the bathroom. I must have been in there about 10 minutes before I realised I was paddling about in an inch of water. The hot water tank had sprung a leak.

69. would love to win this one

70. My tip for any home disaster (and I’ve had a few) is that nothing and I mean nothing is ever as bad as you first think. Things can be replaced and as long as no one is hurt then you’ll laugh about it all at some point in the future 🙂

    1. That is a really positive tip. Thank you Julie

71. excellent prize

72. When we moved into our new house, I told my husband exactly where I wanted our kitchen wall clock placing. He got his drill out, and without knowing drilled through an electric cable. The whole house was in darkness for quite some time!

73. My partner was doing some DIY in our new kitchen and snaped a mains water pipe, it flooded the kitchen. Got the old VAX out to suck the water up, luckily we only needed a new floor.

74. We bought our dream home in Northumberland but found within months’ that the property was not connected to the sewage system in the main road and it had backed up to the house. The smell was horrendous. Eventually the council came to connect us. I am not sure if the drainage problem is entirely sorted as the lawn at the back is permanently sodden and the shower and sinks in both bathrooms drain very poorly. We have to rod all the time yet are assured by numerous plumbers and the council that all is well.

75. When I moved into my new house I desperately wanted a shower after lugging boxes. As I turned the shower on my hubby shouted upstairs that it was leaking and coming through the ceiling. Was really cross as we hadn’t even spent the night there yet grrr. All sorted now thank goodness

76. Plumbing is something I’d never take on myself! I’ll always leave it to the experts ?

77. Our gas fire had old plastic dominoes behind it which we didn’t know about – switched it on and a while later the back set on fire! We had to call the fire brigade and the kids loved a tour of the engine. We stayed at mum’s and it was too complicated to claim so paid out for a new carpet ourselves and have never had the gas fire reconnected as too scary and expensive!

78. Probably when we put popcorn that wasn’t microwavable in the microwave and it exploded. The microwave absolutely stunk after that and was pretty much ruined

79. We had a bit of a disaster just after moving into our new flat. We went to move out the old washing machine and install our own. as we moved it out the pipe at the back cracked and came off spraying water everywhere I had to wedge myself behind the machine with my thumb jammed in the pipe while my flatmate searched for the stop valve. It turned out this had been completely blocked in and a fitted kitchen cupboard built over it. We had to take a hammer to the cupboard and smash it completely to get to it.

80. My home disaster was when I was renting a flat and dropped a full can of brown paint on the blue carpet and the lid popped off and it spilt everywhere. You have never seen a person move so fast as I did to try and limit the damage.

81. My Husband was putting up our wedding photograph on the wall and accidentally put the nail straight through our central heating system pipe and the water was gushing out. We had to get an emergency plumber which cost us a £100 to fix!!!

82. I was paintingg the bedroom walls. I was planning to replace the carpet so didn’t mind getting paint on the floor. I didn’t anticipate my little dog coming in, stepping in the paint…. Then walking downstairs (on the carpet I wasn’t replacing) leaving little white doggy paw prints all down the stairs. I panicked as I hadn’t sorted my home insurance …. One phone all to my dad and he advised me to wash it off straight away with soapy water before it drive. I was so relieved it worked !

83. When we moved into our rented house we found that it was in a far worse state than when we first looked. All the fix ups were down to us! We had many woes, including a massive damp problem in the kitchen and missing floor boards in the then 1 year old babies bed room! The icing on the cake though, was the kitchen. Cupboard doors all askew, the damp, no flooring and a wall cupboard that needed rehanging. This got done – the wall cupboard that is, so I loaded it up with all out glasses in one side and jars and bottles of food stuff in the other. I was busy fixing something else up in the kitchen when there was an almighty crash! I turned around and the floor was covered with broken glass and every food stuff imaginable from tomato sauce to soy sauce to curry stir in sauces and balsamic vinegar. I went out the back door and sat on the step and cried and cried. I then rang my hubby who’s a truck driver and asked him when he would be home as I needed his help, he was going to be hours so I just started crying again :(. Needless to say I eventually went back inside and faced the music but it stank like vinegar and Worcester sauce for months after!! And you find it everywhere!

84. First week in our new home and still couldn’t correctly set the security alarm. It was always going off when we entered the property despite having inputted the security number and we had to disable the alarm whilst we were at home. No problem setting it when we went out but all hell broke loose when we locked ourselves out. Called the security company and got a ‘jobsworth’ who couldn’t understand that we could not give them the security password (not the code) because it was inside the house and we were locked out! Tried explaining that we had only just moved in and, yes we should have memorised the security password but hadn’t. Totally exasperated, my husband decided to break in and hang the expense of replacing a window. The alarm went off the second he climbed in through the broken window and within ten minutes the security company were there to attend the activated alarm. The security officer insisted on calling the police despite us rummaging around to find proof of our identity. The police fully accepted our story especially when we showed them family photographs and the solicitors’ bill for buying our new home. One letter of complaint to the security company and they fully accepted they had been notified that the property was now in our name – and they footed the bill for the new window! Result!

85. too many to mention but, after reading yours the one when a leak had been building up in the kitchen ceiling comes to mind as I has the same. Mine unfortunately was soon after a kitchen refit and paint job. The water was being held in be the eggshell paint so when it finally caved in it went with a crash. Luckily no one was a home and it was over floor space. We never claimed because of the excess fee and the increase in premiums would have cancelled then selves out. Sometime I wonder why so many people pay insurance fees.

86. I accidental spilt bleach on a brown carpet

87. My daughter spilled nail polish on her new bedroom carpet. We moved the furniture around to cover it up!

88. Burst pipe in the loft which happened just before I moved in. The house was empty all through winter and there was no lagging on the pipes

89. When we moved into our new(to us) home we found that there was a drip in one of the rooms eventually found to be a leaking outside pipe. When we decided to cancel the sale the previous owners offered to pay for it. Success!

90. Nailing down floorboards and piercing a central heating pipe.

91. We just spent a fortune on a lovely brand spanking new kitchen including a very lovely oak floor running throughout the kitchen and utility room. A few days after the kitchen being complete, I was transferring some cleaning products into the new cupboards, and unfortunately managed to trip and a half full bottle of (corrosive) oven cleaner managed to spill over the new floor, leaving a big stain. We’ve had to put a mat over it now which looks pretty random!

92. About a month after buying my first home, I was woken by the sound of my kitchen ceiling falling in. I couldn’t believe how much mess it made.

93. I remember sitting in the hall on the stairs on the phone to someone, and thought I felt something drop on my head. I looked up and there was a big sagging dip in the ceiling, where water was dripping through. I ran upstairs and discovered the radiator in the box room had been leaking – it had worked its way through the floorboards, and seeped through the plaster enough to cause the ceiling to give way completely – through the electrics!! Eek – cue new plaster, new radiator, new carpets – as you say – thank god for home insurance, but it was a stressful time. 🙁

94. My cooker broke just before Christmas and I had 12 coming for dinner so we had an Australian Christmas I got a flag made some cork hats plenty of tiniest and my dear husband stood yonder the garden parasol cooking the meat on the barbecue my neighbours thought we were crazy as we hadn’t lived there long, it turned out to be a great day everyone had fun,and full tummies and it’s still talked about today

95. My teenage daughter and I were sitting in the living room one evening watching television when we started to hear a dripping noise and then spotted water coming through the living room ceiling. My daughter suddenly realised she had started to run a bath upstairs and had forgotten about it, so we raced upstairs to turn the taps off. The water had come through the kitchen ceiling and the living room ceiling, which are both underneath the bathroom. Luckily the water had missed the toaster in the kitchen and a table lamp in the living room. It was minimal water damage and was painted over, but it could have been a lot worse.

96. I have been out all day and night with friends and to my horror when I came in at about 11:30ish and went into my kitchen for glass of water before going to bed.. I had what’s seems like a waterfall coming through the ceiling.. As I was slightly merry I just thought am I indoors or outside? Then I realised that I’m actually in my own kitchen.. At the time I didn’t know where the main water tap was as I not long moved in,to a newly built house!! To cut the long story short, I phoned my dad and he was trying to tell me where it’s would be thinking it’s under the sink but was in fact under the stairs!! So in a panic I knocked my next door neighbour and woke them up! Fair play to them they helped me through the night mopping up the water with their towels and mine.. Called out the local plumber to stop any further water damage.. Turned out to be a washer has gone in the toilet!! How long it’s been leaking that I never know and also I thanks my lucky stars that I did go in the kitchen as normally I wouldn’t have and gone straight to bed… Imagine it by morning I would most definitely wouldn’t have a ceiling!! All was sorted with house insurance eventually ?

97. Very similar to your story – one month we noticed water on the floor, dripping out of the ceiling lights!! Rather than call the insurance company, I phoned my Dad (he can do everything) so my Dad literally, CUT A HOLE IN THE CEILING where the water was dripping from….A HUGE HOLE. And then he discovered he needn’t have done that as it was coming from the bathroom taps, not the pipes. So we fixed the leak, a month later we fixed the hole in the ceiling by putting a wooden box with lights inside it up to cover the hole, oh and painted the ceiling that had turned brown. Only for the toilet to leak a month later, causing all the bathroom tiles to lift up, and water dripping from the same ceiling!!
    SUCH A NIGHTMARE!! And still haven’t painted again 6 months later.

98. I hadn’t long moved into our new house and still had tins of paint around the house. I had got some on top of the tumble dryer in the dining area. My son who at the time, was only 2 years old somehow climbed up and pushed the tins off the tumble dryer. The paint splatted through to the living room, catching the fabric sofa and covering the floor. Ended up with a fairly large insurance claim for a new sofa and carpet.

99. We’ve also had terrible plumbing leaks which have led to our downstairs neighbours turning our water off repeatedly – but my worst disaster was coming home at midnight to find out that our lock had seized up. Thank goodness there’s a 24-hour garage across the road, and my boyfriend was behind the door giving me instructions on how to get in! Still, working out how to use WD40 in the dark for the first time was quite an experience…
    We’ve learnt that a cup of tea afterwards makes everything better!

    1. A good cuppa can fix anything!

100. When my hubby and I moved into our house 13 years ago we walked through the front door and noticed that the previous owners had taken all the light bulbs and left live wires hanging loose. Then we noticed the pilot light of the boiler wasn’t on but it was leaking gas. We only needed to flick the light switch and the house would of blown up. We called the Gas board and they checked it out. Eventually making it safe although we couldn’t use the stove for a couple of days due to the gas connector not being capped properly Absolute nightmare. Secondly we had a leak up through the drains back up into our kitchen, poo everywhere. When we tried to sort it out we realised that the previous owners had only gone and tarmaced over the water mains. Totally deliberate. Luckily the Waterboard came and dug it up and resurfaced it for us. We got scammed with a drainage company out of £100. Absolute nightmare. We managed to claim on Insurance to get new Lino for kitchen. After 13 years we still have liads to do in the house. Everything takes time. Sorry to waffle on.

101. When tiles started coming away from the bathroom wall I wondered why. I prised some off and discovered the whole wall was soaked through and the pleaster was crumbling. It turned out the neighbour’s roof had been leaking and water was running down her bedroom wall. It had been doing so for 8 years! It had gradually seeped through and soaked our side. Her house was owned by the council – she was a lovely old lady – and her carer had been trying to get them to fix it for all that time.
     I got really cross with the council and they came and did the repairs. I contacted my house insurers and they arranged for someone to come and hack off all the plaster and then sent us a dehumidifier to dry it all out. The bathroom ended up needed re-tiling and repainting.

102. Professional plumbers are the ones that are trained to battle all those nasty clogged toilets, those leaking pipes, and the busted pipes that have been known to destroy whole rooms within your home.

103. Would love to WIN this amazing radio for my hubby plz ♡♡♡♡☆☆

104. Regular care and maintenance can forestall most of these breakdowns at a fraction of the cost of repairs.

105. Great

106. Like any emergency, you can prevent a plumbing related home disaster by subjecting your systems to a routine inspection. However its always good to be prepared when disaster strikes. Thanks for writing.

107. We had a burst pipe that triggered off the boiler so our house turned into a sauna. Just about everything was destroyed by water or heat. We lost all furniture beds carpets and clothes our newly installed kitchen was destroyed. We had been on holiday for a week and came home to virtually no home. Ceilings will be coming down and house stripped.Thank goodness no one was hurt.
     My warning to everyone is have good insurance. This was our first claim in 48 years of marriage.

108. Some of these plumbing fixtures include hands-free faucets and low flow toilets. These plumbers also have ample experience installing water filters, water heaters, handicap fixtures, and automatic shut off valves for kitchens, bathrooms, and laundry rooms.

109. Its really disheartening and frustrating to back from a nigh-tout to a small pond in your house. Its nice that you had a good home insurance and they were helpful enough.

110. Adding home insulation to an existing home will also increase sound control. Insulation creates a sound barrier, keeping unwanted sounds out and protecting your privacy by keeping the sounds from inside your home from being audible outside. Insulating your home also creates a moisture barrier, keeping unwanted moisture out of your house.

111. A leaking ceiling is no fun. Who knew a small pipe could cause so much trouble.

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