The Oddest of Odd Jobs

We had one of the strangest jobs we have had so far on Wednesday of this week. A customer wanted to hire a handyman to remove their bath panel because his pet Burmese Python had escaped from its cage and slithered under the bath. His hope was that our handyman would be able to remove the bath panel so that he could retrieve his snake.

Luckily, one of our handymen, Don, has had experience with snakes. His son used to have one as a pet! So he didn't mind offering his assistance in returning the serpent to its enclosure.

Unfortunately, when Don removed the bath panel the python was nowhere to be seen! It appeared as if it had crawled even further along the waste pipe than first thought and was probably behind the tiled-over mdf boxing that had been installed to hide the bathroom plumbing.

The customer then confessed that the snake had actually been AWOL for about a month and must by now be quiet hungry. Plan B was then to try entice the snake out from behind the boxing by dangling a fresh mouse in the proximity of the entrance to the boxing in the hope that he would show himself for long enough to be captured. Our handyman did not stick around for this part of the plan. He also didn't have the heart to tell the customer that one of the jobs we do quiet a lot of in London, is mouse proofing, and that in our experience there is no shortage of rodents behind the pipe boxing in London flats. So he shouldn't be surprised if his 5ft pet snake isn't in fact starving but does actually emerge from his den as a 10ft well fed snake when he himself is good and ready!

I'm not sure what sort of licences a person needs to have a pet python in London or any other reptile for that matter. But both myself and the London mouse population would certainly be interested to know how many escape and are never seen again.

I leave you with this conundrum; if you were a tenant in a flat and your pet python escaped and you never saw him again. Would you warn the landlord and the new tenants about their co-inhabitor when you finally moved out or would you just say nothing and hope the snake has moved out as well.

London Handymen and Their Tools

One of the universal truths about men is they all love power tools! One thing you learn pretty quickly when you use power tools on a regular basis is that price and quality do count.

Given the size of jobs our handymen take on, most lasting between half an hour and half a day, the only power tool they are guaranteed to us on a daily basis is their cordless drills.

After many years of using the XRP Dewalt Cordless 14.4v , we experienced a string of product malfunctions when Dewalt redesigned it in 2007. So we moved to the Makita Lithium Ion 14.4V Combi-Drill, these are fantastic pieces of kit but at £320, these seemed a bit on the expensive side.

We are now moving towards the Makita BHR162RFE 14.4V Lithium-Ion SDS Drill , these aren't sold by screwfix but can be picked up online for around £230. So far we think they are great. Thanks to the Lithium Ion battery they only weigh 2kg and give consistent power throughout the day. Because of its an SDS drill it gets through even the hardest of walls. It is a bit heavy to use for driving in screws, so our handymen also carry a lightweight 9.6v cordless screwdriver.

So the next time your £25 drill you were over excited to get from Argos lets you down, you know what drill to upgrade to. But if you don't want to spend the best part of £250 on a top or the line drill, just give us a call and we'll drill the hole for you.