When I bought my new house in Stará Oleška back in April 2017, I had to make a legal agreement with my neighbours regarding its water supply. This was pumped from an underground source in the garden of Milan and Lucie, my immediate neighbours, and supplied them, Pavel and Vlasta, (Lucie’s parents), who live behind me, and me. This water, whilst perfectly safe, did sometimes come out rather discoloured. So I took to buying bottled water for cooking and drinking and inserting a sachet of ‘Intensive white’ in the washing machine, when washing light-coloured clothing.

Under this agreement, I have paid CZK 200 a month for my water supply – CZK 100 for the electricity powering the pump and CZK 100 for the maintenance and repairs to the pump. Therefore on 30^th April each year since, I’ve given Pavel, who masterminded the funds, CZK 2400 for the following twelve months of my water supply.

One part of the agreement stated that, if the village was to at some future date, obtain a mains water supply, I would arrange to be connected to it within a year. There had been an unsuccessful attempt a couple of years before I moved to the village, to obtain funding for the installation of mains water.

In 2019, the Council for Obec Huntírov/ Huntírov Municipality, successfully obtained an EU grant for the installation of mains water in Stará Oleška. Therefore, early in 2020, big holes started appearing in the village with blue pipes sticking out of them.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t at home the day the contractors dug the hole for my connection to the new water main. I had been given a plan showing my connection as being adjacent to the boundary hedge and fence between my property and Milan and Lucie’s property.

The contractors instead put it seven metres away and, in doing so, also dug up several concrete sections of a drainage channel that runs along the strip of public land in front of my front hedge.

In time, the contractors returned and filled in the hole. But they didn’t reinstate the concrete gulley nor did they remove the excess earth and rubble from the grass bank behind it.

The photograph above shows how it looked in the middle of Summer 2020.

With no one returning to put right the mess on the public land in front of my house and wanting to get the position of my water connection corrected, in early August 2020, I wrote an email to Ing. Pacovský, the engineer in charge of the project. My good friend Kát’a kindly put my English text into Czech. Just over thirty-six hours later, I got a phone call in Czech 🙂 from Ing. Pacovský’s junior, agreeing to meet me the next day, to address the problem.

At our meeting on Thursday 13^th August, the junior engineer acknowledged that my water connection had been put in the wrong place but said it couldn’t now be changed. But he agreed that the concrete gully should be reinstated and the associated mess cleared up and assured me that the contractors would return and do so. However, as it was August, the men were currently on holiday.

As I am a permanent resident in the village, I have not been required to pay anything towards the cost of mains water being installed. Those people with holiday homes wanting to be connected to the new system, have had to make a financial contribution. But every property owner, resident or non-resident alike, has had to meet the cost of the work required to connect their house to the water main in the adjacent public road.

Fast forward two months to early October. With nothing being done about reinstating the concrete gully and clearing up the associated mess, Kát’a kindly contacted the junior engineer to ask what was happening. As well as assuring her that he would get the contractors to do the work, he said that they would also be willing to do all that was necessary to connect my house to the new water main. They would come and work at the weekend and in turn, I would pay them in cash.

Not knowing anyone else who could do the work and having recently been asked by my neighbours, who was going to do it, I decided that the only way forward was to accept their offer and so contribute to what is proverbially known here as the ‘grey economy’. So it was on the morning of Saturday 17^th October, a van appeared with three workmen and their tools.

Having surveyed the route of the channel they needed to dig, I was then asked, ‘Where was my supply of blue water piping?’ I had assumed that the men would bring it with them. Fortunately, despite it being Saturday morning, the leader of the contractors was able to make contact with an employee of Huntírov Council, who a short while later, arrived in his truck,……

……with the piping,…..

……..and with my water meter. He also produced a clipboard with a list of properties and their owners where I had to sign against my name and number, confirming receipt of my water meter.

The men then set about digging a quite deep channel, under my front hedge……

……and into my front garden on the other side.

My greatest concern was how much disturbance there would be to the paved area in front of my carport. As you can see, the men removed paving blocks and the stone chippings on which they were sitting, and put them under the carport. Then they dug a channel and laid the piping. They had already refilled the channel before I took this photograph.

Then it was onwards alongside my front path…..

……and across my front lawn. This was the incomplete channel when they finished work that afternoon.

On Sunday morning, the three men returned and completed digging the channel across the front lawn and up the side of my house. Fortunately, Milan had been in his garden when the workmen had arrived the previous morning. He was able to tell them the exact point where the pipe from the underground source in his garden, came under the fence into my garden, heading to my house. He also kindly said that they could take down the fence to make their task easier.

When the workman dug the channel, they found the pipe, exactly where Milan said it would be. It is somewhere at the bottom of the channel in the photograph above.

Also on Sunday 18^th October, the men filled in the channel they had dug across the front lawn.

The following day, during normal working hours and whilst I was in Prague for a medical appointment, the contractors finally reinstated the concrete drainage channel. I have to say that they didn’t do it very well as the reinstated sections are slightly higher than they should be, causing a puddle to form in the channel when it rains. My general impression of the workmen is that they are very good at digging things up, but not so good at putting them back afterwards 🙁

In advance of the contractors returning on Sunday 25^th October, to complete the work to connect me to the new water main, the leader of the contractors told me that they needed to purchase a ‘shaft’ at a cost of CZK 8000. I had to produce the cash and then they would obtain it from a firm in Ústí nad Labem. So I handed over the cash early in the week and a day later, the ‘shaft’ appeared under my carport, once more when I wasn’t at home.

On Sunday 25^th October, the three men reappeared as agreed, and proceeded to dig a very large hole immediately inside my front hedge, in order to bury the ‘shaft’ in the ground. Here it is being inserted.

And here it is with its cover on top.

What is it for? It houses my water meter with steps down so someone can climb down and read the meter. The handles on either side of the meter enable the water supply to be turned off if ever that is required. It needs to be so deep, along with the channel for the piping through my garden, to ensure it doesn’t freeze up in the winter. After the winter weather we’ve had in January and February this year, I’m grateful for depth at which it has been installed.

In the mid-afternoon of Sunday 25^th October, the contractors completely turned off my old water supply and then connected their newly laid piping to the existing piping that brings water right into the house. Half-an-hour later, Stará Oleška 44 was connected to mains water.

There are two postscripts to this long saga, one positive, the other, negative.

A few days after I was connected to mains water, late one afternoon, Pavel came down from his house having seen me in my back garden. He presented me with a little slip of paper, explaining that I’d only used water from the old supply for six months since I gave him CZK 2400 on 30^th April 2020. Therefore, I was due a refund and he thrust CZK 1200 into my hand. Whilst technically correct, I wasn’t expecting a refund, not least because not many weeks earlier, there had been a major failure of the old pump which needed a couple of visits from an engineer in order to fix it.

On Sunday 25^th October, when I gave the contractors the requested cash for the work they had done, there were still three outstanding things to be completed. There was excess earth that needed to be taken away from where they had dug the hole for the ‘shaft’. They still needed to make good the strip of public land between the concrete gully and my front hedge which also involved removing excess earth and rubble. And my paving blocks needed to be reinstated. They promised to return on Wednesday 28^th October, a public holiday, with a vehicle in which to take away the earth and rubble and complete the job.

Wednesday 28^th October arrived but the men didn’t appear. We chased them up and they promised to come on Sunday 22^nd November. At 09.00 that morning, they rang up with some weak excuse about a car breaking down. The reality of course was that they had been offered another job for cash which they would much prefer to go and do, rather than complete a job for which they had already been paid 🙁 The problem of using the ‘grey economy’ 😉

I have managed to use most of the excess earth elsewhere in the garden and in places where the in-filled channels have sunk over the winter. And I will work via the Council to get the mess cleared up on the strip of public land. But I decided eventually that I would ask and pay František, who constructed the new path in my back garden, to reinstate the paving blocks. He kindly did so on 2^nd January, just a week before the snow arrived, doing a brilliant job as you can see.