Painters

Our house was freshly painted when we moved in and now, the painters are back. Yep, the same ones who painted our bathroom door that nice neutral shade of blue. This is in fact the color of our bathroom door. Keep in mind that when we said neutral, we assumed it would be one of the same neutral colors as the rest of the house which are white and beige.

Anyway, they were back to paint the back door - not blue! And they've been here 3 days this week. They don't speak a word of English and well, you know how much Flemish I speak so we've gestured a lot. Although their main job is as a schilder, they apparently double as elektriciens and loodgeiters. Now you probably know now that a schilder is a painter and well, elektriciens is obvious, but you must be asking yourself . . . what is a loodgeiter? No, it's not that. It's a plumber.

So, we have this strange funk emanating from the first floor badkamer and being that the schilders are also loodgeiters we ask them to take a look at it. Now Jim has done everything short of filling the room with "great stuff" to eliminate this bouquet - to no avail.

So the first move is when one of the pseudo-loodgeiters removes the toilet and water runs everywhere and he calls out to me "hallo, doek, doek?" Now I'm trying to conjure up the meaning of this word. I'm sure I've heard it before. I run to see and no words need be spoken - he needs a towel to catch all the water running out onto the floor. Incredibly stinky water, I might add.

I try to tell him the multitude of things Jim has already tried in his futile effort to rid our half bath of all its funk. Gesturing beyond belief and using the only word in the whole room I know - plafond (ceiling), I tell him Jim removed the ceiling and looked down behind the toilet. I gesture to see if he would like to do the same. I can tell by whatever he's saying he wants to know what Jim saw behind the toilet and of course I have no idea. So I tell him I will text Jim to come home from work. I feel this is crucial since Jim has been near obsessed with getting rid of the stench. The schilder/loodgeiter seems relieved that he can now deal with someone besides me.

I text Jim and he says he will come home. He arrives, we crowd around the tiny badkamer, and the loodgeiter immediately begins prattling on in Flemish. Jim is listening attentively. I begin to laugh because I now realize why he was so eager for Jim to come home. I go ahead and burst that bubble and I announce that Jim doesn't speak Flemish either! He throws up his hands and goes next door to fetch the translator/huisbaas/pharmacist, Annemie. Now we're getting somewhere.

Even with a translator no solution is proposed. The schilder/loodgeiter will denk about it and let us know next week when he comes back to do some elektrische work. Perhaps I should brush up on my elektrische terms - phrases like "That won't shock me will it?" and "You gonna leave those bare wires like that?" Just in case the translator is busy.