menopausal coping skills

Christa is 54, divorced, works as a nurse and is about to give up the beautiful little house she has lived alone in for twelve years – and worked hard to buy – because she can’t cope with its maintenance. She talks about evil spirits and feng shui, and cries a lot, but fails to acknowledge that her physical, mental and emotional problems may be more related to menopause than drains.

"I was living in an apartment with my daughter before she left to marry and start a family ," explains Christa, "and faced with a solo life, I decided to buy a small house in the suburbs where I could enjoy a bit of space."

"It's ironic that I'm now about to give up the suburban life I love to return to city apartment living because the property I bought has literally drained me physically, mentally, emotionally and financially."

"Despite having an architect and a builder inspect the very lovely but very expensive suburban house I bought twelve years ago," says Christa, "I experienced drainage problems within three months of moving into it."

"It’s not ground water or seepage or rainwater drainage pipes," explains Christa, "it’s sewage pipes that carry all the waste from the house to the main drain in the street. And, in my house, the sewer pipes run under the floor right in the middle of the house. Right under the dining room, actually."

"This is not only a strange placement of the sewage pipes I later discovered it was awfully bad Feng Shui, too, attracting evil spirits - if such things exist!"

"The pipes are splitting my house in half, and dirty water is being piped under the house rather than at the side, or the back."

Those who dined at Christa's place - knowing that the sewer pipe ran under where they were sitting - felt very uncomfortable. It really spoiled their enjoyment of her wonderful home cooking.

"No doubt, when the house was being built it was considered an easy and cost effective way to run the pipes," sighs Christa, "but the floors of my house are timber."

"Normally, when pipes run under a house they are encased in concrete and nobody ever thinks about them."

"I have spent twelve years at war with those pipes," sighs Christa, "and while Pisceans like myself are supposed to have an affinity for water I didn't think it extended to sewage!"

Christa excused the first drainage problem by the fact that the house had not been lived in for at least a year.

"I thought that the pipes just needed a good clean out, a good flush," laughs Christa, "but within six months the drains had blocked up again and the house stank."

During those months Christa had repainted and carpeted the house and it broke her heart when the plumber came and said he needed to access the pipes under her dining room - where the blockage evidently was.

"Up came my new carpet and the floorboards," relates Christa. "The plumber then proceeded to dig around and because he couldn't find an inspection eye he had to break into the pipe. When he did this, the backed-up sewage splattered all over the place."

A new pipe had to be laid, and after a mammoth clean-up job Christa's life returned to normal.

"A year later, the house developed a funny smell," explains Christa, "and I just couldn't believe that it was the sewer - again - but it was."

The next plumber told her that a particular tree she had growing in her garden caused the problem. It had invasive roots. Apparently, the roots had found a slight opening in the newly laid pipes and had made a home there.

More mess, more expense. And, of course, Christa had to cut down the tree. Surely, she thought, this would be the end of the problem.

"No way," laughs Christa. "Three months later hell broke loose again. Apparently roots can live even though the tree had been felled and the stump had been poisoned."

"I came to the sad conclusion that I either had to concrete the entire floor-space of my home," says Christa, "or learn to live with having the drains cleared of roots every three months."

She opted for the latter.

After three years of this, and further blockages in other parts of the sewage line, Christa decided to have the entire sewer line replaced. It cost her a fortune, but it was much cheaper and less trouble than having the entire floor-space concreted and the plumber assured her that it would solve the problem permanently.

Christa had heard this assurance before, didn't believe it, and insisted upon having the new line studded with inspection eyes every few feet so that she could check for trouble before it happened - and use a high-speed hose to clear the line herself.

It was an unusual request - one that was obviously not in the plumber's best interests - but Christa was adamant about taking control of the problem. She was sick and tired of plumbers.

"Every month thereafter," laughs Christa, "I would do a sewer inspection and if I found any gunk building up I would hose it down. I hated doing this job, but it worked."

After a year or so, without finding any problems, Christa decided to do the inspections every three months and this worked very well for about six years.

In the sixth year since laying the new pipes, Christa had become a bit lax in her inspection routine. She put off doing the inspection for about five months and one day noticed a funny smell in the house - something she hadn't smelt for years.

Oh no!

Her old plumber had moved on, so she telephoned someone new and he said he would be around later on that day.

The new guy poked around, hummed and hawed and then suggested she call a specialist drain cleaner.

"Hello?" asks Christa, "didn’t his advertisement say he was a drain cleaning specialist?"

Yes it did, but he maintained that his old machine was not as effective as the new fangled drain cleaning machine that his partner used.

"To cut a long story short," says Christa, "I had to pay the hummer and hawer $300 for a visit and a poke around in the garden, and then $500 to his partner with the new fangled drain cleaning machine."

It wasn't so much the money that Christa was upset about as the whole day she was forced to take off work to hang around waiting for the first guy, and then the second guy to turn up.

"I felt captive in my own home," explains Christa, "and I knew they were scamming me but I was in no position to argue."

When the drains were cleared and the guys had left, Christa sat down and cried.

She had been in the house for almost twelve years and loved it, and the neighborhood, and couldn't bear to think about selling up and moving but she just did not want to have to go through it again.

"The drains had beaten me," sighs Christa. "I was physically, mentally, spiritually and financially drained by the whole thing."

"In apartments you get plumbing problems - leaking taps and an occasional overflow - but it would be pretty rare to get a sewer line running the entire length of your floor space, and rarer still for the necessity to lift floorboards every three months to see that all was running smoothly."

The last resort for Christa would be to go to the expense of concreting the floor-space of her house, but she feels that with her rotten luck the problem would persist and then she would have to hire jackhammers to crack the concrete in order to get to the pipes.

Christa has been terribly unlucky, but if it is not one major problem then it is another when you decide to live in a suburban house.

"After reading about Feng Shui," says Christa, "I’m beginning to understand that some houses really do have bad karma and I’m not sure whether using Feng Shui cures is going to make a difference or not. Honestly, I feel a bit silly about hanging mirrors and chimes everywhere to ward off evil spirits!"

"It’s probably better for me to just sell up and move back to a city apartment," sighs Christa. "I don’t think I could risk buying another house again."