So, all moved into a new house, must be time for my perennial flooding action to kick in, yes?

Well, not yet, apparently. I’ve no doubt it’s coming, but for now we’re all still shipshape and watertight. I have been having other problems with my sink, though. Mainly of my own making, as usual.

Before the not-so-little party on Friday I described in my previous entry, I decided to tackle the massive lime scale buildup around the kitchen sink. It didn’t go very well, because the stuff had been left there to get more and more encrusted until it was practically a great barrier reef with its own little ecosystem going on. I swear there were moray eels hiding amongst the taps.

Vigorous scrubbing did have a small effect, though I ended up using a whole bottle of lime scale remover in the process. A couple days ago I noticed my housemate had left a new bottle of lime scale remover–somewhat pointedly I thought–by the sink. I thought that while I had a few moments I’d put it to use.

I did notice before I started that it turned out to be lime scale remover specifically designed for the toilet, but I figured lime scale is lime scale no matter where it is. So I sloshed the fluid abundantly on the lime scale and went on my merry way, ready to come back in an hour and rinse the whole vile mess out of my life for good.

To be fair, it did a bang-up job on removing the lime scale. However, it’s not supposed to be used on stainless steel. Streaky discolorations appeared as I washed the smelly blue stuff off. I stopped breathing for a second, and not just because of the fumes.

I tried rinsing. I tried scrubbing. I tried baking soda, which is my all-purpose last-resort cleaning substance of choice. No dice. Time for the heavy artillery.

Luckily there’s a hardware store around the corner, complete with some stainless steel polish. I decided to perform that old housekeeping favorite, “Try to clean it up before the landlord notices.”

This, perhaps unsurprisingly, involved yet more vigorous scrubbing. That damn sink is so clean it could go in an anticontamination chamber.

The polish didn’t get all the tarnish off, but I’m hoping my housemate won’t notice. Considering he lived with that lime scale forest for so long I still consider this an improvement. And I am never touching that damn sink ever again.

This is yet one more reason why I need a Jeeves. If you know me well, you will be aware that for the past year I have been insisting vociferously and at length that I need a Jeeves to look after me and take care of all my many household duties. Now that I live in the W1 postal district, it obviously can only be a matter of time before one shows up at my door. Each day I awake with the happy thought that it might be J-Day. After this incident I may need to revise my estimate, however, and state that in fact I need a little Jeeves platoon to make sure that nothing like this happens ever, ever again. Yeesh.

Originally posted on Skirt.com