The Chimney Sweep the Fire and the Hoarder.

Right in the middle of Imelda's house is an open fireplace.  The fireplace is in the centre of the house and is not on an outside wall.  When I was young and growing up in that house the fire was lit almost every day.  Whether Imelda was burning logs to heat the house or whether he was burning the miniscule amount of rubbish which he threw out I was never aware.  As far as I knew an open fire was always normal.

Santa managed to make it down the chimney in the early years so I was not concerned.  I remember being fascinated by the flames some days as he started the roaring fire by putting a newspaper over the open part with a small gap at the bottom so the fire would thunder up the chimney with a very loud roar.  Of course I trusted him to be safe.  I was a child.  Sometimes the newspaper caught fire - in which case he would quickly bundle it up the chimney.

In the shed was a set of chimney sweeping brushes - the type where there is a round brush at the end and the poles screw on to make the brush ever longer.  I never saw dad use this brush even once.  He kept it in the shed where I last saw it about twelve years ago before it became buried under many layers of junk.

Two years ago I spoke to him on the phone.  We had chatted about nothing in particular for ten minutes or so and then he said:
'Where were you last Saturday night?'
An odd question as I moved out of that house twenty years ago.  I asked why.
'Well, we had a little fire.' he said as if he had told me they had had a spot of heavy rain.
'What?!  Fire!  Dad! - What fire?  What happened? Oh my God!'
'Well I was upstairs having a snooze you see, it was about ten in the evening, when Ant came and woke me saying there was an odd noise coming from the chimney. Well I came downstairs and the blasted chimney was on fire!'
'Oh my God! Dad! What happened - did the fire brigade get there in time? - Oh God - are you OK?'
'Oh no' he said 'we didn't want to have the fire brigade round here so Ant and I got saucepans full of water and put out the fire in the grate - but of course the chimney was still on fire and it was getting very hot in there. It was a bit hairy - we were running around madly and the dog was barking..We eventually managed to put it out but it was touch and go for a while.'

For once in my life I was speechless.  If you have seen the photos on this blog you will realise that by some act of the grace of God the house was spared - I don't know how else to describe it.  If that house had caught fire I reckon it would have been visible from space.  Not only that, Imelda who is 83 and Ant my brother who has learning difficulties could have been burned or worse.  I asked why they had not called the fire brigade.  I suspect it was because he did not want to be told off for the state of the house and of course the water damage would have been huge.  He told me he didn't want to call them as he thought he could deal with it but that he 'very nearly had to call them.'

 I went round the next day and the whole of the chimney breast in the top floor is cracked - apparently the heat inside the house hit 76 degrees on a cold winter evening. Unbelievable.

So you would have assumed that after that little episode he would have made sure his chimney was swept regularly.

Not so.

I rang him last week to see if he had had the chimney swept this year before the winter sets in.  I reminded him his insurance would not cover him if he had not had it swept every year. (I don't know if this is true but it can't hurt to tell him).  He answered that annual cleaning would be ridiculous for some families barely ever used their fireplace.  I pointed out in his case that fact was irrelevant because he used his daily.

He asked if they still had chimney sweeps.  This was odd as surely after the fire he would have had his chimney swept last year.  Apparently not.

He told me that the fire would have brought most of the soot down and therefore to his reasoning it didn't need a sweep.  It dawned on me that he has NEVER had that chimney swept.

I have booked him a sweep for next week.  I cannot believe that there are people out there who are so blatantly in denial that anything will happen to them.

It is somewhat scary that i am related to that person.