Geez - this brings back memories....
1990 in Kalgoorlie. It was a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house on it's own block, directly across the road from the School of Mines.
Me and two other fellas moved in, so that we could stagger out of bed 2 minutes before the lecture started and still make it on time.
Rent was $ 170 per week.
We were all on tax free scholarships of $ 6,000 per annum each, and all worked on the rigs during the holidays, getting paid $ 900 per week in the hand. Rent wasn't a problem.
The Owner (Indian chap about 60 y.o.) was very reluctant to rent it to us, simply stating "no parties". Yeah right. We looked after the place though and nothing was ever wrecked and during the 2 years we never called either him or the PM. They must of thought we were top Tenants.
I left after 2 years to go to Sydney, but the boys stayed there and finished their Mining degrees. It was such a good location, they had wave after wave of students begging to move in as the years rolled by.
The worst times were when the plumbing backed up. The Owner had done some dodgy reno about 10 years prior to us moving in, and the breather pipe for the dunny (inside - pretty flash in Kal !!) wasn't done right.
One day our Geo mate was having a bath and innocently pulled the plug when he'd finished. This caused the hydrostatic pressure of the head of water to divert somehow and forced the raw p00 and sewerage back up through the breather pipe next to the toilet on the floor. He started screaming for us and we both rushed in to find a spout of p00 flying up about 3 foot high with no end in sight. Funny looking back, but the smell was overpowering. Poor ol' John was left there trapped, naked in the island bath, surrounded by a sea of p00.
The sludge did what all fluid does, naturally flow downhill, straight into the kitchen !! We quickly all put on handkerchiefs and got buckets to scoop the worst of it out of the kitchen and chucked it right down the back of the block. Bl00dy flies everywhere.
Didn't even think to take photos or complain to the Owner.
When it happened the second time, we quickly cleaned it up again and vowed never to have a bath again. Showers only. A pact was made.
After the second clean up, I went up to the PM's office on Hannan St and said it was pretty average....the dodgy plumbing was buggered and we were sick of having a torrent of raw p00 flowing into our kitchen. She simply shrugged her shoulders and said "we were poor students and were most probably causing the problem ourselves by using newspaper instead of toilet paper....that's typically what students do". WTF ??
Was in Kal a couple of months ago and the place is still there....no change. I wondered if the flying p00 spout was still operational.