C’e un problema

We arrived at the house one morning at the same time as an Enel van. A fat sweaty bloke got out of the van and inspected our electric meter and external wiring. Drawing in a breath he then said the words you never want to hear in Italy: “C’e un problema.” It turned out that the electric had been cut off many years ago and in the interim the house next door had been completely rewired and the old cable running from our house, across the neighbour’s house to the nearest electricity pole had been completely removed. This meant we needed to get the permission of the neighbours to run a new cable and have an external cabin built for our new electricity meter. Paranoia struck again and I envisaged years of bitter argument while we sorted out our power supply.

However, despite the power problem we decided to move into the house anyway. We could draw buckets of water from the cisterns and we went out and bought a job lot of oil lamps. This turned out to our advantage as it considerably increased the pressure on our neighbours, a family of architects from Bari who bought the house last year and use it very occasionally as a summer retreat, to help us sort something out quickly. Anyway, with the help of our estate agents we got the agreement of the neighbours to run the power cable over their land and an electrician to install our new cabin.

Within a week the fat sweaty bloke had returned with two other Enel men and had installed our cable and meter. Martino our electrician returned the same afternoon and connected up our supply to the house. The house has old-fashioned wiring with no earth, appropriately enough called “salva vita” or “life saver” in Italian, so I was relieved when Martino connected the power and the trip switch didn’t blow. He also soon got our electric water pump working, pumping out spurts of rusty water into the bath. So, after two weeks in the house we had running water, electricity, a fridge and an improvised kitchen, also a couple of mattresses. There are no taps in the kitchen, no hot water and mysteriously no sink in the bathroom, so I have the novel experience of having a wash and shave in the bidet. But after the privations of the first week it seems like luxury.