Mary Fisher wrote:
"mogga" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:33:02 GMT, Sam wrote:

Hi,

This morning we saw a man from the water company walking down the
street; at first we thought he was reading meters. Actually he lifted
the "manhole"[*] cover at the end of each drive and put a metal rod
down onto the pipe and listened to the other end of the rod. I am sure
I have heard something about water companies listening to pipes but I
can't remember where I heard this (tv or usenet?) and I can't remember
what the point of it was. We were too shy to ask him

What you need to do is form a homewatch for your street. Then you can
waltz out and ask anyone you like what they're up to - as long as
you're polite, smile and say you're with the homewatch most genuine
workmen don't mind someone asking them.

You don't need to form a homewatch!

Most people enjoy talking about what they do.

Mary


Similar in principle to the wheel tappers. Fred the wheel tapper started
off tapping train wheels one morning, changed 25 wheels before he
realised his hammer had a cracked head!.
Sorry old chestnut.