There’s something in the water

It is well known that the water in Ashford is, to put it mildly, not the finest in the world. Probably, the quality is fine. I don’t like the taste and it clogs up the kettle with limescale so, a few years ago, I bought a filter jug which improves the flavour slightly and greatly reduces the amount of lime deposit in the kettle.

About three months ago Mrs B noticed a grey deposit coating the filter. Slowly, over the course of a couple of weeks, the deposit increased, so I phoned the water company.

I took a photograph of the besmirched filter. The chap to whom I spoke told me that any deposit must be coming out of the filter – it couldn’t be anything to do with the water supply. Nevertheless, they sent a young man out to take samples of the water coming from our kitchen tap. I gave him the filter and asked him to give it to their lab people.

I received a letter indicating that, since their water was of sterling purity, it must be our fault that the deposit was appearing.

I wrote back and asked if they could suggest another agency to whom I could show the next filter, which was rapidly beginning to look like the first.

Another young man came to take further samples. He scraped off some of the deposit for the lab people to look at.

I received another letter telling me that the stuff was largely a fungus. This time, they suggested that we’d been leaving the jug filled with water in a warm, sunlit spot. In reality, the jug is filled probably seven or eight times a day.

After I wrote again, a third young man came to take samples. I explained the deposit was something built up over three or four weeks and that a single bottle of water would be unlikely to show anything. Meanwhile, our filter jug is collecting a build-up of sludge and, I imagine, the waterworks will continue to assume they have all the answers.

‘Our filter jug is continuing to collect a build-up of sludge’