New use for coffee grounds

There is a drain in the extension of my kitchen, where the washing machine lives. There has to be, I suppose; otherwise the washing machine couldn't live there. Rose, the previous owner of my house, said that in her time, that kitchen extension had flooded with water coming from that drain. When she had complained about that, the council had put a ball valve in to make sure that wouldn't happen again. And indeed, I can't say it's bone dry when it is bucketing down outside, but the water levels are never problematic.

One thing that valve does in heavy rain, though, is start to burp. I suppose the air pressure in the drain system just gets so high that the air has to go somewhere. So it starts burping into my kitchen extension! And water coming from the drains is not the freshest there is. So basically, my house then smells as if the whole town has been burping into it. Which pretty much is what has happened. And with a cat in the house, I can't really close all the doors to make sure the smell stays local. I just put up with it and wait for the rain to pass.

One day, Martin came over for coffee, on a rather soggy day. I normally only drink instant coffee, because that is the quickest and easiest way to get your kick, but he is a bit of a coffee purist. So that morning I popped into the shop to get some proper ground coffee. And when we were done, I did the usual thing of flushing the grounds down the sink. And where they then end up is, of course, in that drain.

Later that day it got so wet that my drain was again burping. But this time, everything was different! The foul air had to pretty much pass through coffee grounds to get into the house. So it actually smelled of coffee! And that is a lovely smell.

I am going to make sure that every time I expect heavy weather, I drink proper coffee and no instant stuff. And put the grounds in there! It will keep my house smelling lovely. I suppose this counts as serendipity. It's totally good enough to have a friend over for a coffee, but if it solves one of your house problems it's even better!

Drain and smell masker