There was a lot of rain on wednesday night and when we came downstairs thursday morning we noticed that water had started coming in through the kitchen wall again. The damp patch was working itself down towards the plug socket where the fridge and washing machine are plugged in.

On thursday evening we were in the kitchen preparing food when we heard a couple of loud 'crack' sounds. Neither of us could tell where it came from but we started to smell burning. I realised that the crack sound could have been an electric spark. We came to the conclusion that the water had reached the socket.

All of the sockets in the house are on one fuse, labelled 'Ring Main' with the exception of the one in the downstairs store cupboard, which was labelled 'Immersion Heater'. There had never been a heater there while we've lived in the house but the socket was still there. It only ever got used when I had to mow the lawn because it was next to the back door and handy to plug in lawn mowers or strimmers.

We plugged the fridge and freezer into an extension cable and plugged that into the immersion heater socket. We decided it was safer to have all the sockets turned off overnight in case more water got in.

I had phoned the letting agents on thursday morning to let them know about the wall, so when the maintenance contractor came out on friday morning to examine it we told him about the water getting into the socket and that we wanted it moving or otherwise making safe. Later in the morning an electrician came round to remove the socket. The results can be seen above.