"Gas! Gas! Quick, boys...!"

[desperance]

So for the last few days, I have been troubled by an acris, fumey kind of smell downstairs, in the dining-room mainly. A smell of gas, I thought it. The boiler lurks in the chimney there, and I was worried. But the smell came and went, which seemed unlikely with a gas leak; and friends couldn't smell it, above the aromas of my cooking; and my nose has never been my most reliable feature, except in a purely physical sense. I doubted myself. I did phone the plumber, but couldn't get hold of him, and felt perhaps a little grateful, not to make an idiot of myself.

Last night, though, awake at 4am, I thought I could smell gas even in the bedroom. And went downstairs, and it seemed to me the whole house smelled of it. So I lay awake and worried for a while, and then of course slept late, and so got up knowing that I'd missed my best chance of getting hold of the plumber. But I had, as I do, concocted a couple of theories as to what it might be, rather than a gas leak. There's a gas fire against the chimney-breast, with the boiler behind it; the gas fire has a separate pilot light, and it has been windy recently; if a gust of wind had come down the chimney and blown out the fire's pilot light, might that be oozing enough gas to smell it, if my nose were being unwontedly sensitive...?

So I went to the gas fire, to see if the pilot were alight.

Ahem.

I should have said, there's a gas fire that Barry loves to sprawl upon, its being consistently warm from the boiler's work behind it...

Specifically, there was a gas fire with its gas turned on, because the control knob is on the top there and really rather loose, and all it would take is a kicking cat's paw to knock it on.

At a guess, I suspect he did that days ago and he's just adjusting it since on a daily basis, higher or lower as he jumped on and off.

And yes, the pilot light is indeed out, so I had leaking gas rather than telltale flames.

*goes off to figure out how to light pilot*

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

So you really did have gas.

Our current problem appears to be that we don't have gas.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Brr. I could waft gas in your direction, as I seem to have an excess...?

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Your cats are trying to kill you.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. They've given up on the old way, the slow way, gnawing me away from the fingers up; they are adopting more extreme methods. We have also had the electric cable gnawed through to the wire, only I failed to tread on it before I spotted the perforation. So that's the electric and the gas: what else is there...?

Oh, and tripping-Chaz-up-at-the-head-of-the-stairs, of course. They try that constantly, it's a favourite.

[julesjones]

You need to tell them in a believable manner that they are not in your will, or at least not as beneficaries.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

I don't think they care a snap about that--it's the sport of the thing that appeals to them, furry litle hoodlums that they are.

[littlebutfierce]

Ack! Glad you noticed that before, er, lighting a match or something. I worry that one of our cats will do that w/our gas stove, which she recently decided sometimes she likes to walk on top of (!!!).

Also: creepy Wilfred Owen reference!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Both my idiots boys have at various times decided to leap up onto the gas stove, while I've been in the kitchen. Cooking. With live flames on the gas stove.

Thus far, they've been lucky, landing on rings I wasn't using; but they can't judge that, they're making these leaps blind. I live in terror of feline flambé.

[littlebutfierce]

Whoa--that is scary! Our leaper hasn't done that when we've been cooking (yet??). She's recently decided she likes to leap on the kitchen counter (which we grudgingly allow, b/c she eats her food in dribs & drabs all day, whereas the other two inhale whatever food is left out, so we've started putting her leftovers up there so she can get to it when she wants it; the other two don't seem interested in jumping up there [again--yet?]) & a couple of times has sashayed over to the stove from there. Augh.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Augh indeed. I am trying to train myself not to leave rings burning without a pan on them - but the way I cook, it often makes sense to snatch one panful away and do something with it, then wander across the kitchen for another pan to go on the original gas, so of course I don't turn it off in the meantime. One idiot cat has jumped up onto the cold ring and gazed down in fascination on the burning hot one, occasioning a near-coronary in his otherwise-useful human. I have no idea how to distinguish in their furry little heads between "I really wish you wouldn't do that" and "don't do that, 'cos it really pisses me off!" and "Aaaargh! Do Not Do That!!!"

[pennski.livejournal.com]

Just wait until one of them burns off their whiskers as our Benjy did many years ago. Just as I lit the ring, he put his head right next to it. Arrgh!

We rang the vet in a panic who calmly said "Are they still smouldering?" and when we said no, told us there was nothing to worry about.

[littlebutfierce]

I wonder if clicker training might help? I've read about it being used to reinforce good/cute behavior, but not so much about it being used to eliminate bad behavior...

[handworn.livejournal.com]

*goes off to figure out how to light pilot*

FOOM!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Nah, not in this house. It's the true story of why I wasn't that much worried, even through days of smelling gas: you need to contain it to make it explode, and nothing in this house is contained. All the doors are wide open for the cats' pleasure, and there are so many draughts to the wider world, it's never going to build up to critical pressure.

On the other hand, my plumber has suggested a smarter course of action than keeping the pilot alight, on a gas fire I never use. I have removed the control knob, so the cats can no longer turn it on.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Hope you turned it off before removing the control knob. Heh-heh-heh.