A dark day for silverfish

I rolled up my sleeves and got stuck into my bathroom today. After my mushroom discovery yesterday, I decided I couldn't play the ostrich any longer. The time had come to break down the rest of the tiled bath front and investigate what lay behind...

And the answer was: silverfish and rubble. Lots and lots of silverfish, lots and lots of rubble. The silverfish did what they could to scarper - and generally did it very well, in classic hectic silverfish style - and I took care of most of the rubble. I must have hauled about 12kg down to the bins in a selection of unobtrusive, "this is normal domestic waste" plastic bags. It was pretty hard to smash the tile and chipboard combo that had been put in front of the bath, but I got there in the end thanks to my new hammer and my trusty screwdriver.

This evening, I went back for another look - I knew there was still some rotten wood in the area and I couldn't resist. I spent another merry half-hour prising wood out of the wall, steadfastly ignoring the little voice that was telling me it maybe wasn't such a great idea to be digging the guts out of my wall. The result? Much better. There's now clear daylight between my bathroom and my kitchen, but I think I've got rid of 90% of the rotten wood (the stuff that didn't immediately turn into powder was as light as paper) and, even better, it looks like the wood was just a frame around the useless ventilation panel and not a wood frame for the wall itself.

My bath as it's appeared for the last month, complete with attractive damp patch:

Halfway through the demolition. Along the bottom, where it had been damp, the chipboard was like paper. Along the top, it was sturdy enough that I thought it might beat me.

Yay! All done. This is all that remained of the wooden post which was meant to be supporting the bath. The bottom had completely rotted away - same story on the other side.

And here's the bit of wood which the back-right leg of the bathtub was resting on. They managed to prop the other legs up on mounds of cement and broken tile and the like (as can be seen in the background) but this leg? nah, bit of wood'll do. I'm guessing this is the real culprit in the whole affair. The bath has dropped around 1cm at some point, probably because this bit of wood rotted, and that must have put stress on the pipes and created the leak fiesta I'm now dealing with...

My kitchen wall, as it's been since Mr Kitten cleared away the dead skirting board and knocked this hole in the wall by removing tiles from the bath front:

And my kitchen wall as it is tonight. I can remember when that was rotten wood, as far as the eye could see...