>Every time I took a wallpaper scraper to the walls all the lath and plaster would come off, and wheer it joined the ceiling - replace with plasterboard (many old buildings in the UK have/hjad shot plaster due to vibes from the nazi bombs, and Brighton, with its foundries and loco factories had been a target.

I had quite a similar experience with this house, with previous owners instead of Nazis, with similar damage. There was a total of one piece of plumbing that didn't leak and one place where drains weren't clogged. In the bathroom all seemed more or less OK, except that hot water faucet didn't work. Trying to fix that, I discovered that I had to replace the whole faucet, then the surrounding plastic on the wall needed to be taken off, which then pulled off the tiles which were behind it, then it turned out the plasterboard behind them was crumbling. Eventually, ALL of that bathroom had to be replaced, including most of the walls, doors and a piece of the floor.

> It's been a labour of love.

And partially a way to carve some decent environment to live in :).

>>---
>>"tub stopper" is another funny expression... what do you do when someone yells "stop that tub" in a comedy movie, when a bathtub slides downhill? Use the tub stopper?
>
>We call that a plug.

Is it 220V or 110? :)

I.e. "čep" is another word missing in English. Can't say "cork" because it's the kind of wood; can't say "plug" because it's predominantly used in cabling, can't say "stopper" because it's too vague. "Čep" means nothing more or less but a piece used to tightly close or cover a small opening - be it on a barrel, bottle, or an air mattress. Hence, "začepi" (cork it in) is our expression for "shut up".