Ash and muddy footprints covered the floor and the air was filled with the acrid tang of burning plastic.

No, the apartment hadn't flooded and caught fire - the plumbers were working on it.

Late one damp Friday afternoon, the apartment building supervisor showed up at our door, and ushered in two young, shirtless men. At first, I thought he was looking for a change of clothes for them, but then I noticed the ragged cardboard box of tools they were carrying.

For a couple of months, the university had been threatening to renovate our bathroom, and finally the time had come.

I suppose I should have been tipped off as to the visit, because over the past few days the water supply had been intermittent and there had been an awful lot of drilling, crashing and banging going on from neighboring rooms.

They set the tools down by the bathroom, darted in, and severed all the plastic pipes that had been loosely attached to the walls. As the water gushed onto the floor, they collected their cigarettes from the spot on my desk where they'd put them and disappeared outside.

It must have been their lunch break, because they returned two hours later.

While they were gone, I mopped up some of the water and generally tidied up the pieces of pipe, placing them outside the door on a pile of other discarded bits of plumbing.

After their return, we engaged in a search for power sockets for them to plug their equipment into. Between the three of us, we eventually found enough plugs for them to power their tools and the work began.

A giant hammer drill was set with an even larger bit, and holes bored for the plugs for the pipe. The noise was as if an Airbus was taking off in the bathroom and the glasses in the cabinets in the kitchen shook and rattled in sympathy with my nerves.

I'd been firmly instructed by Ellen that I wasn't to leave the apartment whilst the plumbers were working, in case anything dreadful happened to them. This prevented me from fleeing to somewhere, anywhere to escape the sensation that I was being slowly trepanned by the world's worst neurosurgeon.

With the worst of the drilling over they began to install the new plastic piping. To do this, they set up a pair of heating elements, with which the joints and pipes were threaded and connected.

This proved to be remarkably efficient, but incredibly polluting, as the machine coughed plastic smoke out every time a seal was made. Even with all the windows open, the apartment was filled with a haze.

Despite this, the young plumbers simply smiled and carried on as if it was a perfectly normal thing. I was beginning to wonder if they'd perhaps inhaled a few too many of the fumes.

As they worked with a practiced ease, the shower assembly soon came together. Watching them joke with each other about slight mis-measurements - solved with a quick snip of their pliers - I couldn't help but think this plumbing duo were probably on the fast track to happiness with their lives.

Sure, they might not be earning crazy amounts of cash and plumbing can require heavy lifting and getting dirty, but they weren't working long hours or were far from their families.

Every time I turn on the new shower, I wonder if I can be as happy as them.