There sat your intrepid Plasteurope.com reporter, sweating in the Florida sun on the steps of a relative’s house, swearing enough to make the devil blush. Were the curses targeted at Hurricane Ian, whose destruction forced said reporter to rush out and buy tarps in Germany and fly to America to cover the holes in the roof of said house?

No. The foul language was aimed squarely at the manufacturers of PVC house siding. Specifically, the manager who decided to change the connection system from the one used more than a decade ago for the covering on said house.

Finding replacements for the pieces gone with the wind had been an unbelievable stroke of luck (it’s still out of stock on Amazon in the US). Said reporter just happened to show up at the only retailer for the materials in the area, 40 minutes away, when it received a shipment of 29 crates of the cladding, 27 of which had already been sold.

After having paid and returning to the reconstruction site, it soon became clear that the new did not fit the old. What was one to do, replace everything with the “improved” version? That was surely the dream of some in management.

Fortunately, one good thing about PVC is its robustness. Pounding the old part into the new part with a blunt object solved the problem, brought an end to the profanity, and secured the area below the house from armadillos and other burrowing creatures.

Plastic fantastic, indeed.