The House of the Rising Damp

We bought a house to suit our means On which to place our stamp And found the stumps were rotting through And the walls had rising damp We borrowed mother’s bailing gourd A miner’s hat and lamp To assess the shambles down below Caused by the rising damp The bearers looked like scrambled eggs And all the joists had shrunk And if the house wasn’t Classified We’d have filled the hole with junk Instead we had to foot the bill For new footings and new drains Re-plaster and re-point the walls To remove the water stains So mothers warn your children That they’ll just get writer’s cramp Signing half their life away If their walls have rising damp